The little rural schools were built in Polk County as soon as the settlers arrived. They served the communities very well for many years.

Many people look at the little one-room rural school with pity while others see some advantages in them, advantages that were lost with their passing. Teachers today might think that teachin 24 classes each day, giving only 10-15 minutes to each class, with a combination of grades, was a real hardship.

The teacher was the teacher, administrator, janitor, public relations individual, and resource person. In addition, she made the fires, even carried in the wood, washed the blackboards, swept the floor, made lesson plans, sent in records to the county superintendent,made out report cards, and planned and put on programs. Even with all these duties, the work was done.

The enrollments sometimes consisted of 30 students, and in the early days there might be 50 in attendance. Often in these early times, pupils were older due to poor attendance or lack of opportunity to attend school.

The equipment was meager with the blackboards, a few maps, a globe and minimum of textbooks. There were very few library books of elementary readable nature.

In spite of difficult condition, there were some advantages in the rural school. Often it was like a large family with the older children helping younger ones.

There wasn't any waiting for a bus on a cold winter day since all walked irrespective of wind and weather. This seemed to have provided healthy exercise and led to settling down for class work. Children couldn't complain about the hot lunches since all carried their lunches, which were often frozen. In later years, soup could be brought from home and heated at the school. Children usually did not come to school sleepy, since TV had not been invented yet.

Outdoor toilets were not a pleasure, but all seemed to surv ive them. New math had not become a part of the curriculum, so all learned the good old addition facts and the multiplication tables.

Fifty years ago there weren't any workbooks, so the teacher provided some such material. In the later yearsand during the depression, only one workbook could be ordered. This was possibly somewhat of an advantage.

In spite of these problems, which would be rugged today, children learned to live with what they had, learned to read and respect the school and the teachers, learned to respect their parents, as well as developing an appreciation and respect for life and our good country.