Oral history plays a vital role in accurate preservation of the rural school experience and the actual restoration of some of the country's 212,000 one-room school buildings. Oral histories provide valuable, first-hand information on who taught in and who attended one-room schools, what the curriculum included, what the building looked like, and…

A unique collection of photographs and personal letters, journals and diaries, newspaper clippings, official reports, readers and textbooks, mail-order catalogues, architectural plans and diagrams recreate the flavor of the Canadian one-room school and the rural communities it served from the 1840's to 1960's. The emphasis is on the human…