A teacher shows her dog to her Washington, DC class, 1900. It’s interesting to note the animals drawn on the chalkboard. Perhaps the dog was a part of that day’s lesson?
Geography lesson in an unnamed Boston school, 1892
You’ve heard the expression “only has an 8th grade education”. Well, look at what an 8th grade education consisted of in the late 19th century. This is a complete typical 8th grade final exam from 1895. It’s nothing to scoff at. An original copy of the exam is on display at the Salina Historical Society in Salina, Kansas.
I normally write my own posts (and take pride in doing so) but due to the amount of information and the way it was laid out, it made more sense to copy and paste for this post. Therefore, you’ll have to excuse any grammatical errors there may be.
1. Give nine rules for the use of Capital Letters.
2. Name the Parts of Speech and define those that have no Modifications.
3. Define Verse, Stanza and Paragraph.
4. What are the Principal Parts of a verb? Give Principal Parts of lie, lay and run.
5. Define Case and illustrate each Case.
6. What is Punctuation? Give rules for principal marks of Punctuation.
7. Write a composition of about 150 words and show therein that you understand the practical use of the rules of grammar.
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Arithmetic (Time, 1.25 hours)
1. Name and define the Fundamental Rules of Arithmetic.
2. A wagon box is 2 ft. deep, 10 ft. long, and 3 ft. wide. How many bushels of wheat will it hold?
3. If a load of wheat weighs 3942 lbs., what is it worth at 50cts/bushel, deducting 1050 lbs. for tare?
4. District No. 33 has a valuation of $35,000. What is the necessary levy to carry on a school seven months at $50 per month and have $104 for incidentals?
5. Find the cost of 6720 lbs. of coal at $6.00 per ton.
6. Find the interest of $512.60 for 8 months and 18 days at 7 percent.
7. What is the cost of 40 boards 12 inches wide and 16 ft. long at $20 per meter?
8 Find bank discount on $300 for 90 days (no grace) at 10 percent.
9. What is the cost of a square farm at $15 per acre, the distance around which is 640 rods?
10. Write a Bank Check, a Promissory Note and a Receipt.
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U. S. History (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Give the epochs into which U. S. History is divided.
2. Give an account of the discovery of America by Columbus.
3. Relate the causes and results of the Revolutionary War.
4. Show the territorial growth of the United States.
5. Tell what you can of the history of Kansas.
6. Describe three of the most prominent battles of the Rebellion.
7. Who were the following: Morse, Whitney, Fulton, Bell, Lincoln, Penn, and Howe?
8. Name events connected with the following dates: 1607, 1620, 1800, 1849, 1865.
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Orthography (Time, one hour)
1. What is meant by the following: Alphabet, Phonetic, Orthography, Etymology, Syllabication?
2. What are elementary sounds? How classified?
3. What are the following, and give examples of each: Trigraph, Sub Vocals, Diphthong, Cognate Letters, Linguals?
4. Give four substitutes for caret ‘u’.
5. Give two rules for spelling words with final ‘e.’ Name two exceptions under each rule.
6. Give two uses of silent letters in spelling. Illustrate each.
7. Define the following prefixes and use in connection with a word: bi, dis, mis, pre, semi, post, non, inter, mono, sup.
8. Mark diacritically and divide into syllables the following, and name the sign that indicates the sound: card, ball, mercy, sir, odd, cell, rise, blood, fare, last.
9. Use the following correctly in sentences: cite, site, sight, fane, fain, feign, vane, vain, vein, raze, raise, rays.
10. Write 10 words frequently mispronounced and indicate pronunciation by use of diacritical marks and by syllabication.
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Geography (Time, one hour)
1. What is climate? Upon what does climate depend?
2. How do you account for the extremes of climate in Kansas?
3. Of what use are rivers? Of what use is the ocean?
4. Describe the mountains of North America.
5. Name and describe the following: Monrovia, Odessa, Denver, Manitoba, Hecla, Yukon, St. Helena, Juan Fernandez, Aspinwall and Orinoco.
6. Name and locate the principal trade centers of the U.S.
7. Name all the republics of Europe and give the capital of each.
8. Why is the Atlantic Coast colder than the Pacific in the same latitude?
9. Describe the process by which the water of the ocean returns to the sources of rivers.
10. Describe the movements of the earth. Give the inclination of the earth.
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Physiology (Time, 45 minutes)
1. Where are the saliva, gastric juice, and bile secreted? What is the use of each in digestion?
2. How does nutrition reach the circulation?
3. What is the function of the liver? Of the kidneys?
4. How would you stop the flow of blood from an artery in the case of laceration?
5. Give some general directions that you think would be beneficial to preserve the human body in a state of health.
The days of teachers disciplining students are gone. Nowadays, disciplining a student can lead to disciplinary action taken on that teacher. It’s a different world. So, how were students disciplined in school in the 19th century?
Punishments by teachers (or schoolmasters if the teacher was male) varied by school, but the following punishments were known to be standard types of discipline in many schools.
First off, punishment could be inflicted upon a student for any number of reasons, including misbehaving, rudeness, leaving the classroom without permission, laziness, lying, and missing school without a good reason.
A cane made of birch wood was the most common tool used for punishment. Boys were typically caned on their backsides whereas girls would be caned on their legs or hands. Though teachers would usually deliver the punishment themselves, they would sometimes select an older student to cane a younger one. In the case of this type of physical discipline, a student would rarely tell their parents about it once they got home. If parents found out their child was punished at school, they would often give their child even more physical punishment at home. Parents would never question a teacher about their actions. They would assume their child deserved to be disciplined for whatever reason the teacher thought necessary.
Another popular form of punishment was the dunce cap, usually made of newspaper, in which a student was forced to sit in a corner of the classroom for an hour or longer. The dunce cap was used mostly to humiliate a student for not being up to speed in their lessons with other students. At the time, there was no concept of students learning at different rates, having different methods of learning, or even of having learning disabilities. Everyone was expected to learn at the same pace; if a student couldn’t, it called for disciplinary action, as that student was considered to be lazy even if they were giving it their all.
Many students were disciplined for using their left hand to write. Those who were left-handed were looked at as inferior to those who were right-handed. It was sometimes even believed that being left-handed was a curse. Many students were forced to learn to write with their right hand or face disciplinary action.
“Punishment baskets” were used in some schools, in which a student was made to sit in a wicker basket which was suspended from the ceiling by ropes and pulleys. Like the dunce cap, this was also a form of discipline made to embarrass the student into doing better.
Sometimes students were assigned “lines”, which was a punishment involving writing out the same sentence over 100 times without making a single mistake. Making a mistake would lead to more punishment.
“The Geography Lesson”, 1851
The first school buses in the United States were introduced in the 1880s. They were horse-drawn wagons called “school hacks”, or “kid hacks”. School hacks were scarce, only a few towns throughout the country having access to this type of student transportation. As there weren’t many school hacks in existence, there are very few photos of them. Here are two from around 1910.
Boston’s Emerson School for Girls, 1850s
Girls’ gym class. Charlestown High School (Boston), 1893
Remember using multiplication flashcards as a child? In 1840, “Marmaduke Multiply” was published to help children learn multiplication tables through rhymes. The book was a success, so much so that it was republished a number of times throughout the 19th century, with a variation to page 70 in order to appear a little more politically correct for the time. Below is each page of the original 1840 book, including the revised page 70 (last image) so you can see the politically correct revision made.
