A Personal Reminiscence
by Ross Bloomquist
This story of my days in a one‑room rural school in Birtsell Township, Foster County, North Dakota, has come almost exclusively from recollections of those days. I have not consulted others or the existing official records except to confirm my memories; I have, however, used the few mementos in my possession which have survived. As the writing proceeded one recollection brought on another and the final draft has turned out to be much longer than I had anticipated. I am sure I have omitted many interesting and diverting anecdotes. My intent has been rather to describe the milieu in which I received my elementary school education. The period included World War I; it cannot be considered pioneer days in any sense of the word. The activities of the farming community had already settled down to a pattern which remained virtually unchanged during my seven years in the school. The school had been in existence for at least 20 years when I started in 1914. There was a succession of teachers, no one stayed more than two terms, but the environs and methods of instruction varied only slightly over the years.
Changes nevertheless, were in the air. At least half a dozen of the farms of the community changed ownership or occupancy during the period and the methods of farming were in transition. Tractors were beginning to displace horses and automobiles on improved roads were enlarging the community.
Radio soon came to widen the horizons even more. The Depression of the 1930s slowed down the changes, World War II accelerated them and the 1950s the rural school was a dying institution. It is my hope that I can recreate at least partially the educational aspects of these days of more than fifty years ago.
Once I started going to school I liked it. In my preschool days I was of a different opinion. I stated quite emphatically that I would Never go any farther than the telephone pole at the corner of the front yard. Nevertheless, even at that early age I had learned my letters from the inscriptions on the nickel‑plated base burner in the living room and the combination wood‑coal range in the kitchen. Neither alphabet was complete. Just below the isinglass windows of the base burner a shiny ledge spelled out "PENINSULAR." The range had an oval medallion on the oven door which proclaimed the stove's name "KALAMAZOO." There was a fascination in the letters but they had no message to convey to me.
In the spring of 1914 I was a few months over six and really anxious to begin school. On my first day, late in April, Mother escorted me the quarter of a mile to the schoolhouse just before one o'clock. She talked briefly with Miss Wightman, the teacher, who assigned me a small desk at the rear of the file and near the door. I cannot really remember what happened that afternoon. Mother brought me again the next day but on the third I was impatient and walked by myself on a dreary damp day to arrive during the morning recess. The next day I was ready and waiting and joined the Carlson girls, Edna and Verna, as they passed by our house on their way to school. I had committed myself wholeheartedly to the process of being educated.
I have many memories; most of them pleasant, of the seven years I spent in School No. 3, Birtsell School District No. 20. I progressed normally except that I missed either the second or third grade. I passed the eighth grade examinations in the spring of 1921 and started high school in Carrington the following fall. My descriptions of the schoolhouse, its environs, the children and teachers, the school administration and methods of instruction, the games we played and the programs and events which were a part of our activities are as I recall them. They were, I think, typical of the one‑room rural schools of the day, although I believe that we had a somewhat richer but no more progressive environment than some.
Birtsell School District No. 3 did not take in all of the six mile square Birtsell Township. Several sections surrounding the settlement at Barlow in Birtsell and Estabrook Townships had been separated to form a special school district, Barlow No. 21. Early in the 1900s there were enough families in the village and nearby to establish a two‑room school. There were two other schools in the Birtsell District: School No. 1 in the southeast part of the township was closed, no children were living in that area. School No. 2 east of Lemert and five and a half miles away from No. 3 by road was open. In the middle 1920s there was a considerable increase in the school population of the district and three new schoolhouses were built. The Birtsell No. 3 schoolhouse burned down in 1929; It was never replaced.
The Birtsell No. 3 schoolhouse was old even when I started in the first grade in the spring of 1914. My mother had gone to school in the very same building when it was located farther east on the road to Barlow. I do not know why or when it was moved to the location at the northeast corner of the northwest quarter of section 10 in Birtsell Township, two and a half miles west of Barlow, and a quarter of a mile east of the Bloomquist farm buildings.
The school yard of somewhat more than an acre was virgin prairie, not absolutely level since the northeast corner next to the quarter line collected water after a heavy rain or during the spring thaws. During vacation time many species of prairie flowers managed to grow and bloom in spite of the children's efforts to wear out the grasses and plants during playtime. Among the flowers blooming in the summer were two types of legumes or vetches with pale purple blossoms and bean‑like pods which I have never encountered elsewhere. We called them "buffalo beans." Later in June there were even a few ripe wild strawberries hiding in the grass.
Besides the schoolhouse there were three other structures on the school grounds. The ramshackle barn near the south boundary had in years past stabled the horses of children who rode or drove to school. I do not recall that it was ever used for this purpose during my days of attendance. In the distant past it had been painted red but most of the color had long since weathered away. Its unshingled board roof sloped to the south. Two doors faced north toward the schoolhouse and road. The one to the west opened into a partitioned off space used for a coal bin. The other opened to a space without mangers or stalls but some worn out straw on the dirt floor gave the place a slightly horsey odor. It also smelled of skunk for these wandering predators had sometimes raised their young in dens dug under the barn. More than once the Bloomquist hen house was raided by the skunks to find fresh meat for their kids. We played in the barn occasionally on rainy days but its main use was as a place to hide behind during recess and noon time hide‑and‑go‑seek games. It was always forbidden but the larger boys thought it daring to climb up on the roof from the lower south side and then jump off onto the ground or in winter into the softer snow drifts below.
The two outhouses, boys' and girls', were situated along the west boundary of the school yard. The girls' was directly west of the schoolhouse and the boys' about 30 feet farther south. The rear of the two little houses also served as hiding places during games.
The schoolhouse itself was a simple frame structure about 20 by 30 feet with a shingled gable roof with a belfry at the east end. The windowless entry facing east also had a smaller gabled roof. The exterior had been painted white with red trim around the windows, eaves and corners. It was never repainted during my days there. Both the north and south side had two windows placed symmetrically, the east wall had two flanking the entry. The west wall was blank except for the brick chimney protruding from the west gable.
The entry was windowless except for the transom over the door, had hooks and nails to hang coats and caps. The lunch pails were set on the floor before the cold of winter set in. A small bench held a water pail with a dipper and the wash basin we all used.
There was a hole in the ceiling through which there should have been the rope attached to the bell. The rope had long since worn out and was never replaced.
In spite of the windows on three sides of the interior, the schoolroom was dark and uninviting when school was not in session. The wood walls and ceiling painted a bluish gray were sometimes cleaned but never repainted during my years in attendance. No permanent pictures relieved the monotony of the dull walls. The floor was dark and splintery. A six-inch high platform projected about five feet from the west wall. It stuck out a little farther in the center to give just enough space for the teacher's desk and the wastepaper basket.
A huge shiny black circular coal stove occupied a considerable portion of the north wall. I have never seen another quite like it. Basically it was a large potbellied stove enclosed in a sheet metal casing about five feet in diameter and the same height The cast iron doors of the fire box and ash pit were flush with the case. Sharp, serrated or crown‑like points decorated the upper edge of the case. Around the bottom at floor level vents which could be opened or closed by slides controlled the flow of heat around the firebox so that the room was heated by convection as well as radiation. The casing itself was a protection for the children; it never became too hot to touch. No child was ever burned by coming into contact with the stove. Within the casing the dome over the firebox had a flat top. In winter when the stove was in use water in a pan or pot set on it would come to boil in a few minutes. The hot lunches were prepared there.
The pipe from the stove to the chimney came out only a few inches from the north wall. Protective metal plates shielded the pipe from the wall and ceiling. In a year the paint on the shields would become blistered by the hot gases radiating from the stove pipe. The shields failed to protect the walls one night in 1929, the walls caught fire and the building burned down.
The stove pipe angled across the room to the chimney in the center of the west wall. The base of the chimney was supported on a wood platform about six feet above the floor. A cupboard under the platform was used to store spare textbooks. Slate blackboards on either side of the cupboard occupied the rest of the west wall. Several composition boards were attached to the other walls.
The teacher's desk on the platform was placed so that she faced the children sitting at their desks. The desk had a shallow center drawer where she kept her records. Chalk and supplies for handiwork and her personal belongings filled the side drawers. A row of textbooks held in place by bookends were lined up on the side of the desk toward the children. Six kindergarten‑size chairs stood in a row on the platform to the right of the teacher's desk. The children sat in these chairs when they were reciting.
The pupils' desks of the combination style were new the fall before I started school. They were bright and shiny with a heavy durable coat of varnish which resisted the children's efforts to mar them. The backs and seats were light colored wood, the cast iron metal frames were black. The desk tops were reddish brown with a groove for holding pencils and a never‑used inkwell. Below the sloping tops each desk had a level shelf large enough to hold a half dozen textbooks, a few pencils, tablets of writing paper, crayons and a paint box. Most of the desks had a hinged seat in front so that they could be arranged in files from front to back. There were in all about 25 desks of graduated sizes to fit all from the tiny first graders to the near adult eighth grade pupils. The arrangement of the desks depended on the teacher's wishes. Usually they were screwed to the floor in 3 or 4 files with the seated children facing the blackboards on the west wall. One teacher liked the desks of similar sizes paired to allow for wider aisles.
A four‑shelf bookcase with glass doors stood along the south wall. The bottom shelf held an old three volume encyclopedia with "teaching aids." During my time in school a new twelve‑volume "World Book" was added to this shelf. The three other shelves held a miscellaneous collection. Only a few were actually children's books; many were what is nowadays called adult fiction. I remember reading "Robinson Crusoe, " Dickens "Tale of Two Cities" and "David Copperfield, " Scott's "Ivanhoe, " Maculay's "Lays of Ancient Rome, " Bulwer-Litton's "The Last Days of Pompeii, " Mark Twain's "Prince and the Pauper." Others were "Mrs. Wiggs of the Cabbage Patch, " "Anne of Green Gables" and sequels, "Little Women" and "Little Men, " several bird books and an oversized "Mammals of North America." An authorized biography of Billy Sunday and one of Gypsy Smith, the English Evangelist, were somewhat out of place in the collection. The dozen or so books added almost every year made the library at the school one of the best in the county.
The tattered and dog‑eared Webster's Unabridged Dictionary had a shelf of its own. On rainy recesses the children often amused themselves by looking at the inset illustrations. It was rarely used for definitions or spellings.
A twelve inch globe suspended from the ceiling over the teacher's desk helped a little to dispel the gloom of the school room. The suspension consisted of a cord running over pulleys attached to the meridian of the globe and the wall to a counterweight. By raising the weight the globe could be lowered so that the varicolored countries and the oceans could be inspected at the children's level. A case with maps on rollers hung over the south blackboard. There were maps of each of the continents and one showing the states. The divisions into countries was obsolete but not as old, I think, as those of my father's geography where Nebraska, Kansas and Oklahoma were labeled the "Great American Desert." While I was in the upper grades, a large new map of North Dakota made its appearance. The counties showed plainly and the teacher thought it worthwhile for all of us to memorize the names of the 53 counties in sequence. We learned them in columns up and down starting in the northeast corner: "Pembina, Walsh, Grand Forks . . ." and so ending . . . "Golden Valley, Slope, Bowman." We practiced until we were able to recite the names of all without hesitation in a sing‑song fashion.
A reed organ of unknown vintage standing along the south wall was a prized possession of the school. Some of the teachers could play fairly well and were musical enough to lead up in singing many songs during the day, hymns, Civil War songs, and Christmas carols. None of the children's playing abilities had advanced beyond "Chopsticks."
The phonograph purchased from the proceeds of the whistle social in 1920 stood next to the organ. It had a polished mahogany case with space below for records and a hinged lid over the playing mechanism. It played only 78 rpm records, the microgroove 45's and 33's were 40 years in the future. In my day there were no more than a dozen records. I can recall only a single selection, Brahm's Waltz in A Flat as a violin solo with piano accompaniment. Both the organ and the phonograph were lost in the 1929 fire.
Compared to the classrooms of modern schools Birtsell No. 3 was a rather dreary place when school was not in session. The teachers did all they could to liven the atmosphere. They made curtains to cover the bottom third of the lower sashes on the windows. Colorful pictures drawn or traced by the primary children were tacked along the walls and blackboards. On sunny days the light pouring in the east and south windows made splashes of glaring illumination on the floor and desks. The light reflecting from the shiny desk tops made bright spots here and there on the walls and ceiling and sometimes in the eyes of the children. On cloudy days the light coming in from three sides made dark and light areas haphazardly across the room changing as the day progressed. In midwinter the sun was near setting by the time school closed for the day and the room was becoming immersed in shadow.
The children came from an area within a radius of about two and a half miles around the school. Only seven, including me, were attending when I began in the spring of 1914. A few years later the number of children increased to 20 or 25 since the Birtsell school was also accommodating children from Rosefield Township in Eddy County. There were too few children just over the county line to make a school worthwhile in the southern part of the township.
One student, Aljot Pearson, age about 20 and a recent immigrant from Norway, was attending only to learn a little English. Later the Rosefield township had their own school so the population of Birtsell No. 3 decreased.
Most of the children lived within a two‑mile distance from the school, with a couple that were near three miles away. The teachers always lived (boarded) with the Wigams which was about a mile away. They usually lived in homes that had an extra room for them. The maximum tenure of the teachers during my attendance at Birtsell No. 3 was two terms. All were young, usually just out of high school with no more than a term or two at normal school. They had only provisional teaching certificates and most of them were required to take "teacher's examinations" at the County Superintendent's office to gain certification. I have no idea of the content of these examinations, but they were not easy. My eighth grade teacher failed the examination and was no longer permitted to teach. I was sorry to see her go. She was not a poor teacher or overwhelmed by the children, although I think she was better suited for teaching the primary grades‑ I know the little kids loved her. A former teacher substituted for the remaining two or three months of the term.
In trying to recall my thoughts and impressions of the series of teachers of almost sixty years ago, I find my memories are often vague and confused. Speaking generally, however, there was none that I really disliked. I respected all of them, they treated me kindly and my later experiences tell me that I was well taught, drilled or what have you in the fundamental subjects, reading, writing, spelling, arithmetic, geography, history. There was some misinformation handed out but I was usually acute enough to know when such was the case. By modern standards, I suppose, all of my teachers were inadequately prepared for teaching children. Nevertheless, all of them knew the subject matter they were trying to teach and were able to transmit it onto their pupils. None of them lacked the ability to maintain discipline and to dominate the classroom. Serious conflicts between teacher and student never developed and her authority was never challenged. I do not remember that anyone was ever spanked or struck by the teacher. I do recall, however, one who used to put one of the little boys in a corner with a dunce cap on his head when he failed to meet his teacher's expectations.
Some of the beginning pupils started school with little or no knowledge of English. The teachers took this deficiency in stride, no point was made of it and the children were given no special instruction. In a few months the children's use of English and their accents were no different from the rest.
During my attendance at the Birtsell school all of the teachers except one came from an area at some distance from Foster County. Consequently they had somewhat different cultural backgrounds and viewpoints. Most of them grew up in small towns rather than rural areas. All of them opened a window for us to a world a little larger than our immediate surroundings. They taught us more than the specific subjects required by the official course of study. As far as I was concerned their efforts to teach us to speak correctly was the most important and lasting. We were drilled to avoid "ain't, " double negatives, the John‑he construction, the use of them instead of these and those and others which contributed to the sloppiness of the local speech.
To the students the teacher appeared to be an absolute monarch over the school and its students. This attitude was encouraged by the parents but she was actually subject to the authority of the County Superintendent and the elected school board which paid her salary. The three‑member school board was chosen by the voters of the district early in June. The members were elected for three years in overlapping terms. A treasurer for the district was also chosen at the same time. The board appointed a clerk, or secretary, to record the minutes of the monthly meetings and to make the required red tape reports to the school superintendent, county auditor and treasurer and to make out the warrants to pay the teacher's monthly salaries. The school board's responsibilities were defined by law. They prepared a budget, suggested the levy for taxes, hired the teachers, purchased supplies, textbooks and fuel, provided transportation for the children, if necessary, and supervised the maintenance of the school buildings and grounds. When it became necessary to make major decisions, as for example building a new school house or making extensive repairs, the directors referred the issue to the voters in a special election before going ahead.
The school board was not directly involved in the curriculum mandated by the state or in teaching methods. These were the province of the Superintendent of Schools elected by the voters of the county. Usually a teacher with considerable teaching experience, the superintendent had the responsibility of overseeing the activities of the individual teachers and served as a liaison with the State Department of Education. There was also a deputy superintendent to run the office in the Courthouse. Each of the teachers submitted monthly and end of the school year annual reports to the superintendent's office and received teaching aids, notices of regulations and meetings. The superintendent visited each school once or twice a year, set up weeklong "teachers' institutes" in the Courthouse to present new teaching methods, resolve problems, show new textbooks and the like. She also determined if the teachers met the minimum requirements for certification. It is my impression that the superintendent was there to help and guide the teachers rather than to make them "tow the line."
For several years there was a school nurse for the county, a Miss Zimmerman. She was not well liked. She spent most of the day at each school once a year giving us cursory physical examinations, testing eyes, looking for cavities. If she found any condition which she thought needed further attention she filled out a bright red card describing the condition of the child to take to his parents. I am not sure why she was disliked, it must have been her abrasive personality. She was not replaced by another school nurse.
According to the state law the school term was 180 days, holidays included. School usually started the Tuesday after Labor Day and continued five days a week and terminated just before Memorial Day, May 30. Thanksgiving and the day after were the only holidays which broke into the school week. At Christmas and the New Year there was a two week vacation; from then on school continued without a scheduled break until the end of the school year. There was no time off at Easter. School was not in session during the teacher's institutes or examinations and on the state mandated eighth grade examination days for all except the examinees. School sessions were not suspended during fall or spring work on the farms as had been the case during earlier years when children were needed at home. In 1918 the school was closed for two weeks at the height of the influenza epidemic. Several school families including the Bloomquists, were not affected by the plague. The lost days were made up by sessions on Saturdays for a number of weeks in the early spring. I did not like the idea at all and considered going to Sunday School during these weeks unnecessary‑ seven days a week in school was too much.
Since I lived only a quarter of a mile away I always walked to and from school regardless of the weather. It was a pleasant trip most of the time but another matter in winter. A time or two I got a little frost bitten on my face walking home in below‑zero weather when a brisk northwest wind was blowing. All the other children walked except in wet or stormy weather. In the pleasant spring and fall mornings I would watch for the children approaching from the west, their lunch pails glistening in the sun. My dog, Snookum, and I would join them as they walked past our front yard and we would proceed leisurely but not quite as slowly as Shakespeare's schoolboy: "With his satchel and shining mornings face, creeping like a snail, unwilling to school." Oft the road we could see the teacher and the kids from the south coming over the slight elevation on the quarter line. We all converged at the school ground about 15 minutes before the hour of nine. We put our lunch pails, books and homework in the entry and talked or ran about haphazardly until the ding‑dong of the teacher's hand bell summoned us to our seats.
Usually there were opening exercises to settle us down but no Pledge of Allegiance or canned prayer were recited. Some of the teachers would read several pages from some story book or other. I first became acquainted with L.M. Montgomery's "Ann of Green Gables" in this fashion. The more musically accomplished teachers led us in two or three songs, all stanzas, while she played the organ. We had several song books of the community sing type, a Sunday School hymnbook from the Congregational Church in Barlow, and a paperback school song book of the turn of the century. Over the years we became familiar with a number of patriotic and Civil War songs, Stephen Foster melodies, Christmas carols and a few popular songs of the day. The list is too long to recount here. One tune we sang many times and never heard in the years between became a popular song on radio 35 years later. When General MacArthur gave his farewell speech before the joint houses of Congress on April 19, 1951, he concluded by quoting the old army song: "Old Soldiers Never Die, They Just Fade Away." When the networks took up the song I recognized the tune; we had sung it to the words, "Kind Words Will Never Die."
The opening exercises took about 15 minutes and as soon as everyone was seated the nitty‑gritty of education began. The school day was broken up by a 15‑minute recess from 10:30 to 10:45, noon time from 12:00 to 1:00 and a final recess from 2:30 to 2:45. School closed at 4:00 p.m. Occasionally some children had to "stay after school" for some infraction of the rules, or failure to respond properly in class or to complete homework. Ordinarily staying after school was a punitive, rather than a teaching, experience.
The schedule of classes will be described as I recall it when I was in the upper grades. No attempt will be made here to describe or comment on the methods by which we were taught and educated. The first session was devoted to reading starting with the primary grades and continuing grade by grade. The teacher announces "First Grade Reading, " the children rise from their desks, walk up to the platform and seat themselves on the little chairs and the 10 or 15 minute instruction period begins. Usually the child stood while reading from his book. In the intermediate and upper grades the instruction for two classes was often combined, as for example 4th and 5th, 7th and 8th, depending on the number and maturity of the children in the grades. The children not reciting were expected to remain in their seats studying and not communicating, "whispering, " or passing notes to their neighbors.
If a student needed 'to leave his seat for any reason, sharpen his pencil, get a book from the bookcase, go to the outside toilet he raises his hand. When he gets the teacher's attention she addresses him by name and he states his request. For example, he asks, "May I leave the room?" The teacher nods assent unless someone is already out for a similar reason. If so, the child has to wait until the return of the other. One teacher decided arbitrarily‑ no leaving the room during class time. The inevitable happened, a little pool appeared under the seat of a weeping first grader. The rule was rescinded forthwith.
Recess at half past ten helped to release some of the excess energy the children had stored up during the hour and a half spent at their desks. As soon as recess was announced the children hurried from their seats to go to their lunch pails for a snack, half a sandwich or a cookie. Someone says, "Let's play hide‑and‑go‑seek, " the rest agree and the game begins. Often the teacher joins in and all get so engrossed in the game that the recess stretches to 20 to 25 minutes. When the weather was rainy, snowy or extremely cold games were played at the blackboard or at the seats. The same general procedure was followed after noon time lunch and during the afternoon recess. A wide variety of games were played; rules will be given in the discussion extracurricular activities.
Game playing was not the only occupation of two of the older boys. Often they were asked to get a pail of water from the Bloomquist well. There was no source of water on the school grounds and no opportunity to bring it in the morning when everyone walked to school carrying books and lunch pails. The water carrying job was not difficult and the 15 minute recess was plenty of time to make the half mile round trip. Filling the 12‑quart pail at the well was easy, only a dozen strokes up and down on the pump handle was sufficient. The difficulties came when two boys holding the pail started the trip back. Whether in step or not the motion of the boys set the water sloshing back and forth and soon the water was splashing over the edge. By the time the boys had reached the schoolhouse the pail was never more than half full. This small amount of water was usually enough except on the warmest of days when the boys would have to make another trip after lunch.
The interval from recess to noon was devoted to numbers and arithmetic. Most of the time the various grades had been assigned problems to work during their free time at school or as homework. These were handed in to be corrected later and more problems were worked at the board during class time. By the time the upper grades had finished everyone was pretty well exhausted and it was time for lunch. In good weather grades 1, 2 and 3 were excused half an hour early and allowed to play by themselves in the school yard.
Everyone brought lunch in some sort of a metal container, never in a paper bag. One or two quart "syrup" pails were the most common. Those whose fathers used tobacco often had oblong tobacco boxes with handles and lids and so designed that they were satisfactory lunch boxes. My lunch usually consisted of two or three sandwiches, jelly, egg or peanut butter, a piece of fried chicken or a cold wiener, an apple, pear, orange or banana, cookies and sometimes a piece of cake or pie. There was always enough for snacks at recesses. In good weather we ate outside in small groups, the boys separate from the girls. On inclement days we sat at our desks talking freely with each other and the teacher. We never ate in a hurry, there was plenty of time for play. In winter during later years we had a "hot" lunch usually prepared on the flat top of the stove. When everyone brought milk we had cocoa, sometimes there was soup or a vegetable. My recollections about hot lunches are not clear, possibly because I never felt that they filled any great need.
The afternoon session began at one o'clock with more reading instruction for the primary grades. Spelling for all was the next activity. It, penmanship and art occupied the time until the afternoon recess at half past two. The hour and a quarter after the recess was devoted to classes for the upper grades. The younger pupils were kept busy with various kinds of handicrafts. History, geography, physiology, hygiene, civics and even agriculture were the fare of the upper grades. Not all were taught every year and some were scheduled on alternate days. Even so, it is difficult, looking back, to see how a tether could fit all these subjects into the five hours of class time instruction. It was done somehow and in my case, at any rate, I learned enough to make my high school studies and even some college course much easier. For example, when I took American Government in high school and a course in Political Science in college the feeling deja vu persisted‑ I was familiar with the subject matter from my eighth grade classes in Birtsell School No. 3.
The school term was divided into nine periods roughly corresponding to the months. On the last day of each period the teacher made out and gave each child his report card. Numerical grades were given for each subject and department; days absent and times tardy were also recorded on the card. The grades given by the teacher were fair, I suppose, but somewhat arbitrary. A child would be happy if he had gained a point or two in a subject or had exceeded his classmate by a like amount. The report cards were taken home to be signed and returned to the teacher. If a child's performance during the school term was satisfactory the final report stated that he was promoted to the next higher grade. I do not recall that anyone was ever "held back" although there was always this threat if his performance were poor. In some years pink certificates were sent out from the county superintendent's office to the child who had maintained a perfect record with no absences or tardiness during the month. Attendance at school was usually good and in some years I did not miss a single day.
For the successful completion of the eighth grade curriculum in the rural schools the students had to pass the examinations prepared by the State Department of Education. These examinations were uniform throughout the state and given on a designated day. The examinations were fairly difficult and tested the student's knowledge reasonably well. The passing grade was 60. The questions had to be answered by a paragraph of discussion or by a completed worked out problem. True‑false, and multiple choice questions had not yet arrived on the educational scene. Consequently the ability to express one's ideas in words and to spell correctly was an important part of the test. Usually seventh graders were permitted to take the examinations in three or four subjects. If one passed no further instruction in these subjects was required in the eighth grade. I passed the examinations in Orthography (spelling), Geography, Physiology, and Agriculture near the end of the seventh grade. The following year I completed the list: Reading, Writing, Grammar, Arithmetic, U.S. History, and Civics. My grades ranged from 68 in Geography to 85 in Arithmetic. The teacher corrected the papers and then sent them on to the County Superintendent's office for verification of the teacher's grading. In a week or two the official grades were returned to the teacher. None of my contemporaries failed the examination and graduation was finally at hand. I still have the Certificates of Completion of Studies signed by Mary K. Beaty.
In my graduation year, 1921, the Barlow and Birtsell school districts held joint graduation exercises in the Odd Fellows Hall in Barlow. The graduates were seated on chairs in front of the audience of parents and friends. All participated in a lengthy program. The Rev. Mr. Bennett, minister of the Methodist Church in Carrington gave the commencement address and Mary K. Beaty presented the diplomas. Contrary to current custom there were no refreshments at the end of the program.
Source: A History of Foster County 1983 Page 403