One Room Country School Houses

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This is a tribute to the old one-room country schools across America. Are there any left standing in your home town? Got pictures?

www.sckans.edu/~orsh/






fdt.net/~tmt/Sc-mw.htm

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An Old Schoolhouse is a Treasure
www.farmlandnews.com/oldschools.html

McGuffey Books

The materials used in Ohio's earliest schools were mostly homemade, according to Myrna. Other than a bible, a dictionary and a hymnal, there were few books.

"In the early days of public education, students used wooden paddles called horn-books on which to inscribe their letters, numbers and bible verses," she says. "They practiced sums with charcoal on birch-bark, or they used slate pencils on small slate boards. Sometimes they wrote their lessons in homemade copy books using goose feather quill pens, dipped in inkwells."

However, Myrna's students travel back only as far as the 1880s. She uses the excursions to present her lesson plans as they would have been on a typical day more than a century ago. The ringing of the school bell would warn the students that classes were about to begin and they'd have no more than a few moments to hang their coats on hooks, stash their dinner pails on shelves and find their seats.

"The morning routine usually began with the U.S. flag raising, the singing of a patriotic song, a hymn and a bible reading," she says.

Obviously, the schoolmaster or schoolmarm couldn't teach all eight grades at once. So the teacher rang a bell to call each grade forward one at a time to recite their lessons at the front bench. Each session would last about 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, the rest of the students remained at their seats to work on assignments that were posted on the blackboard. It wasn't at all unusual for the older students to help the younger ones with their lessons while the teacher taught classes up front.

Rote learning, memorization, reading aloud and copying were the most prominent methods of education. By the second half of the 19th century, textbooks had been designed to help students progress from one grade to another.

"In country schools, reading was the most important subject," Myrna says. "William McGuffey, a Presbyterian minister, published six volumes of readers and spellers which were widely used in the Midwest, starting in 1836 and extending well into the 20th century. The McGuffey books contained literature by many of the great English and American authors, with stories and poems stressing moral values and the virtues of honesty, hard work, courage and persistence. They also included stories about history and patriotism."


www.farmlandnews.com/oldschools.html

[Charity]

Here is a really cool site with over 100 photos of old one room schools.
www.ku.edu/heritage/orsh/Gallery/


PRESERVING HISTORIC NEIGHBORHOOD SCHOOLS
www.edfacilities.org/rl/preservation.cfm

Lists several states with old country schools.


The Hornbook

Basic Facts about the Hornbook

alumni.cc.gettysburg.edu/~s330558/s.../schooling.html



NINETEENTH-CENTURY AMERICAN CHILDREN & WHAT THEY READ:
Some of Their Books

www.merrycoz.org/BOOKS.HTM

THE GOOD SCHOLAR.
www.merrycoz.org/books/scholar/SCHOLAR.HTM




Origins of Schools
Before there was a movement to establish public schools in the early 1800's, whatever schools existed in America were privately established, and operated under the jurisdiction of local authorities or local religious institutions. Many schools were therefore sectarian/parochial (and operated in languages other than English). Here is an example of a book written for schoolteachers teaching in New Jersey in the 18th century, where Dutch was still spoken. This book was supposed to serve as a bilingual aide, for teachers who needed to teach English to Dutch-speaking children, and for those needing to teach in Dutch to English-speaking children. The author, Francis Harrison, was a teacher in Raritan, NJ in 1730. The book was printed in Philadelphia by W. Bradford.

When the Public School Movement began (early 1800's, increasing in 1830's, resolved finally in 1840's) this began to change:


1.
some sectarian schools began to receive state funds from taxes
2.
some sectarian schools were secularized (taken over by state) without changing the language in use.
3.
Other conditions prevailed:
(a)
New Mexico (a territory until 1912) financed parochial schools until 1891.
(b)
Georgia and other southern states were essentially `state protestant' schools until 1890.
©
Utah: state schools were really Mormon schools until 1890.
(d)
New York: battle over school fund-school taxes going to support parochial schools. `Landmark decision' in 1842: established non-parochial state schools, rejected Catholics' attempts to get funding for parochial schools.


ccat.sas.upenn.edu/%7Eharoldfs/540/...ntro/node1.html

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One-room school
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-room_school

MISSION RIDGE ONE-ROOM SCHOOL
www.pointpleasantwv.org/FarmMuseum/one_room_school.html

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McGuffey's Readers
www.howtotutor.com/guffy.htm

The One-Room Schoolhouse Center
www2.johnstown.k12.oh.us/cornell/

Pens, Ink, and Paper
www.pbs.org/kcet/publicschool/evolving_classroom/pens.html

Blackboards
www.pbs.org/kcet/publicschool/evolving_classroom/blackboards.html

Flags
www.pbs.org/kcet/publicschool/evolving_classroom/flags.html

William Holmes McGuffey
www.teach.virginia.edu/reading/projects/mcguffey/mcg-his.html

The McGuffey Readers
www.robinsoncurriculum.com/view/rc/brochure.htm#430

[Charity]

Find one in your state
www2.johnstown.k12.oh.us/cornell/states.html

Photographs of Rural Schools
of the late 19th and early 20th Centuries
www.sites.onlinemac.com/kcampbell/Rural%20Schools.htm

[Charity]

The One-Room Schoolhouse
Resource Center
A compilation of historical one-room school resources
throughout North America that are available on the internet


www.sites.onlinemac.com/kcampbell/One_Room_Schoolhouses.htm