Chapter 9, Education Summary and Analysis

Rural 'one-room' schoolhouses featured low pay, low standards, and a high turnover rate. Education was entirely optional, the school year lasted only a couple of months. The 'one-room' aspect of early schoolhouses meant that all grades of children from many different surrounding villages shared the same class. This invariably led to violence and fighting (especially inter-village feuds) among the children and a lack of discipline, resulting in one famous case in Massachusetts in 1870 of a schoolmarm being stoned to death by her students.

To fight this lack of discipline, teachers turned to brutal corporal punishment, methods that were at the time encouraged by educators and parents alike. Education became about physical punishment more than learning.

Black education in this time was pitiful due to racism and the 'separate but equal' legislation being completely ignored. Many racists felt that any...