One-Room Schoolhouses Close, 1969
Up to the 1960s, practically all rural students attended the neighbourhood one-room school. Organized before the advent of the automobile, most townships contained 10 to 15 school sections, so students would not have too far to walk. Students were expected to walk to school, across the fields, even in winter. The teachers were typically young and had to instruct all eight grades at once. Needless to say, they could not spend long teaching the curriculum of any one grade, and much of the time students were working out of their workbooks. For many years, once a female teacher married, she was expected to retire and look her their family. (Back then there were not the household appliances that we take for granted today—it was a lot of work!) Teaching at a one room school typically did not pay well enough to support a family. Often teachers would only stay for a semester, a year or two at a school. Most one room schools never had running water, though in later years they may have had an indoor toilet—i.e. a hole in the basement floor.
Today, kids take for granted that everyone has access to the same education. The same could not be said prior to the mid twentieth century. Students who grew up in town went to larger schools. In Fenelon Falls, there was a class for each grade. Even in smaller communities like Burnt River and Coboconk, it was typically just two grades that were taught together. They could also offer Kindergarten and a library. There would be a secretary to reduce the amount of clerical work that teachers had to do. Not surprisingly, many young teachers who would make a career out of education transferred to the village schools, and many would never return to a one-room school. On the other hand, one room schools had a sense of camaraderie that village schools could never match. Older students learned to be there for their younger neighbours, and they did make neighbourhoods like families.
Around 1950, snow plowing and school bussing for secondary students became the norm, leading to the consolidation of village high schools into district high schools. Initially, one-room schools carried on, little changed from generations past. Then some neighbouring schools merged their classes—for instance, Grades 1-4 might be taught at one school with Grades 5-8 at the other. The Victoria County Board of Education was created on January 1, 1969, and immediately began the consolidation of the elementary schools. By the end of the year, local one room schools had closed, as students would be bussed to town. The schoolhouses were auctioned and typically renovated to become houses.
Though few doubted that consolidated schools made it much easier to teach and allowed students access to more resources, many neighbourhoods felt the loss of their one-room schoolhouse. At about the same time, many neighbourhood churches were closing as families would drive to service in town—or choose not to attend at all! At about the same time, televisions were becoming widespread, and it ceased to be the norm to spend the evening talking to your neighbours about what your horses and children did that day. In generations past, these small communities had grown as families worked together, at bees, while children would help each other learn at school. These neighbourhoods were like extended families—neighbours were there from each other from cradle to grave. But once the schools and churches closed, the next generation would not grow up with the same sense of community. It would not be long before neighbours no longer knew practically everything that was going on in each others’ lives, and the next generation would not be there for each other in the same way that their parents were. The era when everyone in a neighbourhood shared a common experience soon ended.
