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Wednesday, September 18, 2013

Rurality Wednesday - Early American Schoolhouse

(click photo to enlarge)

(click photo to enlarge)

Frontier Culture Museum

"The founders of the United States were enlightened people who generally believed that it was important that citizens of the new nation be educated. This belief did not, however, become a matter of law and policy in most states until nearly a century after independence. Still, quite a few, if not most, Americans who lived during the course of that century managed to get enough schooling to conduct the necessary business of daily life. They could read the Bible, the local newspaper, and some legal documents; they could write, spell their names, sign documents, and perhaps compose letters or notes; and their math skills were adequate to conduct their personal business and, perhaps, keep account books. These Americans were not the nation’s educated elite, but they did operate its households, its farms, its mills, its stores, and its local government. They were as important to the nation’s success as college graduates and their education was earned at home from their parents, and very often from teachers in rural, one-room community schoolhouses."

Read more HERE

Rurality Wednesday

26 comments:

  1. Love this one Tanya -- gorgeous woodwork!

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  2. i need to get out there again - it has been years. ( :

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  3. My grandmother went to one like that near Rapps Mill in Rockbridge. She told stories of using benches like those to sleigh down the hill at recess over 100 years ago. Also there was no outhouse so they had a shovel that you would take into the woods to go to the bathroom. Not sure what they called it as there was no bathroom involved. Sometimes she carried a baked potato for lunch and it kept her hands warm on the way. She had lots of stories like that. Of course some boy dipped her pig tails in the ink well.

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    1. oh that is great! how lucky to have these stories!

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  4. Me too...I really enjoyed this post. Great photos and memories together.

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  5. Oh Tanya I loved this post. I am so glad I did not go to school back then:) B

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  6. Oh Tanya I loved this post. I am so glad I did not go to school back then:) B

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  7. It's very cute, but I'm glad I live in the modern times. :)

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  8. What a lovely old building! I like the overhang for the front door and that beautiful, beautiful floor! :)

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  9. Wonderful that these buildings are preserved and honored.

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  10. Oh well now that's just cute! Who wouldn't want to go to school there? So fun and cozy.

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  11. isn't it quaint, I visited my Dad's log wood school umpteen years ago looked just like this one but with his and his older brothers initials carved in the school walls ;-).-Interior BC Canada.

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  12. Both pictures are excellent in telling the story of the one-room schoolhouse. The stove in the middle of the room was an essential feature of these schools. A teacher's first duty was starting a fire to begin warming the room.

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  13. Cool that the wood burner is quite central in this well preserved building. Nice shots, Tanya, and interesting bit of history too.

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  14. This is so well preserved and so cool to see! It makes me think of happy childhood memories reading the "Little House on the Prairie" series:)

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  15. What a fantastic looking place to study in!

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  16. Great shots...hard to imagine how the school day unfolded. My Rurality: http://lauriekazmierczak.com/648/

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  17. Neat find, Tanya! Love you pictures and the opening quote.

    My Mom went to a one-room school house in early elementary school. My Father-In-Law taught at several one-room school houses when we first got out of college.

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  18. Imagine what our children would say if we told them they would have to go to this school for their education!

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  19. Wonderful post and sweet photos ~ carol, xo

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  20. Two beautiful pictures, Tanya. I guess I can no longer tell tall tales about how old the school was where I went to first grade.

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  21. Beautiful! The interior actually looks larger than one would expect.

    ~Lindy
    MY RURALITY

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  22. I love the inside of that place! Beautiful woodwork!

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