The Little Red Schoolhouse

By Eric Sloane

School days, like our everydays, have changed. But the obsolete world of the one-room schoolhouse filled with rough-hewn desks still lingers. The echoes of yesteryear live on in the old-fashioned classrooms that still stand today.
Harkening back to a time when the three Rs actually stood for reading, 'riting, and religion, Eric Sloane's sketchbook explores the history and spirit of early American schools. In this vivid slice of Americana, he tells of when paper was a precious commodity, explains the origins of words such as "blackboard" and "moonlighting," and offers evocative illustrations of New England's eighteenth- and nineteenth-century schoolhouses and their delightfully modest interiors. Filled with insight, warmth, and honest nostalgia, The Little Red Schoolhouse is an enchanting journey into a bygone past.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Dover Publications
• Release date: Nov 13, 2012
• ISBN: 9780486139258

Book preview

Other books by Eric Sloane available as Dover reprints

A Museum of Early American Tools

American Barns and Covered Bridges

American Yesterday

A Reverence for Wood

Look at the Sky and Tell the Weather

Our Vanishing Landscape

Diary of an Early American Boy: Noah Blake 1805

The Seasons of America Past

The Cracker Barrel

Once Upon a Time: The Way America Was

Eric Sloane’s Weather Book

Recollections in Black and White

Return to Taos: Eric Sloane’s Sketchbook of Roadside Americana

Skies and the Artist: How to Draw Clouds and Sunsets

Eric Sloane’s Book of Storms: Hurricanes, Twisters and Squalls

For Spacious Skies

(Log on to www.doverpublications.com for more information.)

Copyright

Copyright © 1972 by Eric Sloane All rights reserved.

Bibliographical Note

This Dover edition, first published in 2007, is an unabridged republication of the work originally published in 1972 by Doubleday and Company, Inc., Garden City, New York.

International Standard Book Number

9780486139258

ISBN-10: 0-486-45604-8

Manufactured in the United States of America

Dover Publications, Inc., 31 East 2nd Street, Mineola, N.Y. 11501

Table of Contents

Other books by Eric Sloane available as Dover reprints

Title Page

Copyright Page

Author’s Note

The HEART(H) of the Home

Author’s Note

The difference between yesterday’s schoolhouse and that of today might seem to be merely the difference between two kinds of architecture and the difference of size. The real difference, however, is the simple difference between yesterday and today, and the way we live it. Education, like modern everyday life, has suddenly become regarded as a means of making more money. Startling as it sounds, life’s values have become all too linked with the dollar, and the diploma is openly regarded as a guaranteed bank account. School days, like our everydays, have changed.

Living has lost tranquility—wars have become almost constant, strikes are part of daily work and rebellion is a popular school study. Normal education in this modern chaotic time often resembles a child trying to do homework while parents quarrel: students feel called upon to leave their orderly routine of study and try to patch up the confusion.

In a sense, this

Reviews for The Little Red Schoolhouse

[JD Beckham · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

#Americana
Charming book filled with wisdom and knowledge of things past - many of which the writer and I agree, should return to the present.

[Fawehinmi Oluwatobi · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I have come to appreciate my forbears. Thank you. I hate what we have become: less skillful!