One hundred thirty years ago a one room schoolhouse existed a half mile down the hill and nearly a quarter mile rest from where I live now. The back of the school building sat almost on the edge of McKay Gulch, named for Andrew McKay a logging superintendent for the Albion Mill Company and later Albion Lumber Company. The building rested in a clearing only a couple hundred feet from, and slightly above, railroad tracks on the western portion of the Macdonald property. The one room stood fifteen feet by twenty-three feet wide and eight feet high. In the 1890s the student population ranged from seventeen to two dozen. On rare occasions the enrollment burgeoned to twenty-five or twenty-six.
A school term in those days ran approximately four months at a time, from early March until the last days of June. Pupils were allotted a two week vacation around the Fourth of July. A summer to fall term commenced in mid-July with classes carrying on through the end of October or mid-November, depending on the weather. The winter months often proved too wet for travel, which in those days meant on foot. In those 1890s days at least one student traveled about five miles, each way, from his home upriver on the south fork of the Albion. Others, like the Derosier and Dartt children, walked down from the back end of Albion Ridge, crossed the river near a picnic area on the Macdonald ranch to make their way to their studies. Hilma, Bob, and Emma Mathison had an equally steep uphill walk home from school to their parents' place on the east end of the Littleriver prairie road. This was many decades before the airport, thus the dusty or muddy road was referred to as the prairie road for as many years as it has been labeled the Littleriver Airport Road.
Inside that one room school were four maps, seven chairs, ten double seat desks, a dictionary, a globe, blackboards on three walls, and a call bell on the teacher's desk (which cost $18.00). A ten dollar wood stove warmed the school on chilly mornings.
Students could walk down the short slope at noontime, cross the railroad tracks, and wade in the Albion River, with their socks off, of course. After school, the stream made an adequate swimming hole.
In the 1890s, the teachers included Dora Smith and Rose Wainwright. Both were favorites of my two oldest uncles, Jack and Charlie Macdonald. Lifelong friends were made at this school. One cherished family possession remains a photograph of fourteen McKay students and their teacher, Rose Wainwright, from the late 1890s. Among the students: Muriel Macdonald (my eldest aunt who died from diphtheria days short of her ninth birthday in 1902), Uncle Jack, Uncle Charlie, and next to him Bob Mathison. The latter two maintained a strong friendship for approximately seventy years.
No precise date is documented for the first school year at McKay. I do know that it was open before Jack, the eldest of my aunts and uncles, started his instruction. Jack was born in 1888. My paternal grandparents Lillian and John Macdonald served as trustees of the McKay School and it would appear nearly obvious that the location of the school an eighth of a mile or so west of their house meant that they were in at its founding. A brief notation exists to corroborate fifteen boys and eleven girls in attendance at McKay School in 1891.
One might imagine that the knowledge needed to be a grade school teacher has surely advanced in the last one hundred thirty years. While searching for other information in Mendocino County newspapers of 1892, I stumbled upon a heading, “Teacher's Examination.”
Beneath that, “The Questions Submitted this Year by the Mendocino County Board of Education.” At that time it was possible to become a school teacher with little more than an eighth grade education. So what sort of exam were teachers expected to master?
The exam was broken down under these categories: Algebra, Geography, Reading, Geometry, Grammar, Entomology, Physiology, Spelling, Theory and Practice, Mental Arithmetic, School Law, Botany, Music, Book-keeping, and Philosophy. The Mendocino County Teacher's Examination of 1892 consisted of more than a hundred questions from those categories, which included fifty spelling words and the ability to pronounce thirty words, including talisman, impious, and quietus.
The spelling words included mendacious, panegyric, Gualala, aniline, aneurism, newt, chenille, victuals, psychology, and vitreous. One of the algebra questions: A man can row 14 miles an hour with the tide; against a tide two-thirds as strong he can row but 4 miles an hour. What is the velocity of the tide in each case?
Under “Theory and Practice,” teachers were required to “distinguish between tell, teach and train, as used in school work.” For Geography, a teacher would be expected to name five ocean currents, and give their cause. In addition prospective teachers might be asked to name the ocean currents that affect the climate of California and tell how they affect it.
For Geometry, one would be required to: demonstrate that two vertical angles are equal; show that the opposite angles of a parallelogram are equal, demonstrate how to find the angle of a regular polygon. Under music, teachers needed to write a piece of four part music, using the bass and treble clefs as well as simply representing the different kinds of notes and rests.
Under “Grammar,” teachers had to be able to name and illustrate all the different parts of speech and other expressions that adverbs can modify; “illustrate the use of a noun as an attribute of the subject, in apposition to the object of a preposition, adverbially without a preposition, and independently.”
We haven't even delved into botany, physiology, entomology, or philosophy. The questions mentioned were samples. Each category contained a half dozen to ten separate queries.
And you had to light that stove of a chilly morning.
Pass out that exam today and let’s see how many of the current enlightened teachers get a passing grade.
I can’t answer a lot of the questions, and I have two college degrees. An 8th grade education in those days was more demanding than a high school education is today, in some cases even college.
But my father had to walk 30 miles through snow, uphill both ways, barefoot just to attend school.
My father went to school in Bakersfield.