The Little Outfit Schoolhouse, Patagonia, AZ

OLD SCHOOL OF THE DAY

The Little Outfit Schoolhouse

571 Canelo Pass Rd.

Patagonia, Arizona

The Little Outfit Schoolhouse is a ranch school that was built in 1940 in southeastern Arizona. It is located on the Little Outfit Ranch in San Rafael Valley, about ten miles east-southeast of Patagonia, in Santa Cruz County, which borders Mexico on the south and is about 80 miles from Arizona’s eastern border with New Mexico.  In the early and mid-twentieth century ranch schools became an important part of the educational system in many western states and Arizona led the nation in total number. The concept set high academic standards but also put strong emphasis on the ideals of the American Old West, rugged outdoor activities, and independence of spirit. The Little Outfit Ranch School provides an excellent example this approach to education

The land the schoolhouse is on was homesteaded by Harry Fryer in 1917 and in 1940 it was bought by Buel and Katharine Hutchinson who named it The Little Outfit Ranch. They built a one-room schoolhouse and later that same year opened The Little Outfit Ranch School. The school was coed the first two years but later was all boys, usually had 20 to 25 students, and covered grades 3 to 8. Academics were strong but there was a great emphasis on the ways of the West and every student was assigned a horse.  The people who founded the Little Outfit Ranch School, Katharine (“Kit”) and Buel Hutchinson, moved from Chicago with their three children; Ann, Mary and Ned in 1940.

As a small, private institution, the Little Outfit School was completely dependent on a high level of effort by its owners, the Hutchinson’s. Doubtless an important consideration in their continuing was the completion of their own children’s education which was accomplished in the late 1940s. The resignation of Slim Mayo – the school’s wrangler—in 1947 left the school without one of its most important teachers. While formal grade school education stopped in 1950, the schoolhouse continued as an educational institution for many years thereafter, functioning as the center of an active summer camp.  Because it is a fine example of the ranch school education which was so important in Arizona in the early years of the twentieth century, The Little Outfit Schoolhouse was added to the National Register of Historic Places on January 8, 2009. The schoolhouse is managed by the Little Outfit Preservation Group, Inc.

Public School Authorities Bully Would-Be Home Educators

Public School Authorities Bully Would-Be Home Educators
Written by Diane O’Burns (7/30/20)

Illinois parents, along with millions of other parents across the nation, were tossed into an at-home learning environment this past spring that the public school coined “Homeschooling.” The public schools were ill-equipped for this change-over, despite years of “e-learning days” when public school children learned how to use the software during snow days and other days off.

During this time of COVID-19 homeschooling, many parents reconnected with their children, enjoyed the time spent with them, and heeded the words of Bible teacher Dr. Tony Evans: “Don’t waste the Covid.”

This parent-child reconnect helped foster additional learning opportunities when parents realized that they really are the best teachers for their children. Many parents actually threw the public school busy work paper packets into the trash and began teaching their children themselves.

Read more:

Public School Authorities Bully Would-Be Home Educators

The Red Brick Schoolhouse, Frankfort, OH

OLD SCHOOL OF THE DAY

The Red Brick Schoolhouse

3186 County Road 550

Frankfort, OH 45628

Typical of many schoolhouses in the Frankfort area during the 1800s, this school, built in 1877, with its pot-bellied stove and flip-top desks, was part of the public school system of that era. The building and its contents have been restored by the citizens of Frankfort in conjunction with the Budd Company.   The historical marker was placed there in 1974 by the Board of Directors of the Budd Company Annual Meeting held in the Red Brick Schoolhouse and The Ohio Historical Society.  It is located on the west side of County Road 550, across from Adena High School.

Three Big Reasons to Consider Homeschooling This Year

Three Big Reasons to Consider Homeschooling This Year
Written By Jonathan Lewis (7/29/20)

[Editor’s note: Jonathan Lewis, a homeschool graduate and second-generation homeschooling Dad, is husband to Linnea, and Daddy to Patrick, Timothy, Katherine, and Benjamin. He is a writer, speaker, and self-employed graphic designer. WSW.]

With the debate raging across America about opening the nation’s schools this fall, many parents are considering home education.

As a homeschool graduate and second-generation homeschooling dad, I’d like to share with you three huge reasons why I believe homeschooling is a great choice whether the public schools are in session this fall or not.

#1: We Get to Do Our God-Given Job. God has commanded parents to teach their children in His ways. It’s the example of Scripture from beginning to end, in passages such as Deuteronomy 6, Psalm 78, and Ephesians 6.

Read more:

Three Big Reasons to Consider Homeschooling This Year

Shady Grove School, Pea Ridge, AR

OLD SCHOOL OF THE DAY

Shady Grove School

Arkansas Highway 94

Pea Ridge, Arkansas

The Shady Grove School is a historic school building on Arkansas Highway 94 near Pea Ridge in Benton County, Arkansas. It is a single-story wood frame structure, with a hip roof and a concrete foundation. A gable-roofed cupola provides ventilation to the roof, which is also pierced by a brick chimney. The main facade consists of a double door flanked by sash windows, and the long sides of the building have banks of sash windows. Built c. 1922, the building is a well-preserved representative of a period school house.  It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on January 28, 1988.

Christianity, Islam, and Atheism

Christianity, Islam, and Atheism

by Jamie Glazov

     [Editor’s note:  Below is an article from The Schwarz Report/ March 2013. It shows the connection between Islam and modern secularists. We ignore the danger of Islam at our own peril.  Yet, while the Left keeps telling us that the “separation of church and state” forbids teaching about God, Christianity, and Biblical morality in public schools, the Left’s presidential candidate, Joe Biden, is running around loose saying that the schools should teach Islam.  WSW.]

Frontpage Interview’s guest today is William Kilpatrick, the author of several books, including Psychological Seduction and Why Johnny Can’t  Tell Right from Wrong. His articles about Islam have appeared in FrontPage Magazine, Investor’s Business Daily, Catholic World Report, and other publications. His most recent book, Christianity, Islam, and Atheism: The Struggle for the Soul of the West explores the threat that Islam poses to Christianity and Western civilization. The book also examines the role played by militant secularists in facilitating the expansion of Islam.

The article is available online at:

http://www.schwarzreport.org/uploads/schwarz-report-pdf/schwarz-report-2013-03.pdf (starting on page 4)

Miller One Room School House, Biglerville Historical and Preservation Society and National Apple Museum, Biglerville, PA

OLD SCHOOL OF THE DAY

Miller One Room School House

The Biglerville Historical and Preservation Society

and The National Apple Museum

154 West Hanover Street

Biglerville, PA 17307

The Miller One Room School House is operated by the Biglerville Historical and Preservation Society and the National Apple Museum located on Rte. 394 which is West Hanover St. in Biglerville, Adams County, PA.  The Biglerville Historical and Preservation Society was formed in 1981. Its goals are to create a museum facility to honor, archive, promote and display material, memorabilia, and equipment of the Apple and Fruit Industry in Adams County. Opened in 1990, the National Apple Museum is housed in a restored pre-Civil War bank barn and is owned and operated by the Biglerville Historical and Preservation Society. The museum mission is to preserve and exhibit the history and attendant artifacts pertaining to the Apple and Tree Fruit Industry’s history and contributions to the development and growth of Adams County.  Pennsylvania’s first constitution in 1776 committed the state to a system of public education – the responsiblity for this was given to the Legislature. The constitution of 1790 went further, declaring that the poor should be afforded a free education. It did not define a timetable for this to be accomplished.

By 1809, a system called the “Pauper Schools” was put in place. The legislative act required each county to use public tax monies to pay the tuition to local schools for each child from 5 to 12 years old.  Consensus slowly grew statewide for the need for a better system of elementary education supported by public tax monies.  In 1834, the legislature, acting on the recommendations of Governor George Wolf, passed “An Act to Establish a General System of Education by Common School”. The act stipulated a special statewide election be held on Sept. 19, 1834, in each township, borough, and ward to establish a school district with a board in each municipality, with the school districts empowered to levy local school taxes to support the schools. The act, however, let the adoption of common schools be voluntary in each district. Those districts that established common schools would become eligible for state appropriations to help support the school systems.

In 1848, the legislature found it necessary to pass another act to guarantee public education throughout Pennsylvania. Yet, again, the act did not require all the districts to accept and implement the common schools system. Another 20 years were to pass before all the school districts were in compliance with the 1848 Act.  Adams County local municipality school districts with common schools were established during the years of 1834-1843. The schools were generally set up in the middle of a number of farms to be served; the schools were usually 1 to 2 miles apart; as local populations increased, additional schools were built. Often the school sites were donated by a local farmer or landowner- often their name was given to the school. By the time Adams County eliminated the municipalities’ school districts and consolidated them into a few large area school districts with newer and larger schools, there had been about 150 one room schools in operation in the county–some operating into the 1950s. The number of school districts was reduced from seventeen to six.

Swiss Historical Village Museum School, New Glarus, WI

OLD SCHOOL OF THE DAY

Swiss Historical Village Museum School

612 Seventh Ave.

New Glarus, WI 53574

The Swiss Historical Village and Museum presents the unique story of the founding of New Glarus in Green County, WI, in 1845 and traces the Swiss colony’s growth into a dairy farming community that continues to keep alive its ethnic heritage.  The museum, in the heart of “America’s Little Switzerland,” is owned and operated by the New Glarus Historical Society, Inc. The society is a non-profit organization dedicated to the preservation of artifacts, records and family histories of the Swiss immigrants. The society is affiliated with the Wisconsin State Historical Society.  Each year, the Swiss Historical Village and Museum welcomes a wide range of school groups, history buffs, Swiss enthusiasts, charters, families, and sightseers. A small schoolhouse is preserved at the Swiss Historical Village and Museum in New Glarus.

Northern Ohio School, Parkin, AR

OLD SCHOOL OF THE DAY

Northern Ohio School

60 Arkansas Highway 184

Parkin, Arkansas

The Northern Ohio School is a historic school building at 60 Arkansas Highway 184 in Parkin, Arkansas. It is a small wood-frame structure, clad in clapboards, with a corrugated metal roof, set on the south side of the highway just beyond the northern boundary of Parkin Archeological State Park. The school was built c. 1910-1920 by the Northern Ohio Cooperage and Lumber Company as an educational facility for the children of its African-American mill workers. In the early 1900s, most Arkansas children received their educations in one-room schoolhouses, many of which were located in rural areas. The Northern Ohio School is the only remaining one-room African American schoolhouse in Parkin, a small town in Cross County. The population of Parkin boomed in the early 20th century thanks to the burgeoning lumber industry. The Northern Ohio Cooperage and Lumber Company was formed in 1906 as an amalgamation of smaller sawmills: the Parkin Cooperage Company and the Northern Ohio Company, and the town of Parkin was incorporated in 1912. Local sawmills, such as the Northern Ohio Cooperage and Lumber Company, were the primary employers. A community built up just north of downtown Parkin around the Northern Ohio mill site on the St. Francis River, known as the “Sawdust Hill Community.” The lumber company built schoolhouses for the children of its sawmill workers, three-quarters of whom were African American men. Because food was scarce in the rural community during the Great Depression, a program was created in which the Northern Ohio School provided food to students and some local residents. The Northern Ohio School was constructed for the children of African American workers. The, one-room schoolhouse was built next to the northern boundary of the prehistoric American Indian village site, which was in easy walking distance of the mill community. The school taught students from the first through the eighth grade, until it was shuttered in 1948 following the closure of the Northern Ohio Cooperage and Lumber Company in 1946, and the consolidation with the Central Elementary School in 1948.

     By the beginning of World War II, there were 15 one-room and two-room schoolhouses. Many of these schools have been destroyed, but several remain. Today, the Northern Ohio School is the only one of these early structures still standing. After its use as a schoolhouse, the Northern Ohio School building had several different functions. After the company closed down its operations, the building was partially used as a barn. Then it was converted to a residence for the Ott family in 1951, and it remained so until the 1990s when it narrowly escaped demolition. It was sold to the state, as a buffer property for the adjacent park, in 1998.  When the property was acquired by the Arkansas Department of Parks and Tourism (ADPT), it was no longer recognizable as a school building, as portions of the original structure had been built over during the building’s transformation; for example, original chalkboards lay behind wood paneling. While dismantling the interior of the home in preparation for demolition, workers found the Northern Ohio School hiding behind the walls. Plans for demolition were immediately cancelled and research by employees at Parkin Archeological State Park began, revealing that the building was the Northern Ohio School, along with a plan for restoration. ADPT renovated the building to serve as a standing exhibit. The school building contains several artifacts contemporary to the time of its operation, including original lard, jelly, and molasses buckets.

The restoration was completed in 2006. The school has now been restored to its original state in its final years of operation. The 2006 restoration of involved the demolition of the various additions and alterations from the previous fifty years and restoration of the building back to its original materials and appearance.  The Northern Ohio Schoolhouse has been carefully reconstructed inside and out from historic photographs and evidence uncovered during demolition.  The Secretary of Interior’s Standards for Historic Preservation were followed as part of the funding requirements for this project under a grant from the Arkansas Natural and Cultural Resources Commission.  The Northern Ohio School building, as well as the former site of the Northern Ohio Cooperage and Lumber Company, is protected as part of Parkin Archeological State Park. Located just beyond the northern boundary of the Parkin Archeological State Park, this restored schoolhouse that was once a vital part of the African American workers community in Arkansas was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on May 23, 2014, for its role in African American education.   The Northern Ohio School in Parkin, Arkansas, was determined eligible for the National Register of Historic Places with local significance under Criterion A, for its association with African American Education through the first half of the 20th Century.

Frenchville One Room School (1914-1961), Frenchville, PA

OLD SCHOOL OF THE DAY

Frenchville One Room School 1914-1961

Frenchville Rd.

Frenchville, PA 16836

The Frenchville School, a one-room school building in Frenchville, rural Clearfield County, PA, was built in 1913, with students attending there the following year. The school originally housed students from grades 1 to 8. It later downsized to grades 1 to 7, and then later grades 1 to 6. Students originally went 160 days per year until 1944. The requirement changed for students to attend 180 days, much like it is today.  There were probably about 15 to 19 students who came from four to five families at one time throughout the whole building.  The school closed in 1961, with students being sent to Girard and Goshen schools in the Clearfield Area School District.  After the school closed, it was purchased by the Clearfield School District and it included a playground.  The district later sold the building and gave it to Covington Township.  The grounds of the Frenchville School were used for a township playground until 1990 when the township put the property up for sale.  In October of that year, former student Eileen Voinchet Pisaneschi, along with her late husband, Francis, purchased the school from the Covington Township supervisors for $5,000.

Mrs. Pisaneschi has spent several thousand dollars maintaining and restoring it, having to install a new roof on the facility, as well as inside panels, windows, and paint, and having the foundation re-pointed.  She has purchased student desks of different sizes from the era in which the school last operated and arranged them from smallest to largest — as they would be in a one-room school where students of different ages were educated.  There are books, maps and other classroom material from the era, and displayed on the wall are the attendance awards and academic achievement certificates that her relatives who attended the school received dating back to 1916-18.  The blackboard in the school is filled with the signatures of alumni who have returned for visits.

The four other schools that once existed within a five-mile radius of Frenchville were Fairmount, Keewaydin, Mignot, and Mt. Pleasant. While Frenchville and Keewaydin closed in 1961, Mignot closed in 1952, Fairmount in 1945 and Mount Pleasant in 1936.  In the early 1900s, about 200,000 one-room schoolhouses were operating in the United States.  Today, about 200 one-room schoolhouses still function, mostly in rural areas of the country in states including Montana, Nebraska and Michigan. The construction of upgraded roads and the use of primitive “school buses” — sometimes drawn by horses — led to the school consolidation that began in the 1920s. That meant one-room schools were merged together to form larger centralized schools.  The Frenchville school building, now over 100 years old, closed as a school in 1961 but is still a part of the community. Pisaneschi keeps the memory of a bygone era alive by showing people what school was like years ago.