The memoirs of Judge Augustin H. Hansell (1817-1907) describe his experiences as a student in a common school of the Wiregrass Georgia frontier. He started his education in 1822 at Milledgeville, GA at the age of five or six.
Engraving of early log schoolhouse with children playing at recess.
In his memoirs he describes the schoolhouse of his childhood.
1822
About this time and when only in my sixth year, I started to school…The school was about two and a half miles from our home, and the walk seemed rather long for a five year old. Our nearest way took us off the public road and directly through the extensive orchard and yards of my grandfather…But let us get back to school. The house was about 25 x 20 feet in size. The roof was of boards held in place by small logs laid across them and held in place by wooden pegs. The floor was of puncheons and on two sides of the room a log was sawed out to give light, especially for writing, and boards were fastened inside so that they could be drawn up and fastened by leather thongs. These were tied to wooden pegs, as there were no nails used in the building, which was literally built by hand, and no nails, glass or brick were found there. In one corner stood a large block about two feet high and known as the “Dunce Block,” upon which some unfortunate boy had to stand often for an hour, and if it was a bad case, a dunce cap made of paper and about three feet high was placed on his head. And in addition, a pair of spectacles with bark in the place of glass, was placed over his eyes. The only door was of boards and was fastened by a chain and padlock and the key kept by the teacher.
Hansell also talks of ghostly encounters walking home from school. He mentions that schooling continued even in the Summer and that the Fourth of July was expected as a school holiday.
Early schools were also a subject of the 1894-1895 report on the state of education in the United States produced by the Commissioner of Education, William Torrey Harrison. This was only the second such volume that had been produced. A chapter on early educational life in Georgia addresses the period before the Civil War and describes the typical common schoolhouse of the time in rural Georgia, which was to say in all of Georgia except perhaps Savannah and Augusta.
Schoolhouses
A place was selected on the edge of a wood and a field turned out to fallow, sufficiently central, hard by a spring of purest fresh water, a loghouse was put up, say 30 by 25 feet, with one door and a couple of windows and shelves, with benches along the unceiled walls, and the session began. Most families breakfasted about sunrise, and a brisk walk of three-quarters of an hour brought even remotest dwellers to the early opening.
In Judge Augustin H. Hansell’s school days, lighting the schoolhouse fire was a daily chore. Friction matches, known as “lucifer matches” or “loco foco matches”, had yet to be invented.
The one who happened to reach the schoolhouse first on winter mornings kindled a fire. This was before the date of lucifer matches. In winter half-burned logs were so disposed beneath ashes on the huge fireplaces as to preserve fire through the night, which was quickly rekindled by the aid of pine knots always on hand. To provide against failure, the master and some of the larger boys carried a small piece of rotten wood -punk- obtained from a decayed oak, which, being held under a flintstone and struck with a steel blade of a pocket knife, produced sparks, igniting the wood. There was seldom any suffering from cold. At noon a recess of two hours was allowed for dinner and sports. On days when the sun shone, the hour was made known by its reaching a mark on the floor by the door or one of the window-sills. In cloudy weather it was guessed at. The idea of a schoolmaster owning a watch did not enter anybody’s mind. When the day was done, dismissal was out and out. There were no keepings-in at noon or evening tide. Each day had its own history and no more; whatever was done was done for all henceforth – recitings, good or bad, punishments big or little, became things of the past, though their likes were sure to be enacted on every day thereafter. The meaning is that nothing was put off, no more than a breakfast, for the morrow. The master went silently to the house where he boarded, and the pupils, boys and girls, whipped and unwhipped, turning their backs upon everything, journeyed leisurely along, boys anon rallying one another on the day’s misadventures, personal and vicarious, and the girls behind laughing at them, occasionally lingering to gather and weave into nosegays wild flowers, that in all seasons, except the depth of winter, bordered their way along roads and lanes.
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