Teaching ... Back in the Day

When my mother began to teach in a one-room country school in 1939, she lived in a one-room house next door to the school (in the middle of a country field). She had no electricity or running water - and part of her job included starting a wood fire in the schoolhouse an hour or so before the children began to arrive - and sweeping up at the end of the day.














A 20-year-old woman living in isolation like that still boggles my mind... but she never complained! In fact, she loved her job! And I guess things could always be worse! Among her things I discovered this 1872 Rules for Teachers she picked up somewhere...


















In 1872 part of a teacher's responsibilities was to fill lamps and clean chimneys. (I suppose my mother had to fill coal-oil lamps in the classroom...) A friend pointed out that the chimneys referred to here were probably the glass part of the lamp. I wonder if she had to clean those, too... or did students help with these tasks? Maintaining coal oil lamps - like bringing in buckets of water to drink - would have been part of their daily lives at home, too!

A teacher was expected to bring in a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the stove. (I think that these tasks were often given to older, bigger boys... but if she had none in her class, she might have done this, too!)

My mother never talked about whittling anything - but in 1872, teachers were expected to whittle pens... She probably did have to fill the ink-wells!

In 1872 there were a lot of social expectations that teachers, as community role models, were expected to live up to:

• Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.
• Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
• After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.
• 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 worth, intention, integrity and honesty.

There were financial expectations as well! Every teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.

Salary? In 1939, my mother's annual salary was $300 (for 10 months - making it $30 a month or about a dollar a day). She never talked about getting raises... But at this unnamed school board in 1872, the teacher who performed his labor faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves.

A 25 cent a week raise would have made my mother's salary $31 a month! (Or $310 a year...)

(The approval of the school board would probably depend on how much they wanted the teacher to stay!)