Now You See It, Now You Don't!

TellZall's object for December is the One-room school house.
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Less than a century ago, most Ohioans lived in a rural setting, and their children attended schools that consisted of only a single room. About 1917, some 195,000 one-room schools operated in the United States, and Ohio had more than 10,000 of them. By the eve of World War II, the number had dropped to about 100,000, and about two-thirds of them were in the Midwest. For generations, these schools were the center of American education.

When most people lived on farms and transportation was limited, school districts were small, many consisting of no more than ten or so families. A local school board made up from these families oversaw the construction and operation of the school, including hiring the teacher.

The schools that they built tended to be simple, small structures that consisted of a single room with perhaps a coatroom or partition. At one end stood the teacher’s desk, with a slate blackboard behind. Rows of desks occupied the middle of the room, which was lit primarily by sunlight through windows along the sides, augmented first by kerosene lamps and later by electic lights. A wood or coal stove provided heat, and a bucket with a shared dipper was the “drinking fountain.” A small library of perhaps fifty to seventy books was keep in a bookcase along a wall. An American flag and probably a portrait of George Washington was prominent near the teacher’s desk.

The teacher was most likely a woman. She received little pay, perhaps $30 a month — and she certainly earned her pay. She had to start a fire in stove, teach her pupils, keep track of their progress, and perhaps teach Sunday school. She was expected to teach children age five to sixteen reading, writing, arithmetic, history, grammar, orthoepy, orthography, geography, hygiene, and sometimes agriculture and other subjects. She also was expected to instruct them in manners, morals, and patriotism. She herself was but little older than her oldest pupils and probably was a product of a one-room school similar to the one in which she now taught. Prior to World War I, she probably had not attended a four-year college but may have gone to a two-year teacher college. Most attended five- or six-week teachers institutes during the summer. She had to pass an examination to received her teacher’s certificate, which allowed her to teach. In all likelihood, she taught for a few years before marrying and beginning a family of her own.

Pupils were expected to learn a variety of subjects and were tested on their knowledge. They worked at the blackboard, “parsing” sentences or solving math problems. The read and wrote at their desks and would stand before the teacher to recite and be tested on what they had learned.

After eight years of education in such a school, pupils who had passed their examinations graduated, usually in an elaborate ceremony. For most, that was end of their education. Before 1902, children in rural areas were not guaranteed an opportunity to attend high school, and, even after that, they had to pass a test in order to matriculate. Indeed, it was not uncommon for a farm family to send a child to live with a relative “in town” in order to go to high school.

As the twentieth century enfolded, transportation improved and people began moving from farms to cities. Rural education changed. The one-room school was seen as inefficient and “country,” and calls for its elimination grew. The teaching profession itself changed, with more teachers receiving college training and electing to make teaching their lifelong profession. Groups of small, one-room schools began to be consolidated into a new, larger and more-modern building where teachers were assigned classes for one age group of pupils or one subject. The one-room school was fading from the scene.

Today a few one-room schools still exist in the Midwest, and one might consider the home-school movement to be a kind of return to the concept. While the one-room schools undoubtedly had many weaknesses, they also educated several remarkable generations of students.