by Lishai
School in the early 1900's was in some ways the same and in some ways different than today. Today, at Mark's Meadow, we have more then 3 classes. In 1940, the North Amherst School had a 1-2, 3-4, and a 5-6 class. Between 1940 and 1952 the classes grew. In 1952 there were 5 classes. A 6th grade, a 1st grade, a 2-3, and 3rd grade in the morning and a 4th grade class in the afternoon.
In the early nineteen hundreds, the teachers were allowed to hit students on the hand if they misbehaved. Students went from one lesson to the next.
In the period prior to the building of the North Amherst School, school teachers were often very young -- sometimes younger than their oldest students. The teacher checked students' lessons in their recitations. In rural areas, students only went to school in the winter and in the summer, leaving the fall free for harvest and the spring for planting. Students copied their lessons on a slate, but if the slate got erased, they had to do it all over again!
This is a picture of a North Amherst School group from 1903.
This is a picture of a manual from the North Amherst School from 1914-1915.