As teachers ready themselves for a new school year and students and parents tackle that "oh so long" list of school supplies, I thought readers would appreciate a blast from school days past. This is an excerpt from the book: Socrates to Miss Crabtree: Teaching Through the Ages, by Pamela Michael.
Rules for Teachers: 1872
- Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys.
- Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day's session.
- Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.
- Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week of they go to church regularly.
- After ten hours on school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the bible or other good books.
- Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
- Every teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.
- Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity and honesty.
- The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.
By the way, the photo above is of Ridgefield's Peter Parley School (aka The Little Red Schoolhouse) located on West Lane.
R