RURAL SCHOOLS

RURAL SCHOOLS.

              The energy and inventiveness of the teacher determined how 
              much transformation took place in the schoolroom. It never 
              took on the sparkle of Aladdin’s cave, this open room with 
              its dusty blackboards, dingy curtains and roll of maps and 
              dictionary. But a teacher with enthusiasm and a few 
              appropriate symbols could make it shine in our eyes...

              My years there remain in memory as some of the best
              years of my life.
                     Poet James Hearst about a rural school near Cedar
                     Falls in the 1910s  (1)

               This was not a modern structure of massive brick or
               stone, but to hundreds it is dear as around it luster
               many of the happiest recollections of life.  Dear
               because it was there they spent that first day of
               school, because it was there they formed the dearest,
               purest, sweetest, associations of life.  None of these
               were born to live of ease of luxury, no silver spoons
               or golden candlesticks. Just true, whole-souled
               boys and girls who knew what it was to work and
               who inculcated in this rural community a love for
               honesty and purity.  No wonder 99 percent of them
               have made good.  (2)

The idea of the country school is traced to Thomas Jefferson. As a member of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Jefferson introduced in 1779 a “Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge.” This bill provided for three aldermen, chosen from each county, with the responsibility of dividing the county to make up school that would teach

                Reading, writing and common arithmetic (sic), 
                and the books used shall be such as will be at 
                the same time make them acquainted with Graecian 
                (sic), Roman, English and American history. (4)

Jefferson implemented his ideas further when he wrote the Northwest Ordinance of 1785. This law organized newly acquired territory north of the Ohio River west to the Mississippi River. Townships six-miles by six miles were surveyed and each of the 36- Square-mile sections were numbered for identification. The Continental Congress provided that section 16 of every township would be reserved for the maintenance of public schools. (5) In the Northwest Ordinance of 1787 the rules of government included this phrase: “Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary for good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and means of education shall forever be encouraged. (6) These principles were extended to the Louisiana Purchase from which Iowa was made a state in 1846. (7)

The first school opened in Lee County in 1830. Mr. Berryman Jennings was hired by Dr. Isaac Galland to teach eight students for a three-month session. The first school house was a log cabin built by lead miners in 1833—the very year they started working in the Mines of Spain area near Dubuque. By the time the Iowa Territory was organized in 1838, there already were between 40 and 50 established schools. On July 1 1839, the Territorial Legislature passed an act providing that:

         there shall be established a common school, or schools in
         each of the counties in this Territory which has to be
         open and free for every class of white citizens between
         the ages of five and twenty-one years. (8)  

Eight years later the state constitution made provision for a “system of common schools” under a Superintendent of Public Instruction. (9)

In 1839 the Iowa Territorial Assembly established a system of common schools. These were the subscription, or rate, schools in which parents with children enrolled paid for tuition. The rate schools were changed to free schools in 1858 largely through the efforts of Horace Mann, the first state superintendent of schools in Massachusetts. In 1858 he was asked to head a commission to study and then report on Iowa’s educational needs. Many of his ideas were incorporated into Iowa’s second constitution, although his idea for a state board of education was rejected out of fear of centralized authority. His concepts of a longer school year and using property tax to fund the schools were accepted. A locally funded and controlled school district remained the basis of the educational system in Iowa for nearly a century. (10)

In November 1840 the Third Territorial Legislature created the position of state superintendent of public instruction to give general direction to the public schools of Iowa. In 1846 Iowa became a state. At that time, there were an estimated 20,000 students served by 400 school districts. The number of districts rose of 2,206 in 1874 and 3,686 in 1900. (11) The state superintendent in charge of the state's education, was an elected official until the constitution of 1857 was adopted which replaced the superintendent with a board of education. In 1864 the General Assembly made an elective state superintendent of public instruction the chief school official of the State of Iowa. (12)

In Iowa’s early years of statehood there were town independent district and township districts for the rural areas. Townships were allowed to create nine sub-districts that remained until the authority of the township Board of Education. The demand to have an independent district similar to those in towns, however, led the 1872 General Assembly to mandate that a township could have up to nine independent districts made up of four contiguous sections each with its own three-member board. The country school had to have at least ten students. This plan was widely adopted within a few years. While the number of school districts increased dramatically, the location of the school remained an issue. (13)

Generally the school was located at the center of the four sections, however the distribution of students and the personal preference of an influential family could lead to the school being moved. In the 19th century this was possible because schools were often built on skids that made relocation possible with a team of horses. (14) School sites were normally selected in a corner of a section, in order to minimize disruption on the neighboring farm. The sites were one acre in size, fenced off from the farmland, with trees along the property line. Except for the earliest schools, when land was purchased from speculators or the government, farmers donated the land. If the site was abandoned, the land reverted to the owner. (15)

Those influenced by Iowa rural schools included Homer Seerley, president of Iowa State Teachers College (U.N.I.) in Cedar Falls for fifty years. Following two years studying engineering at the University of Iowa, Seerley taught in a rural school and found it so personally rewarding that he left engineering and made education his career. (16) Iowa Governor William Larabee taught in a one-room school in Allamakee County. (17)

Graduates of Iowa one-room schools include political leaders Senator Tom Harkin (Warren County), Senator Bert Hickenlooper (Taylor County), and Iowa Governor Nathan Kendall (Lucas County). Artists include Grant Wood (Jones County) and Atlanta Constance Sampson (Mitchell County). Hamlin Garland (Mitchell County), Herbert Quick (Hardin County), and Laura Ingalls Wilder (Winneshiek County) were writers. Dr. Dennis Spencer (Taylor County) was chief of Neurosurgery and the Yale University School of Medicine Norman Borlaug (Howard County) was a Nobel Prize winning scientist in agriculture and Jessie Field Shambaugh (Page County) was the founder of the 4-H Movement. (18)

The distinctive picture of the white rectangular building with the bell tower as an Iowa rural school was not what children often attended. During Iowa’s first twenty years, log cabins served as schools. Some had been built for homes while others were constructed specifically as schools. Sometimes they had a window on two sides. In other cases there was one window created by removing a log and covering the space with oiled paper. There might be earth or a puncheon floor. The door was puncheon as were the desks and benches. A large fireplace stretched across one end of the building, and students joined their teacher in being responsible for bringing in logs for the fire. (19)

Later school construction followed a familiar pattern. The typical building procedure was to lay a foundation of stone and mortar and the chimney, frame up the building, add the clapboard siding, sheet the roof and shingle it, and perhaps add a bell tower or a flag spar. While there were plan books available, most country schools were designed and built by local craftsmen. Although craftsmen and crew did much of the work, local people contributed labor in order to reduce the cost. The cost of constructing a school building in 1900 ran between $600 and $800. (20)

Basements were not part of early Iowa schools. When the change was made from a wood or coal stove to a furnace system, basements were needed for the furnace. Unfortunately many of the earliest were poorly constructed and led to structural damage to the schoolhouse. With time, construction improved and with the beginning of the Bungalow-style schoolhouse of the 1920s basements not only held the furnace, but with an internal access offered a limited alternative to the playground during bad weather. (21) The 19th century country school resembled the country church in appearance: a long narrow rectangle 18 feet wide and 28 feet long. For the most part, this American vernacular type utilized commercial materials: dimension lumber, bricks, concrete block, wood shingles, and local limestone, although some log schools remained in use for many years. (22) The rectangular floor plan proved versatile over the years. By the 1890s, schoolhouses were built with an internal hallway leading to the main classroom. Later the length of the building accommodated bathrooms, cloakrooms, and a kitchen. (23)

Cloakrooms were not a part of the rural school. Small sheds were built by the 1860s to schools for the students’ coats and boots and the development of the basement furnished space too. (24)

The gable roof was the most common style for many years. Variations included a clipped gable roof common between 1900 and 1920 and the hip and hip-with-ridge roof styles that followed. (25)

In the nineteenth century rural school there was usually a bank of three double-hung sash windows on the 28-foot sides of the school building. (26) This was to supply “cross lighting.” By the beginning of the 1920s, the office of the state superintendent had issued new building standards for schools. These endorsed a bank of windows on one level along one wall. Cross lighting had been determined to be harmful to students’ eyes. (27)

Bell towers were uncommon on most of Iowa’s country schools built in the 20th century. Those few schools that were adorned with bell towers were usually in more prosperous communities. (28) School teachers used a hand-held bell to call students into the building. If bell towers were constructed they were above the entry on the gable peak, along the interior partition wall, or on an addition to the entry area. (29)

Separate privies for boys and girls were set in the corners at the back of the lot, and woodsheds were near the school. While popular folklore pictured the “little red school- house,” most painted the vast majority of Iowa schoolhouses white, partly to reflect the sun and partly because of tradition. (30)

A few flat-roofed, cube-style “International” schools were built in the late 1940s. With consolidation already beginning to occur, few of these buildings were ever constructed. Similar in a shape of a cube, they were characterized by having a flat roof, little if any surface decoration, and built of cement-block walls with poured concrete basements. They were supplied with indoor toilets, electric lighting, modern kitchens and oil furnaces. (31)

These buildings served the area as more than a school for their children. The Hazel Valley School, constructed in 1854 near Farley, was the community center and a place of religious worship. It was the home of the Hazel Valley Literary Society that had the distinction of being the only organization of its kind in the county. On Saturday nights, the school came to hear music performed by the Hazel Valley Band. (32) Singing schools were conducted in some buildings during the winter months. (33) Religious meeting or revivals might extend over several weeks with services in the evening. (34)

In the 1920s, when electricity began to appear in rural areas, some districts were willing to pay the additional cost to bring a line to the school. The Rural Electrification Administration, established in 1935, authorized the United States government to bring electricity to farms. (35) Cooperative associations built high-lines to the farms. By the 1930s the rural electrification movement brought electric lights to all country schools.

In Iowa’s early rural schools the teacher or “master” sat on a platform. Books were brought from home. Since many families lacked books, many students learned to read from the Bible that was common in homes. Spelling was considered one of the most important subject with “spelling down” an entire class bringing high regard to the winning student. Actual classes were not observed with students being able to move ahead at their own pace. (36)

Each school had a recitation bench at the front of the room. These benches in the early years were seldom more than smoothed slabs of wood with stick inserted into slanting holes for legs. (37) Believing that students learned best by memorization, teachers and parents had students memorize short stories poems, and public speeches. They sat on the bench to recite their lessons. (38)

Reading, writing and arithmetic were the principal subjects. Later geography and history were added. Globes and maps were not available until late in the 1800s. (39) Some townships developed a plan for changing the books purchased with tax money from one school to another once a year. This occurred in the spring before the start of planting. One of the township officials supervised the exchange. If the roads were bad, he carried the books between schools on horseback with sacks of books tied over the saddle. Pupils anxiously awaited the arrival of something new to read. (40)

The school was equipped with a blackboard—well named because it was a board painted black. It was written on with white limestone and cleaned with a sheepskin eraser. Books were at a premium. If they could not afford to buy books, students brought anything they had at home to read including Bibles, calendars or medical books. (41)

Beginning in 1900, school boards began providing textbooks for all students. William McGuffey wrote the most popular reading series. Each McGuffey’s Reader offered a tale with a moral. Through this series, children were taught to obey their parents, respect the flag, and honor their country. Health issues were also stressed including the bad effects of alcohol and tobacco. (42)

The greatest contrast among country schools was in classroom equipment. Here the district’s prosperity, or lack thereof, and a commitment to providing quality education were most evident. There was usually a built-in bookcase to house a library. Student desks, singles or doubles, and a recitation bench varied somewhat from building to building, but it was the size and design of the teacher’s desk, and the presence of a pump organ or piano, wall maps, globes, and curtains that distinguished schools from one another. Blackboards ranged from painted wood to slate. While the austere exterior symbolized the practical, the interior reflected the community’s concern for the children. (43)

Playground equipment such as swings, chin-up bars, and slides did not become popular until after 1900. Outdoor games played by students were limited only by their imagination. Typical games played at Brushwood School #5 in Clay County included “Drop the Handkerchief, Fox and Geese, Blackman, Hide and Seek, and Johnny May I Cross Your River”. (44) One of the more unique activities at recess was for the students to lie quietly on the ground holding string snares with which they tried to catch ground squirrels.(45) Recess was also the time to be sure your pony was watered and fed if you had ridden it from home. (46)

Teachers were paid very little—perhaps twenty or thirty dollars. They were occasionally encouraged to stay with a family instead of taking pay that could also come in the form of food. Usually teachers were hired for three-months—fall, winter and spring. Attendance was highest in the winter. In the spring and fall, older boys usually skipped school to help their families with farm work. Believing that women could not control the older students, men were the preferred choice when new a new staff member was hired. (47) Another solution was to hire women for the spring and fall terms and a physically strong male for the winter months. (48)

Teachers were expected to set good examples for their students. Up until the 1950s, female teachers who married were immediately removed from their classrooms. A fair representation of these contractual rules is this from 1872: (49)

                   School Rules—1872 

         1. 	Will fill lamps, trim wicks and clean chimneys.
         2.	Each morning, teacher will bring bucket of water 
               and scuttle of coal for the days session.
         3.	Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to 
               the individual taste of the pupil.
         4.	Men teachers may take one evening each week for
               courting purposes or two evenings a week if they
               attend church regularly.
         5.	After ten hours in school, the teacher may spend 
               the remaining time reading the Bible or other good 
               book.
         6.	Women teachers who marry or who engage in 
               unseeming conduct will be dismissed.
         7.	Every teacher should lay aside for each pay day a 
               goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during 
               his declining years so that he will not be 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 
               intention, integrity and honesty;
         9.	The teacher who performs his labor faithfully and 
               without fault for five years will be given an increase 
               of  $.25 per week in his pay providing the Board of 
               Education approves.

These rules were common in 1915: (50)

         1. 	You will not marry during the term of your contract.
         2.	You are not to keep company with men.
         3.	You must be home between the hours of 8:00 p.m. 
               and 6:00 a.m. unless at a school function.
         4.	You may not loiter downtown in downtown ice cream
               stores.
         5.	You may not travel beyond the city limits unless you 
               have the permission of the chairman of the school 
               board.
         6.	You may not ride in carriages or automobiles with any
               man except your father or brother.
         7.	You may not smoke cigarettes.
         8.	You may not dress in bright colors.
         9.	You may under no circumstances dye your hair.
        10.	You must wear at least two petticoats.
        11.    Your dresses may not be any shorter than two inches
               above the ankle.
        12.    To keep the classroom neat and clean, you must sweep
               the floor once a day, scrub the floor with hot soapy 
               water once a week, clean the blackboards once a day, 
               and start the fire at 7 AM to have the school warm by 
               8 AM when the scholars arrive

It was not until 1946 that high school normal training courses for new teachers was ended in Iowa. (51) Six more years passed before it was mandated that all new teachers in Iowa had to have at least two years of appropriate education for certification as teachers. (52) In 1960 all new teachers certified in Iowa had to have earned a bachelor’s degree (B.A.) (53)

Before 1849, students were not divided into grades. Working at their own rate, a child finished a set of books and moved on to the next set. When the last set of books was finished, the student was ready to graduate. (54) During the early years of Iowa’s history, the minimum legal school year was twenty-four week with local officials permitted to offer more if they could afford the extra period. (55)

In 1902, however, the Iowa Legislature passed a law requiring all children between the ages of 7 and 16 to attend school. (56) Most young Iowans, however, did not attend high school until the 1920s. (57)

The quality of education varied greatly. Historian Joseph Wall described the situation as:

                 Indeed it was a poor place, yet it provided 
                 the only education that hundreds of thousands 
                 of Iowans were ever to receive, dependent almost 
                 entirely upon local property tax levies for support, 
                 the rural school districts had only the barest of 
                 sustenance, hardly enough to put up adequate buildings, 
                 provide the minimum furnishings, and hire as teachers 
                 young girls who themselves had only an eighth-grade 
                 education, for whatever each individual teacher was 
                 able to collect from the parents of her pupils.  As 
                 late as 1896, the average length of attendance for 
                 the country school pupil was a little less than two 
                 months per year… (58)

In 1901 with the Biennial Report recorded 12,623 one-room schools—the largest number in the nation. There were still 9,279 one-room schools operating in 1932-1933. As the size of farms and the number of children per family declined so did the number of schools. In 1910 there were 3,018 school with less than ten students and ten schools with only one student. (59)

During the mid-1990s, a one-room country schools survey was conducted using an HRDP (Historic Resource Development Program) grant. The survey found that of the approximately 12,000 one-room country schools in existence in 1901, just over 2,900 remained standing in 1998. At that time, approximately 350 stood vacant, over 100 had been converted into museums, and roughly 1,500 had been converted into houses or outbuildings. The survey resulted in the compilation of a book (Iowa’s Country Schools: Landmarks of Learning, edited by William L. Sherman) and the nomination of several one-room schools to the National Register of Historic Places. (60)

The most recent statewide survey of Iowa’s public schools included photography of over 800 pre-1940 public school buildings in use across the state, full National Register-evaluation of 50 buildings, and 28 properties forwarded for listing on the National Register of Historic Places. Of those, 15 were listed on the National Register in 2002 and 13 are pending listing in 2005, along with the historic context “Public Schools for Iowa: Growth and Change, 1848 – 1955.” Three booklets on the significance of Iowa’s public schools were also produced as part of the survey: Country Schools for Iowa, Town Schools for Iowa, and City Schools for Iowa. These booklets are available online at the Statewide Inventory and Collections. (61)

The image of the rural school house, although it has been replaced as a place of education since the 1960s, remained potent force in the Iowa mind over five decades later. A person need only look at their pocket change. Released as the fourth “state quarter” of 2004, the coin design features a one-room schoolhouse with a teacher and students planting a tree, and the inscriptions "Foundation in Education" and "Grant Wood." The design is based on "Arbor Day," a painting by Iowa artist Grant Wood who was born near Anamosa, Iowa. He spent his career as a proponent of small-town values, which he celebrated in iconic images of small-town plain folk and lush Midwestern scenes for which he is world-renowned. (62)

Bob Nandell, photographer for the Des Moines Register, has stated, “As if a lasting monument to Iowa’s pioneers’ quest for personal betterment and literacy, one-room schoolhouses still dot our landscape. (63) If today’s youth realize that many of this nation’s greatest politicians, artists, writers, educators and politicians had their beginnings and earliest achievements “with a number-two lead pencil” maybe they will realize their own potential is limitless. (64)

The need to preserve examples of these schools has been the subject of Tomas Morain, author and former Director of the State Historical Society of Iowa.

            Once we saved only the most notable features—mansions,
            clothing, and personal items of famous people…Recently,
            however, we have discovered our kinship with the common-
            place, the stuff of ordinary life of ordinary people.  
            We are a nation of more than the rich and famous…

            Perhaps it is true that those who ignore history are 
            condemned to repeat it. But it is probably also true 
            that those who ignore the history are condemned to live 
            without it, and in doing so, deprive themselves of a 
            rich resource of new experiences. (65)
                        

Sources:

1. Sherman, William T. ed., Iowa’s Country Schools: Landmarks of Learning. Iowa State Education Association and Mid-Prairie Books, 1998, p. 65

2. “Tear Down School at Hazel Valley,” Telegraph Herald, August 29, 1926 p. 5

3. Drier, William H. “A Brief History of Iowa’s One-Room Schools,” Iowa’s Country Schools—Landmarks of Learning edited by William L. Sherman. Iowa State Education Association and Mid-Prairie Books, 1998. p. 3

4. Ibid.

5. Ibid.

6. Houlette, William. Iowa—The Pioneer Heritage, Des Moines: Wallace- Homestead Book Company, 1970, p. 103

7. “The Iowa Quarter.” The US 50. http://www.theus50.com/iowa/quarter.php

8. Deiber, Camilla and Beedle, Peggy. Country Schools for Iowa. Hiawatha, IA, 2002. J & A Publishing. p. 3 Online: http://www.iowahistory.org/historic-preservation/assets/Country%20Schools.pdf

9. Ibid.

10. Houlette, p. 103

11. Sage, Leland L. A History of Iowa. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1974, p . 331

12. Drier, p. 4

13. Ibid.

14. Deiber, Camilla and Beedle, Peggy. , p. 10

15. Dier, p. 8

16. “Iowans Who Attended One-Room Schools,” Sherman, William T. ed., Iowa’s Country Schools: Landmarks of Learning. Iowa State Education Association and Mid-Prairie Books, 1998, p. 41

17. Ibid.

18. Houlette, p. 102

19. Deiber, Camilla and Beedle, Peggy. p. 8

20. Johnson, Steve. “Architectural Styles for Iowa’s One-Room Schools,” William L. Sherman ed. Iowa’s Country Schools-Landmarks of Learning, Iowa State Education Association and Mid-Prairie Books, 1998, p. 9 11)

21. Ibid.

22. Ibid., p. 12

23. Ibid., p. 11

24. Ibid.

25. Deiber and Beedle., p. 10

26. Johnson, p. 11

27. Deiber and Beedle, p. 11

28. Johnson, p. 11

29. Deiber and Beedle, Peggy., p. 10

30. Ibid.

31. “Tear Down School at Hazel Valley,” Telegraph Herald, August 29, 1926 p. 5

32. Houlette, William. p. 105

33. Ibid.

34. Deiber and Beedle, p. 11

35. Sage, p. 174

36. Houlette, p. 105

37. Schweider, Dorothy; Morain, Thomas; Nielsen, Lynn. Iowa—Past to Present. Ames: Iowa State Press, 2002, p. 152

38. Houlette, p. 105

39. Ibid.

40. Schweider, Morain, Nielsen., p. 152

41. Ibid. p.154

42. Deiber, Camilla and Beedle, Peggy, p. 11

43. Ibid.

44. Interview with Jean Lyon who attended a rural one-room school in Iowa. June, 1965

45. Ibid.

46. Schweider et al. p. 153

47. Ibid.

48. “1872-Teacher Rules,” Online: http://www.nhhistory.org/edu/support/nhgrowingup/teacherrules.pdf

49. “1915-Teacher Rules,” http://www.nhhistory.org/edu/support/nhgrowingup/teacherrules.pdf

50. “An Iowa Country School Chronology,” William L. Sherman ed. Iowa’s Country Schools-Landmarks of Learning, Iowa State Education Association and Mid-Prairie Books, 1998, p. 9

51. Ibid.

52. Ibid.

53. Ibid.

54. Schweider et al., p. 152

55. Sage, Leland L. A History of Iowa. Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1974, p. 102

56. “An Iowa Country School Chronology,” p. 9

57. Ibid., p. 155

58. Drier, p. 4

59. Ibid., p. 5

60. “Iowa’s Historic Schools,” State Historical Society of Iowa. Online: http://www.iowahistory.org/historic-preservation/statewide-inventory-and-collections/schools/index.html

61. Ibid.

62. “The Iowa Quarter.”

63. Nandell, Bob. “One-Room Schools—A Reminder of Our Quest for Knowledge,” Iowa’s Country Schools—Landmarks of Learning William L. Sherman ed. Iowa State Education Association and Mid-Prairie Books, 1998. p. 36

64. Ibid.

65. Morain, Tom. “Preserving Our Heritage.” Iowa’s Country Schools—Landmarks of Learning edited William L. Sherman ed. Iowa State Education Association and Mid-Prairie Books, 1998. p. 29