A Second Home: Missouri's Early Schools

4. The Rural Schoolhouse

40 Chapter Four The Rural Schoolhouse on farms in sparsely populated areas, or in isolated Ozark regions, “schooling” took place in a one-room log building during much of the nineteenth century. The log-cabin schools often originated as subscription schools built by parents, because of their cheap and easy construction and their durability. Some eventually became common public schools under the management and jurisdiction of the state. Historians have suggested that Swedish settlers arriving in America were responsible for this new home-building technique for the frontier wilderness—the log cabin. Dense woodlands of shortleaf pine, black walnut, black oak, eastern cottonwood, bur oak, black cherry, white and scarlet oak, and other trees covered It seemed, as I recall it, a lonely little house of scholarship with its playground worn so bare, that even the months of sun and idleness failed to bring forth any grass. But that humble little school had a dignity of a fixed and far off purpose . . . . It was the outpost of civilization. It was the advance guard of the pioneer, driving the wilderness farther into the west. It was life preparing wistfully for the future. — James Rooney, Journeys from Ignorant Ridge J ames Rooney was writing about his school in Texas, but his words ring true for children in Missouri who went to logcabin schools. For most of the children in Missouri who lived 41 one-third of Missouri, so the materials needed for building log structures were readily available. One-room chinked log cabins provided shelter from strong winds, drenching rainstorms, and freezing winter blizzards. The cabins could withstand arrows and rifle bullets, if necessary. Some of the earliest log schools were built without using a single iron nail or any metal hardware. Wooden pins were used for nails, hinges, and door latches. The fireplace provided heat and a place to cook food. Sometimes a lean-to, a structure with a roof supported by poles and attached to the side of the cabin, was added to shelter the teacher’s horse or a buggy. Most cabins were built close to the ground and supported on stone pillars, usually one on each corner and one in the middle. Only two tools were necessary to build a cabin: an ax to cut logs to the required size and a froe, used to cut shingles or roof The Rural Schoolhouse The first church built by Methodists in Cape Girardeau County dates from 1819. It is of log construction with a shingle roof and plank floors. The chapel was regularly used as a school as well as for religious services and camp revival meetings. (State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia) 42 boards. When the unhewn rough logs were ready for building, neighbors, ropes, and farm animals provided the means to raise them one on top of another. The spaces between logs were chinked with moss, clay, mud, and straw. Hands, rather than trowels, smoothed the clay between the cracks. Each side of the building was anywhere from ten to twelve feet long, and the ceilings were from seven to twelve feet high. In Annals of Kansas City, Stephen C. Ragan, an early teacher, describes mixing mortar for log-cabin schools: In making the mortar needed for these log houses, straw mixed in the mud was as essential as hair is in our lime mortar. Mud mortar was made by digging up a quantity of dirt, pouring water over it, covering it with straw, and then throwing a quantity of shelled corn on the straw that had been added to the mud and water. Then the swine were A SECOND HOME Most early schools were small with few comforts for the teacher or the scholars . This school, built in 1894, was in the Accident School District in Barry County, southeast of Cassville, and is the last log school built in the county. The photograph dates from 1914. (Gift of F. A. Meador, State Historical Society of Missouri, Columbia) 43 called up. When they smelled the corn, they went for it, rooting and tramping, thus producing a well-mixed mortar with which to daub the cracks between the logs. Windows and doors were formed when a space the length of the logs was left during building. The openings for windows were covered with animal skins, gunnysacks, a blanket, greased paper, or sometimes a plank attached below the window with leather straps so it could be opened and...