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In your one-room 19th-century schoolhouse, all the grades from one through nine or ten share the same teacher and the same room, so you have to learn to concentrate, because another class is usually up reciting their lessons to the teacher. Your teacher sets you a lesson to learn - so many pages of geography or history to memorize, so many sums to work out in arithmetic, so many words to learn to spell, a certain length of composition (writing). When your class is called, you go to the front, stand before the teacher, and answer the questions in turn. If you answer the most questions correctly, you're "head of the class." Reading, writing and arithmetic are the main subjects, but you aren't taught to "discover" or "question" unless your teacher is exceptionally good (or original). Instead, you learn by "rote," or by memorizing. You also take geography, history, grammar, agriculture, and other subjects. If you're thirteen and old enough to study for the "entrance" exam to high school, you might have to stay after school to study extra subjects like algebra, Latin and French.

The 19th-century schoolhouse looked very different from the one you probably go to. For one thing, the playground was just a field or clearing. For another, the schoolhouse only had one room that held about 30 students comfortably; the whole school was about the same size as one of today's classrooms. It was probably a wooden building, simply built, with a small gable. No running water meant that the toilets were outhouses behind the school. No electricity meant no refrigerator to put your milk in to keep cool in the summer, so like Anne Shirley and her friends, you had to put it in the brook to stay fresh.

Imagine that you're going to school with Anne Shirley and her friends somewhere in rural Prince Edward Island in the 1870s or 1880s. What would your day be like?

Well, let's start with getting dressed to go to school. You probably don't have much choice of clothes. If you're a girl, you might have two dresses, like Anne does in the book, with a pinafore (a sleeveless apron) to go on top. Underneath, you'll be wearing a vest, drawers (underwear), and probably a petticoat. If you're a boy, you're probably going to pull on knickers (knee-length pants that buckle at the knee) and a shirt, though older boys got to wear full-length trousers. In the winter, you'll wear long underwear and long stockings (yes, the boys, too) to stay warm. Girls have long hair, so it has to be combed and braided before breakfast. There isn't any running water, so to wash, you'll pour water from a pitcher or bucket into a basin. (If it's winter, you might have to break the ice first.) Your mother will cook breakfast on a woodstove, and if it's winter and dark in the morning, the house will be lit with lamps or candles.

Trains were used a lot around 1900 on P.E.I. Trains were used to ship goods, carry passengers around the Island, and sometimes were even used to carry bodies to the graveyard for burial.

The Prince Edward Island Railway started in May 1875, and the trains stopped running in 1989 because automobiles had become so popular. For a long time, trains were the most dependable transportation in the summer. In the winter, old-time trains had big plows on the front to clear the snow off the tracks.

Trains were a big part of Island travel, so every city and town had to have its own train station. (See the map in the picture for the station stops in 1884.) Most of the train stations were just little three-walled shacks, but some of them, like the Charlottetown train station, were huge stations.

Students were expected to learn complex arithmetic before they left school. Younger students learned simple sums in addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, then graduated to weights, measurements, and problems. Note the different measurements given in this arithmetic book from 1882. Do you recognize all of them? Do we still use these measurements?

Teachers were respected for their learning and usually took an active part in the community. Lucy Palmer, a schoolteacher in Malpeque from 1887 to 1890, writes very little about her life as a teacher, but shows how active her social life was. She was invited out constantly to parties, picnics, drives, quilting parties, walks, and neighbour’s houses for tea or supper. Her diary gives a lively picture of community life in Malpeque at the turn of the 19th century.

School teachers had to pass the 2nd or 1st class examinations at Prince of Wales College to be certified to teach. The 2nd class work, as Anne of Green Gables shows us, was easier than the 1st class work, but the top students could complete the 1st class work in one year instead of two. Teachers with 1st class certificates were usually paid more than those with 2nd class certificates.

Reginald Haslam’s school exercise book shows how in some ways, education has not changed. In the early part of the book, Reginald practices his writing, making rows of letters, and writes down arithmetic problems and answers. On the last page, he writes a short composition on “How I Spent My Summer Holidays,” a title you might be familiar with. The teacher’s comments are below Reg’s composition, and show that he could certainly improve. How is Reg’s vacation similar or different to yours?

Teenager Wesley Turner’s diary shows that his interests at the time were not on his education. Wesley writes about the chores he performs, such as chopping wood or going to the store to buy or exchange goods, visits to friends and neighbours, the weather and its effects on the crops, and his attempts to have his poetry published. His comments on attending Upton School, however, are confined to either, “I went to school today” or “I didn’t go to school today.” His reasons for not going include the school stove not working properly, the weather being too stormy, or working. However, in one entry, he writes that his father thinks him too sick to go to school – but Wesley manages to do work around the farm that day!

My Mother, The Teacher

I always thought one-room schoolhouses disappeared in about 1920. Until, that is, I was working on this project and happened to ask my mother if she knew anything about one-room schools.

“Oh my goodness, yes,” she exclaimed. “Why, I taught in one!”

“You did WHAT?” I asked. “Where? When? How old were you?”

“Oh, I was eighteen,” she said. “I finished high school and they were so short of teachers in Ontario – this would have been around 1951 – that I took a summer course and earned a certificate. I was really lucky, too – I sang in the choir at church, and someone from one of the schools heard me sing a solo. They wanted someone who could teach the children music and games as well as the subjects, so I got hired.”

“The first year, I had fourteen students in seven grades. The second year, we had so many students they had to hire another teacher, and I taught four grades in the morning, then we all went home, and the other teacher taught the other four grades in the afternoon.”

My own mother, a teacher in a one-room school for two years! But I was in for more shocks.....

High school wasn’t free in the 19th century, and you had to pass an entrance exam to get in. To pass the examination for Prince of Wales College, for instance, you had to study extra subjects like Latin, algebra and French. If you did manage to pass – the entrance exam results were published in the paper, so everyone knew how you’d done – you could earn a teacher’s certificate. A second-class certificate took a year of study; a first-class certificate at least two years. But if you passed and could get a school, you had an independent income.

As a teacher, you had great responsibilities. Not only did you have to manage nine or ten grades in the same room and the full range of subjects, but you had to plan one of the most important social events of the year: the Christmas concert. All students had to sing or recite or act in dialogues (short plays); the school had to be decorated; and the teacher was judged on the quality of the concert. Many teachers and students have fond memories of great concerts and greater catastrophes.

Imagine that you're going to school with Anne Shirley and her friends somewhere in rural Prince Edward Island in the 1870s or 1880s. What would your day be like?

It may sound great to only have to go to school for three months of the year, but what if you’re ambitious and want to be a doctor or lawyer instead or working on a farm? What if the children’s parents or guardians really needed them at home? Do you think all children should have been required to go to school for nine months in the 1880s? Should Anne Shirley have been allowed to quit school in Anne of Green Gables?

Sir William C. Macdonald funded the Macdonald Consolidated School experiment in the early 20th century. As part of the experiment, Sir William insisted on excellent lighting and ventilation for the schoolhouse, plus the most up-to-date equipment and curriculum possible. The school contained several classrooms such as this one.

At the turn of the 19th century, about 470 school districts existed in Prince Edward Island, each with its own small school. The quality of education was dependent on the teacher, with the Province setting the curriculum that students studied. PEI was largely agricultural at the time, but education – especially higher education – was largely geared to students who wanted to enter the professions, such as law, medicine, and education. Little was taught that would be helpful for students who decided to remain in farming and agriculture.