A humorous look at educational innovations. (JF)

This booklet contains a pictorial history of one-room schoolhouses in Hopkinton, New Hampshire. Following a brief description of the typical one-room schoolhouse, the history of Hopkinton's one-room schoolhouses is traced from 1768, when a town meeting voted to construct two schoolhouses, to 1936, when the last one-room schoolhouses were closed.…

This book compiles black and white photographs of 49 one-room (and occasionally two-room) schoolhouses in Arkansas. The book aims to share the vision of these special buildings that were so important in shaping the educational system, communities, and lives. An introduction describes the pinhole cameras that were used and how the different effects…

This report documents the archaeological investigations conducted at the former site of the Altaville Schoolhouse in Calaveras County, California. These investigations were carried out through the cooperative efforts of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection, the Calaveras County Historical Society, and the local community. The…

The interval from 1930 to 1965 witnessed the disappearance of virtually all one- and two-teacher schools in 17 Southern and border states. Isolation and transportation difficulties prevent further consolidation of small schools in many of these states. A number of small schools still in existence are located in hospitals and correctional…

Schoolhouse planning is becoming specialized. In a few of the larger centers of population there are architects who desire no other work except the planning of school buildings. This is bringing about in the larger cities schoolhouses that are peculiarly adapted to the educational program. They are sanitary, well lighted, and properly ventilated.…

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…

This book documents the history of the prairie schoolhouse through text and photographs. The prairie schoolhouse was a product of the Western Homestead Era, those years beginning late in the 19th century when the federally owned grass prairies east of the Rockies and the sagebrush country of the interior Northwest were opened to farming.…

Three surveys deal with the architectural aspects of country schools in eastern, western and northeastern Kansas. Although country schools of the late 1800's and early 1900's often sprang up before there were pupils to attend them, the surveys reveal that many early schools were 3-month subscription schools which generally did not have their own…

The author reflects on a cross-country trip in which he discovered one-room schools, some abandoned many years ago due to consolidation, others still in operation. In addition to the valuable role that one-room schools played in educating rural youth, these schools offer a rich reflection of local history, language, and cultural practices.…

At the turn of the century, over 200,000 one-room schools existed in the United States. These simple, vernacular buildings represented the nation's commitment to education and were also the center of community life. The country school continues to be a powerful cultural symbol. This book consists of three parts. The first section describes country…

The characteristics of one-room rural schools in Barbour County, West Virginia, are representative of one-room rural school characteristics in general. These include building design and problems; teacher' lives and duties, certification, salaries, and training; scheduling and curriculum; games; punishments; and hot lunch programs. Since one-room…

The country school legacy of Wyoming is rich in history, folklore, and tradition. Materials (many anecdotal) gathered from school records, oral histories, autobiographies, and memoirs provide glimpses into the diverse and demanding role of frontier teachers (who were mostly female and, by contract requirement, usually single) and the work and…

Designed to preserve the rich heritage of the rural school system which passed from the education scene in the 1930's and 1940's, this narrative, part history and part nostalgia, describes the author's own elementary education and the secure community life centered in the one room Spring Valley School in Hamilton County, Iowa, in the early decades…

The one-teacher school in the United States is usually housed in the meanest type of school building, the supplies furnished the rural children are the scantiest, the school term is usually the shortest, the rural teachers represent the most inexperienced, and community support of the school is usually less enthusiastic than the support accorded…