Figure 1.--Here we see the middle of nowhere--no settement in sight. The school itself would have faced a road of some kind. Sometimes towns grew up arond these schools, but in most cases they dd not. The split rail fence nd foliage in the background suggests the school was somewhere in the upper Mid-west.

The location of rural schools is of special importance. This was determined by the Northwest Ordinance (1787). It meant that public schools would be created throughout the country. This was at the time that he concept of educating the masses and the idea of public schools were very new concepts. It was launched at about the same time in Prussia and other German states and the United States. It is no accidental that they were both Protestant countries. But public education is part of the reason that America and Germany began their meteoric rise among the ranks of nations. Essentially developing their most important resource--their people. This was not a widely understood concept at the time. In part because the aristocrats governing countries were primarily concerned with how to extract wealth from an uneducated peasantry. Now while the Germans and Americans public education, their goals were different. King Fredrick II of Prussia was trying to figure out how to build an effective army in a small, poor kingdom. (Although it was Germany and America that invented pubic education, other factors set the two countries on very different paths. It is very likely that some of the boys in the school photograph here would have been drafted to save Europe from an aggressive and very effective German Army in World War I and that their children had to do it again in World War II.) The Americans in contrast to the Germans were trying to figure out to populate their new republic with an educated citizenry. But both America and Germany benefited from public education. There were differences. The Germans opened their schools in established villages. The Americans opened their schools in the middle of nowhere (figure 1). The Northwest Ordinance mandated that every block of Western land included a parcel for a public school. And financed the building of the school at a time that state and local government had little money. The plot was far more than the school needed. So the land not needed for the actual school building could be sold to fiance the building of the school. This system meant that most American children live within walking distance of a school even in rural areas. The system was extended west of the Mississippi by the Homestead Act (1862). Of course we have no photography to illustrate these schools in 1787, but we do have images in the late-19th and early-20th century. They are where young Americans were educated in he 19th and early-20th century. Until the 1920s, the majority of Americans lived in rural areas.

Navigate the Boys' Historical Clothing Web Page
[Return to the Main U.S. Rural Education Page]
[Return to the Main U.S. Rural School Page]
[Return to the Main Ameruican rural school page ]
[Return to the Main Ameruican public elementary/prumary school page ]
[Return to the Main United States page ]
[Activities] [Chronology] [Clothing styles] [Countries] [Debate] [Economics] [Garment] [Gender] [Hair] [History] [Home trends] [Literary characters]
[School types] [Significance] [Transport and travel [Uniform regulations] [Year level] [Other topics]
[Images] [Links] [Registration] [Search] [Tools]
[Return to the Historic Boys' School Home]

Created: 5:19 AM 7/22/2008
Last updated: 9:32 AM 12/4/2016