Education in the 1800's
If you had attended public schools (or "common schools", as they were then known) in the Nineteenth Century, you would have spent only a few weeks each year actually in the classroom. If you were a small child, you probably would have attended in the summer term, which usually ran in Mayand June, and your teacher would most likely have been a woman. If you were older, you would have gone to school in the winter term, which usually ran in December and January; and you would almost invariably have been taught by a man - until the Civil War. It was believed that women could not maintain discipline among the bigger boys, but the Civil War caused such a shortage of manpower that schools were forced to let females try their hand at teaching in the winter term.
The experts were amazed that this experiment proved successful, no unusual discipline problems were reported; and from 1865 on, more and more female teachers were employed to instruct students of all ages. Until the end of the Century, these schools were ungraded, and it was not uncommon to have students in their late teens attending classes in the same one-room school with six or seven year-olds under the supervision of one teacher.
Free public high schools did not appear in Maine until the 1890s, and students who wanted to further their education or prepare for college had to pay tuition to attend an academy or seminary if there was one nearby, or make travel and boarding arrangements elsewhere. In 1869, Turner, like every other community in Maine, was divided into numerous "school districts" within its boundaries. This little town had 19 "districts" comprising 20 one-room schools! These were superintended by a committee of three townsmen, who reported to the State Superintendent of Common Schools.
Although the one-room school did not entirely disappear until the middle of the Twentieth Century, by the 1890s, most communities had abolished the numerous little districts within their boundaries and had built schoolhouses that contained graded classrooms from the kindergarten or 1st grade through grades 8 or 9. The curriculum had expanded to include art, music, and physical education. It was felt that a regular regimen of exercise helped students to be more wide-awake and attentive! Turner did not get a high school until 1895, when a generous native of the town who had made a fortune in New York City endowed the Leavitt Institute.
