Schools

. Before midcentury, most communities that devoted resources to public education would have felt a sense of accomplishment if they had managed to maintain a single, one-room building whose sole function was to serve as a school. In some areas of the country, schoolrooms consisted of little more than the corner of a church or a town hall, though in many rural communities, and especially in larger towns and cities, the "one-room schoolhouse" had emerged as the standard model for common-school instruction. Inside the schoolhouse, teachers faced the daunting task of trying to conduct classes that would benefit children at all levels, from toddlers of only five or six years old to young adults of fourteen and fifteen. With educational standards still only beginning to take shape by 1850, no two classrooms were exactly alike. Many students attended school irregularly, enrolling as family...