Recalling the good old days in Texas schools

Edited by Jim Fish

Editor’s Note: This article was originally written in Braille in 1935 by Mrs. B. M. Roberts, who then resided with her husband at the Confederate Home convalescent facility in Austin, Texas. Mrs. Roberts, who has been blind from childhood, had the copy translated into conventional print for publication.

“School times in the pioneer days of Texas were different in every respect to our modern and up-to-date schools of 1935. The schoolhouses of today are warm and comfortable, and in the large cities they are heated and are equipped with electric lights, water, and sewerage systems. All pupils from the little tots up have many more studies than the children in the early school days of Texas.

“In these modern times, we have a teacher for every subject, but in those old days one teacher was thought sufficient to teach an entire school. Reading, writing, and arithmetic was often taught by the ‘rule of the hickory switch.’ It is needless to say that this rule was not enforced very often, as one application was considered quite enough and the lessons were all well memorized, as that was one of the outstanding rules in the good old schools of long ago.

“In the early school days of Texas, very few people lived near the schoolhouse. Many of the pupils had to walk from two to four miles twice a day to and from school, and three months was the limit of the school term. A dollar and a half to two dollars was the regular tuition fee charged for each scholar. This was paid at the end of each month. Later the South was given the benefits of free schools when the term was lengthened to six months.

“Often the fathers or older brothers would have to take their guns and accompany the children to school for the Indians had not been entirely driven out of the country, and often a band of these savages would swoop down on a little settlement of white people during the light of the moon, and strike terror into the hearts of the bravest of them.

“The children, in going to and from school, went through many dangers and hardships, which the boys and girls of today know nothing about, only through the pages of history. The schoolhouses were log cabins, and for heating purposes we had the old stick and mud chimneys, the puncheon floor and split log benches without any back to them, and by the time the day was over we were thoroughly tired. Our desk to write on was a long smooth slab which reached almost the length of the room, two feet in width, and slanted so as to rest our arms while writing. The teacher "set the copies" for us to write by.

“It was customary for every man who had children attending school to haul a load of wood to the schoolhouse when it came his turn to do so. An axe was furnished, and the larger boys chopped the wood and kept the fires burning for the school, as it was mostly in the wintertime that our school was taught. In the spring all the boys had to help their fathers with the farm work, while the girls helped their mothers with the garden work, and there was always plenty to do on the farm for both boys and girls. But they all led a happy and contented life.

“Teachers in the old pioneer days shared with their pupils the dangers and hardships that were peculiar to all newly settled regions. Those teachers loved their work and took pride in the advancement of each individual scholar, for they realized that those children must increase while they decreased, and it was their great desire that each' child attending their school should be qualified to take the place of the pioneer teachers in the world's work, when they themselves would be called to higher service.”