Leon Reporter, Leon, Iowa
Thursday, June ll, l925

We wish to call attention to the series of articles on Iowa's Rural Schools appearing in the Iowa Homestead, beginning with the issue of May 28, l925. Mr. Pierce has gathered together and is publishing in these articles a lot of material and information which it would be well for Iowa folk to read.

In his first article he asks that anyone that cares to do so may send him any material which they know to be a fact whether pertaining to present day rural school conditions or pioneer days and he will include that in this series of articles.

In the issue of June 4th, there appeared the following article concerning one of the old time schools of Decatur County. The article was written by MAXINE FULTON, a pupil of the High Point School, in response to a call made by the State Superintendent asking that each Standardized Rural School submit a history of that school to the State Department which material was to be used in a bulletin on Standardized Rural Schools which the State Department is preparing and will be ready for distribution in the near future.

'History of High Point School'

In l853 there was a log school house north of the graveyard. They had a board nailed down with wooden pegs to sit on, and then they would have a spelling school. For lights the teacher would stand up and hold a lighted candle. They didn't have a stove, as we do now. They just had a fireplace. In l86l there was a new school house built. They used to have church and school at first. It had two windows and a door in the north and two windows on the side and a hall went half way through the room. There were about 70 children. It was quite crowded. They had a board painted black for a blackboard. They made a rule that there should be no windows on the north, so they took the hall out and put a window in the south. They had two months of school in the fall, four months in the winter and two months in the spring. The teacher's salary was $40.00 in the winter, if it was a man, and if it was a woman teacher, they got about $25 in the spring and fall. The men got about $25.00 a month.

They didn't have hardly any play ground equipment like we have now, only baseball and marbles. Those were the games about 60 years ago. Their readers were not like we have in use now, they used McGuffey's reader.

School is still being held in this building erected in l86l.

Copied by Nancee(McMurtrey)Seifert
"With permission from the Leon Journal Reporter"
October 22, 2002