School Starts This Week for Ridgefield Public School Kids! Check Out The Rules for Teachers in the Year 1872

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.

Best of luck to all of the Ridgefield Public School students who begin school on Thursday!

This is an excerpt from the book:  Socrates to Miss Crabtree: Teaching Through the Ages, by Pamela Michael. For a first-hand look at education in the 1800's, visit Ridgefield's Peter Parley Schoolhouse (aka The Little Red Schoolhouse) located on the corner of West Lane and Route 35 in Ridgefield. 

Sundays at the Schoolhouse program occurs the last Sunday of the month May through October. This program is generously sponsored by Fairfield County Bank.

Rules for Teachers: 1872

  1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys.
  2. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day's session.
  3. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.
  4. Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week of they go to church regularly.
  5. After ten hours on school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the bible or other good books.
  6. Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
  7. 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.
  8. 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.
  9. 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.

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Submitted by Ridgefield, CT

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