Clay County AlArchives News.....Horn, Eli Unstoppable  November 4, 1903
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Linda Ayres http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00031.html#0007674 March 7, 2023, 1:14 am

Our Mountain Home November 4, 1903
In the application of Professor Eli Horn of Talladega County for permission to 
take a special examination to teach, and in the refusal dictated by the law, a 
pathetic story has been revealed by the State Department of Education. Professor 
Horn has no hands. In dynamite explosion hands were blown off to the wrists. He 
cannot write, and he could not stand an examination because the law would not 
allow it. It is expressly and explicitly stated in the law that no applicant-
shall receive any assistance in taking an examination. The maimed teacher was 
ready to dictate the answers to questions, but an examination wherein he was 
helped would be declared invalid by law. Moreover, the law requires an 
examination in penmanship from all teachers. Professor Horn's misfortune was an 
insurmountable obstacle to that necessary examination. Professor Horn is a well-
known teacher of Talladega County. Re held a second-grade certificate and from 
all accounts he gave satisfaction where he was at the head of a. school. 
Teaching was his life work. While working early last summer during his vacation 
he was one of the victims of a dynamite accident. In the explosion both hands 
were blown off at the wrists. He recovered from the accident, but he has not yet 
found any artificial substitute for his hands. His license as a teacher has 
expired and when he recovered from the accident, he faced the necessity of 
renewing his certificate. He came to Montgomery to secure permission to dictate 
his answers to an assistant. But the Department could not grant that. The 
operations of the law could not be suspended even for so meritorious and 
pathetic a case as that of Professor Horn. The law forbade an assistant. The law 
required a penmanship examination. Then, there was the item of complex fractions 
depending upon signs and positions. The assistant in complex fractions could not 
put upon paper what was in the mind of tba applicant. It was the most touching 
case that the Educational Department has had to do with. In one brief moment of 
misfortune a teacher had been robbed of all hope of a career in his profession. 
An accident had set him apart from it for all time. It was as though an artist 
had been stricken with blindness or a musician overwhelmed with deafness. His 
mission a failure, Professor Horn has returned home.

Our Mountain Home Feb 3, 1904:
The tenacity and preservice of Eli Horn the armless schoolteacher of Talladega 
County has been rewarded. He has been granted a certificate to teach in the 
public schools of the State. Mr. Horn earned the certificate. It was not granted 
him through charity. He was allowed no aid or assistance in writing his answers 
to the questions of the State Board of Examiners. His paper was graded as 
rigidly as if he had the full use of his limbs. But his markings entitled him to 
a third-grade certificate, and one has been sent to him. Mr. Horn has taught a 
number of years in the public schools of Alabama. His teaching experience was 
gained when he was as other men. But in the early part of last year a great 
misfortune befell this schoolteacher. In a dynamite accident both of his arms 
were blown off. When the necessary operation had been performed only a few 
inches of flesh and bone were left below each elbow.  Now this accident happened 
to a man of 43 years of age, a country schoolteacher who certainly had not saved 
a competence from his modest pay. It appeared then that the days of usefulness 
of the unfortunate man were over. It would have seemed that Mr. Horn was 
destined to become a helpless charge upon his friends and relatives. In the 
meanwhile, Mr. Horn's certificate as a teacher had expired. Mr. Horn did not sit 
idle in despair. He was made of sterner stuff. He waited until he had recovered 
from the effects of the operation. By the aid of a friend, he wrote the 
Department of Education asking for a special examination. He explained the 
misfortune that had befallen him. He asked to be allowed an assistant to whom he 
could dictate the answers to their questions and who would record them on, the 
papers. The department could not grant this favor. The law states positively 
that no applicant should receive assistance of any sort. Moreover, every 
applicant has to be graded on penmanship. How could Mr. Horn's penmanship be 
graded when he had none? Still Mr. Horn was not discouraged. He planned a wooden 
attachment for his right arm the end of which a pen could be fitted. He got a 
friend to construct the attachment according to his idea. Having gotten this 
attachment whereby he could make a mark with a pen he had to learn writing over 
again. How perseveringly this schoolteacher practiced hour after hour learn 
writing with his wooden stump may not be told. But he has his certificate now 
and no teacher in Alabama is more entitled to it. Mr. Horn is at present living 
at Coleta which is in Clay County just over the Talladega County line.


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