One Room Schools by Carol Small, Middlesex Centre Archives
Awww! The one-room rural school! The memories! The Christmas Concerts and Arbour Days! Who can forget? Nostalgia often means seeing the past through rose-coloured glasses. One can certainly do that with the one-room rural school. In pioneer settlements, the church and school were often the first structures built after the primary shelter was erected. In many communities, they were the same building, and the schoolmaster was often the local minister. At first, they were rudimentary log cabins with split-log benches and desktops.
1916 class (002) (London Township)
To advertise here, please contact Tami@villagerpublications.com By 1965, Township Boards were mandated. The one-room schools closed their doors for education. They were put on the auction block, and many were modified to become homes, with ink spots on the floor being the focal point for embellished stories. The stage has been set for the most important aspect of schools – learning. The next part of the one-room rural school story will examine that. tasked with supplying wood for the stove. The school was often the focal point of the community. Fanshawe Pioneer Village has great examples of the log and stone/brick rural schools. These structures that dotted the countryside were places of learning for most rural children prior to the central schools of the 1960s. Grades 1 to 8 were common, and before continuation and high school, they were often grades 1 to 10. Student populations ranged from 10 to 60 or 70, and sometimes more in the pre-1900 era. All were housed in one room with one teacher. The late Don McIntosh, Superintendent of Schools for the former Middlesex County Board of Education, recounted in his essay, The Transformation of Rural Education , that the value the community placed on education was evident in the upkeep of the building. Some schools were bright, shining diamonds; others had not seen paint in many years and were wood-smoke grey inside. Although school buildings were prized when new, the 1930s Depression Years forced local school section trustees to further limit their budgets and tax levies. Some school sections maintained their buildings with volunteer work and financial sacrifice; others simply did little and lost the habit of upkeep. So was the start of a downward spiral that affected not only the condition of the building but more importantly, the quality of education that happened within. In the beginning, students were expected to purchase their own supplies, including textbooks and slates. Eventually, school boards took over the role of supplying textbooks as the provincial government mandated curriculum and recommended “approved-for-grants” textbooks. However, consumable supplies in many schools were still the responsibility of the parents. Some families were very large and simply could not afford a full- compliment of supplies for each child. Pencils became stubs; ink, pens, erasers etc. were shared. Teachers, on their very limited salaries, often supplemented supplies. Meagre school libraries suffered greatly during and after the Depression Years. Well-worn books were usually not replaced, and certainly, few new ones were purchased.
2015.0011-V.18-020 S. S. 6 Lobo Shipley School 1890s (Lobo Township)
Later, in the late 1860s to 1880s, brick or stone schoolhouses, with a few more amenities, were erected. These new buildings had blackboards, large windows, a wood stove, a wood box, and outhouses or maybe indoor chemical toilets. The pail-a-day toilets, often placed in the vestibules at the entry to the school, gave a less than welcoming odour to visitors. To give more heat, the stove pipes ran the length of the school. This proved exciting when the pipes caught fire or a bird’s nest clogged the chimney and filled the classroom with smoke. A stage across the front of the room served two purposes. It elevated the teacher’s desk to get great site-lines of the room and also served as the stage for the infamous Christmas Concerts. Student desks were fastened to the floor in rows with usually three sizes to accommodate the primary, middle grades and senior students. Water was carried in a pail from a well pump on the property or from a neighbour’s well. Often students drank from a communal dipper. Later, the pail was replaced by a water tank with a tap added. A woodshed was also on the property, as the school section members were
SS#5 1921 (2) 2014.0032 (Delaware Township)
Page 16 Ilderton and Area Villager • June 2024
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