Explore Our Buildings- Liberty School House
Click on the image for a slideshow summary of Liberty School
Brief History of School/Education in Early America
A law passed in 1642 required children to be educated- they could be removed from the home if parents failed to do this. If the town had at least 50 families they had to hire a school master to teach children to read and write so they would be able to read the Bible and live good moral lives. In the south, the planter class hired tutors and the worker class were usually home schooled. There were only a few private schools. Public schools came later. Until 1900, the highest education level was usually 8th grade for most students. Later when there were 34 states, children ages 14 and up were also to be educated. By 1910, 72% of America’s children attended school- half of them were in one-room school houses like this one. If the building was made of boards, it was to be painted white. Many of the school houses also served as church houses, community gathering places for things such as voting and music or pie supper events. The students either walked to school, rode on horseback or in a horse-drawn hack or sulky.
Liberty School
Liberty School which was founded in 1895 for the price of an acre of land for $10.00. It was located next to Liberty Baptist Church which was organized in 1845. There probably was a school there around that time but we have not yet found any evidence. The one room school was sold when City Utilities of Springfield purchased land to dam up the Little Sac river to form Fellow Lake. Liberty School sat above where the boat dock was to go in, so it sold at auction and was moved a mile up the road. Because the school no longer sat on its original location, it was not eligible for preservation grants and could not be considered an historical site.
In 1981, a process began to move the original home of the Gray-Campbell Family to Nathanael Greene Park. Members of the “Friends of the Gray/Campbell farmstead” realized that moving the school to be near the Farmstead would add to the educational experience of those visiting the farm.
Liberty School was on land owned by Ron and Peggy Buchanan who agreed to let the Farmstead have the schoolhouse if they would move it from their property. In 2008, a fund was established at the Community Foundation of the Ozarks to receive donations towards this goal. After six years of money raising efforts, it was determined that the outside of the school and part of the inside would have to be replaced. While this was being accomplished, members began searching for authentic items to furnish the school.
A law passed in 1642 required children to be educated- they could be removed from the home if parents failed to do this. If the town had at least 50 families they had to hire a school master to teach children to read and write so they would be able to read the Bible and live good moral lives. In the south, the planter class hired tutors and the worker class were usually home schooled. There were only a few private schools. Public schools came later. Until 1900, the highest education level was usually 8th grade for most students. Later when there were 34 states, children ages 14 and up were also to be educated. By 1910, 72% of America’s children attended school- half of them were in one-room school houses like this one. If the building was made of boards, it was to be painted white. Many of the school houses also served as church houses, community gathering places for things such as voting and music or pie supper events. The students either walked to school, rode on horseback or in a horse-drawn hack or sulky.
Liberty School
Liberty School which was founded in 1895 for the price of an acre of land for $10.00. It was located next to Liberty Baptist Church which was organized in 1845. There probably was a school there around that time but we have not yet found any evidence. The one room school was sold when City Utilities of Springfield purchased land to dam up the Little Sac river to form Fellow Lake. Liberty School sat above where the boat dock was to go in, so it sold at auction and was moved a mile up the road. Because the school no longer sat on its original location, it was not eligible for preservation grants and could not be considered an historical site.
In 1981, a process began to move the original home of the Gray-Campbell Family to Nathanael Greene Park. Members of the “Friends of the Gray/Campbell farmstead” realized that moving the school to be near the Farmstead would add to the educational experience of those visiting the farm.
Liberty School was on land owned by Ron and Peggy Buchanan who agreed to let the Farmstead have the schoolhouse if they would move it from their property. In 2008, a fund was established at the Community Foundation of the Ozarks to receive donations towards this goal. After six years of money raising efforts, it was determined that the outside of the school and part of the inside would have to be replaced. While this was being accomplished, members began searching for authentic items to furnish the school.
Inside the School House
School Picture Day
Liberty school was founded in 1895 and held classes until 1951 when the school was consolidated with the Fair Grove School District. The students on this picture were from the 1947-48 school year.
A little back history:
In 1905 in Missouri, the Compulsory School Attendance Law was passed requiring students from ages 8 to 14 to be in school at least ¾ of the school term. Therefore, by 1906, in Greene County alone, 124 school districts had been created. Today, in Missouri students ages 7-17 are required to attend school. Travel was difficult in the rugged Ozark hills and roads were rare. The Ozarks lacked towns and cities. People lived on scattered homesteads farming and hunting for their needs. They seldom traveled to a commercial center for goods to trade. The 1905 law forced them to join their neighbors in erecting schoolhouses which were probably made of unpainted logs. If they were made out of boards, Missouri law required that they be painted white. The schoolhouse that parents of the Ozarks built was often the first community building in the area. It was built by local labor and paid for by subscription which meant the parents had to pay the cost of their children’s education locally. Many of these one room schools also served as the local church on Sunday, the meeting place on Saturday, and where citizens came to vote on election day. Students who lived too far to walk came by horse or horse-drawn kid hack or sulky. As the children grew to know each other and their pioneer parents met up and got acquainted, a sense of belonging to a particular area grew and the people slowly became a community.
A little back history:
In 1905 in Missouri, the Compulsory School Attendance Law was passed requiring students from ages 8 to 14 to be in school at least ¾ of the school term. Therefore, by 1906, in Greene County alone, 124 school districts had been created. Today, in Missouri students ages 7-17 are required to attend school. Travel was difficult in the rugged Ozark hills and roads were rare. The Ozarks lacked towns and cities. People lived on scattered homesteads farming and hunting for their needs. They seldom traveled to a commercial center for goods to trade. The 1905 law forced them to join their neighbors in erecting schoolhouses which were probably made of unpainted logs. If they were made out of boards, Missouri law required that they be painted white. The schoolhouse that parents of the Ozarks built was often the first community building in the area. It was built by local labor and paid for by subscription which meant the parents had to pay the cost of their children’s education locally. Many of these one room schools also served as the local church on Sunday, the meeting place on Saturday, and where citizens came to vote on election day. Students who lived too far to walk came by horse or horse-drawn kid hack or sulky. As the children grew to know each other and their pioneer parents met up and got acquainted, a sense of belonging to a particular area grew and the people slowly became a community.
Teachers of the One-Room School
With just one room also came just one teacher. This person acted as the teacher, principal, custodian, nurse, cook and any other job needed to keep the school going. Teachers could be as young as 16 and many had only finished school through the eighth grade making them not much older and sometimes younger than some of their students. Graduating the eight grade meant passing a test for each subject taught. Click here for a sample of this type of test from 1912. Sometimes there was an attachment to the school (or located close by) where a male teacher would live. If he was married, then his wife was expected to help out at the school. Single women teachers usually had to board with local families who provided supervision of the teacher’s social life. Women could not teach once they were married.
Other Duties As Assigned
Almost all job descriptions today include the line- Other duties as assigned. This was definitely the case when it came to teaching in a one-room school. The teachers who taught in these schools were very special people. In the winter, they had to get to school early to start a fire in the pot belly stove. Baking Irish or sweet potatoes in the ashes from the stove would be a treat for lunch. Otherwise, they carried their lunch in a sack or container from home. Sometimes the teacher or a parent might prepare lunch for their students consisting of soup or stew heated on the stove in a pot
.
.
Pot bellied stove used for heat and cooking.
|
This shelf was used to store the students lunches brought from home.
|
The Dunce Cap
Discipline was strict in the one room schools. One source of discipline was the dunce cap. The dunce hat originated with a Scottish philosopher name John Duns Scotus. This conical shaped hat (sometimes thought to be used to stimulate the brain into thinking) labeled with a big "D" or the word dunce was used to discipline unruly children. The term dunce, meaning fool or dimwit, was used in hopes of detouring students from bad behavior such as talking out, throwing spitballs, pulling hair, or passing notes. Many times the unruly student was not only made to wear the hat but also to stand or sit on a stool in the corner facing the wall. Other forms of punishments included pegging (tying ones hair to a peg on the wall), blocks (balancing on a small block), toes and nose (student stands on their toes and placing their nose in a circle drawn on the board), or having ones knuckles rapped with a ruler or stick. This sort of punishment meant to humiliate students often caused trauma and was banned in the 1950s. Other punishments less embarrassing included writing sentences or doing extra chores. For most students the punishment at school was not feared as much as what laid ahead for them once their siblings, who shared their classroom, returned home to let mom and dad know of the discretions.