Keokuk County Iowa IAGenWeb - 1904 School Essay Contest

The Star schoolhouse is situated three miles west of Richland on the Sigourney Road in a beautiful and healthful locality.

From its doors in summer is seen a varied landscape, here and there a beautiful dwelling with its lawn and lovely trees, its flowers, garden, and orchard. Yonder the pastures decked with beautiful trees, around which gather the horses, cattle, and sheep protected from the noon day sun and yonder the lovely fields of golden grain and rustling corn, stretching far in the distance till the scene kisses the bending sky.

Amid such surroundings the heart of the student will be inspired ant its better nature developed.

Yes, our Star school is one of the galaxies of Stars in the public school system our grand country, which makes the American nation supreme and the admiration of the world.

The old schoolhouse was built in the fifties and stood the storms of the years until 1874 when it was sold for a barn and moved one mile west where it stands to this day as a landmark of the long ago.

It was a small frame building, its furniture the renowned slab seat of back wood’s times, a writing desk along one wall, a blackboard, a stool and desk for the teacher, and an abundant supply of well-seasoned hickory rods, and the mischievous boy well knew by personal experience the truth of the saying of the wise man, “that the rod is for the fool’s back”

The teacher sometimes boarded around among the scholars, generally was his own janitor and his requisite for the winter school was physical strength, handy with the rod, with some knowledge of reading, writing, and arithmetic.

In the estimate of the big boys, the success of the school depended altogether on the size and strength of the teacher. A lady teacher never need apply for the winter term. Such opinions prevailed in their day but changed and passed away with the old schoolhouse.

A new one built the same year, on the same plan, but larger, dates the ending of the old system and the beginning of a new and better one.

Religious services, geography, singing, spelling, and writing schools also very interesting literary societies have been held in it, and Old Star was noted for its good spellers who never knew defeat and the famous debates held under her roof. For miles they came to attend the spelling or debate and invariably victory crowned the efforts of the noble young men and women known as the Star boys and girls.

When Abe Lincoln, once a country boy, standing amid the prairies of Illinois said, “this land cannot be half slave and half free,” and for that reason as the dark cloud of Civil War settled like a pall over our dear land four of her boys answered our country’s call, and in the Spanish American Was two offered their services to stay the hand of oppression.

Thirty young men and women have gone out from this school as teachers, two lawyers, a doctor, and a minister. None ever reached the presidential chair but most of them settled on farms, as farmers or farmers’ wives, as the years went by.

Methinks there is no vocation so independed and lovely as the farmer’s life. It gives him health and strength and brings him in touch with nature in all of her loveliness. Away from the crowded city with its traffic and temptations, out in the fields or by the silvery stream, where the trees and hills and dale are carpeted with green, how good to hold communion with nature and her God.

No, none of them reached high positions of eminence in this life, but some have passed to the life beyond, being lovers of the humble Nazarene here, are now in the great school of Heaven, “Where the sun never sets and the leaves never fade.”

In a description of the schoolhouse as it is today, we would say; that it is surrounded by 80 square rods of schoolground fenced only on two sides, therefore it seems impossible to have any flowers or vegetation except grass and weeds. At one time we did boast of a small lilac bush but it did not receive the right kind of care so after a hard struggle it ceased to exist.

As there is no well on the grounds, the pupils are obliged to carry drinking water from a neighbor’s well. The twenty-three shade trees that have stood there for twenty-eight years still extend their green branches to protest the children from the hot summer sun as they seek refuge under their friendly shelter, after the merry game in which all have joined.

The schoolhouse, size 24 x 32 feet, is the largest in Richland township. It is thirty years old and in good condition. A few years ago, it was painted on the outside and a new brick foundation put under it. Six years ago, part new seats were added for the comfort of the pupils and last winter a new stove. A board blackboard extends across one end of the room and there is a small one on the opposite wall. A long bench under the blackboard serves as a recitation seat. There are 16 double seats and desk in good condition, also a table and chair for the teacher. The walls are beautifully decorated with pictures and other pretty articles placed there by childish hands. Tasty window shades well hung, to protect us from the blazing sun.

Webster’s dictionary, globe, set of maps, brooms, lamps, scissors, and other useful articles are found in our schoolhouse. There is a circulating library the books of which changes each year and new ones added. At present, our library consists of 18 books. There are histories and other books of information for the older pupils and story books for the little folks.

The pupils are quite regular as none of them like to have an absent mark. When it comes to wading the mud or snow or facing the bitter cold wind you cannot discouraged them. It takes courage to leave the warm home fire and take a walk of from one and a half miles in the bitter cold. They are quite punctual as a tardy mark is almost as bad as an absent one.

We seldom have any visitors except on special occasions. The people of the district are all so industrious they cannot take time to visit us often.

The schoolhouse of the future shall be situated near the center of the township on some lovely elevation.

Houses that are now back in the fields, shall be moved to the public road that the children may be taken in a convenient covered carriage or a car over good roads or iron rails to school and returned home at the close of the school hours.

Its appearance from without shall be stately and shall be called the schoolhouse beautiful. It shall be open to the four winds of Heaven and its key of freedom evermore lie in the pathway of the poorest comer. Standing the center of a five-acre campus, enclosed by a tasty and substantial fence, well seeded to blue grass, planted in trees and decked here and there with beautiful flowers and ornamental plants, a well and place of refuge in case of a storm. Under the trees shall be rustic seats where the children will come and sit beneath their branches listening to the song of the birds perched upon their leafy bought. Thus, with nature’s charm and purity about them they shall be led in the noblest paths. Such scene and surroundings shall leave an evergreen on memory’s brow which shall not fade while time, mind, and reason hold. A memory which shall not fail wheresoever a heart shall be found that beats to the transports of honor and love. The soft summer breeze, touching the leaves and flowers with its gentle zephyrs calling from the heart the softer and finer nature of the being to clothe with a sweeter love and softer sympathy the expanding soul.

Within, the schoolhouse beautiful shall not lack art. Nothing that belongs to human need in the mounding of the plastic life of the child shall be too costly for within its walls. There shall be school rooms enough, a vestibule or hall and a large room used as a workshop and playroom. It shall be heated by a furnace, lighted by gas or electricity as well ventilated. Contain comfortable single seats and desks or upholstered chairs and tables, slate blackboards, tasty window curtains, an organ and piano, songbooks, a large library and had everything needed to help instruct the child.

On the walls shall be maps and beautiful pictures. Shelves in the windows shall be filled with plants and flowers, The workroom shall contain tools, tables, material, and all things needful to teach the boy and girl industry. Here they shall keep everything in order, where on rainy days they may be profitably entertained during recreation. The student shall not be compelled to sit in his seat from morning till night, but here and there he may pass his time making the school life home-like.

The teacher shall be a Christian loving, kind and true, able to lead the child in the way of usefulness to his home, his country, and his God. The student guided by love and placed upon his honor shall build a character strongly fortified against the evils and temptations of life. Thus, armored and cultured as he goes forth in the great struggle and battle of life, he shall be able to stand, and the world shall be made better and happier by his having lived.

The home life with its love, its hearthstone, and its charms, truly is “Home Sweet Home.” But when the school to be shall become a second home, where order and harmony shall prevail, where love shall hold her mild dominion, where teacher and pupil shall be as one, where knowledge shall increase and home and country and God be enthroned, then it be our ideal.