Tuesday, September 8, 2009

Old School

This morning in Minnesota the kids in Public Schools headed off to their first day of school. How exciting..this year the grands are..one in second grade, two in fifth grade, one in sixth and one in eighth grade. ( Gosh I hope I got that right.)

I bet that no one took a lunch pail...

I bet no one sat in old wooden desks in a one room schoolhouse.

I bet they didn't play any of these games...

I bet none of the teachers followed these rules from 1915.

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 p.m. and 6 a.m. unless attending a school function.

4. You may not loiter downtown in ice cream stores.

5. You may not travel beyond city limits unless you have the permission of the chairman of the board.

6. You may not ride in a carriage or automobile with any man unless he is 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 must not be any shorter than two inches above the ankle.

12. To keep the school room neat and clean, you must:

sweep the floor at least once daily
scrub the floor at least once a week with hot, soapy water
clean the blackboards at least once a day
start the fire at 7 a.m. so the room will be warm by 8 a.m.

I enjoyed my visit back to this one room schoolhouse, even though I never attended an old country schoolhouse and never walked two miles uphill both ways to get to school. They built a new school in our nearby town, so I never got to go to the old country school that was very near our farm. I was close enough to walk that quarter mile..but instead the old country school was closed and I had to ride the bus to school when I went to first grade:)

12 comments:

Anonymous said...

I love these pictures - reminds me of Little House on the Prairie. I can remember my daddy talking about his lunch pail.
These rules for teachers are quite fun! I guess Harriet and I should stop loitering around the local ice cream parlor!!!

DJan said...

Well, I finally did it: checked out who FSOF is, since your blog is on most of my favorites. And I just signed up to follow you too! I love these pictures, and even though I went to grammar school in the '40s and '50s, I never saw these things for real. I do remember hopscotch, marbles, and jacks. And a couple of really special teachers...

West Side of Straight said...

Poor teachers of that era! Poor in monetary pay too. We've come a long way!

DayPhoto said...

I went to an old country school. Sat in a desk very much like that one all through my whole school years, and never had to pack a lunch as the main school district sent us hot lunch for $.35 a day with milk.

The school was a mile from our house, but I rode a bus to it.

Mary said...

Ohhhhh, I rebel at that entire list. They would have tarred and feathered me.

Rae said...

I sat in desks like that in high school but thank goodness we didn't have have a one room schoolhouse. It must have been awful being a teacher back then but I guess they didn't know any different.

Emma Rose said...

I love the "Rules"! My, how times have changed. The Duchess remembers sitting in a few desks like that. :)

Anonymous said...

Aw, the good old days!

Maery Rose said...

I don't see any problem with those rules... I didn't go to school that far back but the desks sure do look familiar. It seems unbelievable to me that school is starting up again. Where did the summer go?

Anonymous said...

Hilarious rules! Not even allowed to enjoy an ice cream, poor things!

RURAL said...

It's a miracle any teachers applied with those strict rules. Silly.

Jen

Pamela said...

I wrote a post about my husbands step grandmother -- who taught school under similar rules. She snuck away and got married and visited him on the weekends. ridiculous, but maybe some of their students were as old as they were??