h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

I bet when the schoolhouse was cold, they all tried to get close to the fire.

Of al the things I have now, I guess the warmth of my furnace is what I treasure most. Second comes the food.

The students were young. Old age if they got there at all, would have been a challenge.

It is true that there was high mortality among young children - but the 'scholars' were likely to go all the way up to early 20s, depending on how badly they wanted to learn. School terms were short, and built around planting and harvesting seasons.

I was looking up some people today who were born in the late 1700s. One of them lived to be 102.

My favourite find a long time ago was a newspaper ad in upstate New York in the early 1800s. A family were trying to find great-grandpa. He was over 100, but he wouldn't stay home. He was known to 'roam'. Also to sleep outdoors. And get drunk and carouse. It was very embarrassing to the family...

Lovely details in this, wish my school was like this one!

I took this from several accounts of these one-room schools. Of course, they persisted well into the 20th Century in some places.

My dad went to a modern high school, but his elementary school was a one-room affair like this one, although they had printed books. One evening, he and his immediate boss at US Steel were reminiscing about it after dinner at our house. Mr H. was proud that he could still recite 'Tell Me Not in Mournful Numbers' by Longfellow - it was in their reader. They used some version of the 'Blue-Backed Speller' by Noah Webster. This was in the 1930s!

They walked to school, which was way out in the country, had pot-bellied stoves and water from a well, and took their lunches in an old bucket. (Hence 'lunch pail'.)

I don't criticise it - these guys were engineers, designing bridges and stadia for as far away as Iran.

The sums were horrible.
Mind you, I seem to remember working out the interest on a sum in pounds, shillings and pence.

You have my admiration, MVP.

And my sympathy.

Anyone notice #33 and #34 are the same question?

Educational as ever.

I wondered if you'd notice that - typesetters, drunken typesetters...

Don't upset the typesetters.

Lest you end up with tyupsetters