RULES FOR TEACHERS 1872*
1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys.
2. Each teacher will bring a pail of water and a scuttle of coal for the day’s session.
3. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.
4. Men teachers may take one evening per week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to Church regularly.
5. Following ten hours in school, the teacher may pass the remaining time reading the Bible or similar good books.
6. Women instructors who marry or partake of improper conduct will be dismissed.
7. All instructors should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of their earnings for their benefit during declining years so they will not become a burden on society.
8. Any teacher who smokes, drinks liquor in any form, visits pool or public halls, or is shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention and honesty.
9. The teacher who performs his labour faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves
Rules for Students 1872*
1. Respect your schoolmaster. Obey him and accept his punishments.
2. Do not call your classmates names or fight with them. Love and help each other.
3. Never make noises or disturb your neighbors as they work. Be silent during classes.
4. Do not talk unless it’s absolutely necessary.
5. Bring firewood into the classroom for the stove whenever the teacher tells you to.
6. If the master calls your name after class, straighten the benches and tables, sweep the room, dust and leave everything tidy.
* The source of these rules are unknown. They have been attributed to Monroe County, Iowa; a one-room schoolhouse in Maine; and an unspecified schoolhouse in Arizona.