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Students at Center School are practicing cursive writing on the blackboard.

•November 29, 2017•

By Ellen Ferrera
for the News Progress

A 1913 Platt map of Moultrie County shows 76 country schools scattered  about every two miles throughout the seven townships in the county.

There were no school buses in those days so the schools were located so no child had to walk more than two miles to school. In fact, one school was named Two Mile school.

Most were one room structures with one teacher, usually a female, who played piano and taught all eight grades.

There were no cafeterias so children brought their lunches, but in winter they were sometimes fed hot lunches by the local farm women who brought food to the schools.

A single stove heated the school, and students were called to a recitation bench in the front to recite daily lessons.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.