Mitch Jayne, who had attended a teacher's college in Kirksville, was stunned to discover, within a few days as a one-room schoolteacher in rural, Dent County, that his school children were speaking an offshoot of Middle English. "But that was the time of William Shakespeare," he said. "I immediately wrote down 'sanction' and 'dilitory,'" he said, and then he asked his brother on the East Coast to send him the biggest dictionary he could find. Hosts Jim Baker and Mike Smith talk with Jayne in this episode.
A One-Room Schoolteacher: "My Children Were Using Words That Were Beyond Me."
