About Connections: Love it or hate it, history is a map. Those who hate history think it irrelevant; many who love history think it escapism. In truth, history is the clearest road map to how we got here: America in the 21st century.
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According to the Berkshire Edge after 137 years of continuous use, the South Egremont School will close. (“South Berkshire School Committee Adopts Same $16 million Budget without Funding Two Village Schools,” May 27, 2017)
In 1855, there were five schools in Egremont. At the annual 1855 town meeting $625 was voted to maintain the schools with an additional $50 from the Commonwealth. There was one male teacher and five female teachers in the five schools. The male was paid $40 per month, and the five females were paid $35.33 each per month. ($675 in 1855 is roughly equivalent to $18,500 today; $40 is approx. $908 and $35 is about $790).
So what did the teachers do for those prodigious sums?
- Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys.
- Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day’s session.
- Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.
- Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.
- After ten hours in school, the teacher may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.
- Women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
- Every teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.
- Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, integrity and honesty.
According to local historian Jim Parrish, “In 1880 all grade schools, with the exception of the West Egremont school, were closed, and two new schools were built.” One was a one-room schoolhouse in the north village and the other was a two-room schoolhouse in the south village.
So began the history of the little schoolhouses of Egremont. By 1883 there were 103 students in the two schools. The annual school budget was $1,046.66. (Approximately $25,000 today) One hundred one years later the schoolhouse in North Egremont was closed. It sat idle from 1981 to 1992 when it finally sold and became a private residence. The schoolhouse in South Egremont continued as a school.
In the early years first graders were educated beside eighth grades. The schoolroom divided the “classes” by rows. Students not being addressed by the teacher were meant to work independently and quietly. No one stopped you from listening into a favorite subject and advancing more quickly. Some older students were asked to help teach the younger ones. There are current village residents who attended the school as did their parents and grandparents.
One former student remembers a classmate who left the little schoolhouse to attend the big school — Mt. Everett. When evaluated by the Mt. Everett teacher, he was told “you are over prepared.” The little schools were believed to offer a superior education and were therefore sought after. The problem was that both schools were filled to capacity so there was no room for the many parents from other towns who wanted their children schooled in Egremont. Reputedly, some moved to Egremont to get their kids enrolled. What was so attractive about a one-room school with few amenities? What was the allure of two rooms with a wood stove, no electricity or running water, an outhouse, and one teacher who educated and maintained order by her wits alone? One thing: there was no lack of humor. A favorite pun was calling the school “commodious” because privy was attached to the building.
Then there was the curriculum. To the 3 R’s add recitation and rhetoric. Other subjects were science, history, and geography. There was no “mollycoddling”: neither transportation nor supplies were provided; students shared books, and if you failed, you repeated the grade. The notion of the school being a “no fail zone” was eschewed. If you failed you repeated the grade. Students sitting beside friends and neighbors worked hard not to fail.
A former teacher said, “They were not wrapped in cotton wool back then; if they couldn’t keep up they repeated a grade, but if they learned quickly they were pushed ahead.”
By the mid-20th century science and technology were taking hold. “Progress was our most important product” and the school succumbed. The “scientific method” of planning school lunches was considered superior to what Mom prepared and sent from home. The mothers required educating. A comparison was made of the nutritional value between a typical school lunch and a lunch brought from home. The Mom’s lunch won, and the Moms never allowed the school to forget it.
At the end of the day what are the goals of any elementary school: to educate and socialize. If you tease out the elements of the village school experience – from the local dairy that provided milk daily in little glass bottles with paper caps (and demanded recycling) to the teachers who were also neighbors to the continuity of relationships as the village children sat in the same room year after year — the village school built community as it turned out literate citizens.
In his paper “The Industrial Revolution Comes to Egremont,” local historian Nic Cooper tells of “Dazele Axle.” When David Dazele was 35 years old (in 1845) he opened a wagon factory in Egremont. Soon D. Dazele & Sons were also making carriages. By 1877 the company determined to make their own axles. An 1879 article in the Currier said the building where the axles were produced “was full of wonders.”
Indeed, Dazele’s Axles had mechanized the process and employed Egremont residents and also those who traveled by trolley from Great Barrington. The population of Egremont fell from a high of 1,200 residents in 1860 to a mere 400 by 1916. Contributing to the rise and fall in population was the axle company. In 1914 the factory was destroyed by fire. In 1915 the property was sold and the factory razed. As the population of the village decreased so did the population of the school.
Today, there are 14-15 students in two grades in the South Egremont School. The annual operating budget is approximately $100,000 and an estimated $250,000 was approved for repairs. Still, the regional school district sent a budget to the five district towns “without funding two village schools.” In the name of progress or cost savings or both, the village schools are slated to close.
The one constant is change, however, a wise old woman once told me, “With progress you gain something but you also lose something.”
Best to calculate the loss as carefully as one touts the gain.
