Kansas One Room
School House Project
An Account of Subscription Schools

An Account of Subscription Schools (Douglass, Robert Sidney. History of Southeast Missouri, Cape Girardeau, MO: Ramfre Press, 1961, Pp. 398-400. Originally published in 1912.)

"Private schools in Southeast Missouri of an elementary character were usually either subscription schools or else the elementary department of an academy. There were two kinds of academies, those chartered by the state and those which existed without a charter. What we have termed subscription schools were probably the most common form of the early elementary schools. They were taught usually by men who claimed certain attainments in learning and for a longer or shorter period devoted themselves to instruction. These teachers were professional teachers in that they supported themselves in part by teaching but most of them turned their attention during the greater part of the year to other pursuits. These schools were usually conducted in the winter time when it was impossible to do much of anything else while in other seasons of the year both teacher and pupils were otherwise engaged. There were two principal methods of organizing and conducting such schools. Either a teacher provided room in some dwelling house and secured, by personal canvass, a sufficient number of subscribers to make it worthwhile to conduct the school (the patrons having no organization of their own), or else, and more commonly, those families in the community which desired to send children to school banded themselves together, appointed one of their number as trustee and provided a place for conducting the school. This trustee was empowered by the voluntary association which he represented, to employ a teacher and to exercise a degree of supervision over his actions. This was the most common plan and it is perhaps not too much to say that in many parts of Southeast Missouri the schools thus organized and conducted were the most important factors in educational work during all the period preceding the war. Even after the war this plan was still used in many places. The writer well remembers that his first school days were spent in such a school. The house had been built by voluntary association of neighbors who appointed one of their number as a trustee. He hired the teacher and when necessary discharged him. The house itself was well built and for the time, excellently seated and furnished. This was at a period long after the war. The state exercised no control over these schools and of course contributed nothing to their support. No license to teach was required of those who conducted them, and accordingly the only requirements to be met by the would-be teacher were such as were established in the community itself. These requirements varied in the different communities, and from time to time."

A true copy a School article Commenced on the 14th of July 1847 in Greenville Township, Wayne County, Mo. by Thomas Taylor for six months.-

--1st. I Thomas Taylor promise to teach they Children of this Neighborhood to the number of Twenty five if that many can be made up, or will commence with twenty to teach six months at the rate of Two dollars and fifty cents per scholar per quarter or three months. I will teach spelling, reading, writing, the rudiments of arithmetic, then the single rule of three, double rule of three Practice, Tare and Tret, simple Interest and compound Interest, also teach the vernacular Language, teach five days in each week and if any time is lost by Thomas Taylor by sickness or otherwise to be made up before the Expiration of Teaching.

-- 2nd. We the undersigned employers to this article promise to pay to Thomas Taylor the above sum per scholar on or before the expiration of teaching. I will receive Cash, Pork, Beef hides, Deerskins, Mink skins, Raccoon skins or any fur if good, also woolen Jeans Cloth, shirting cloth or Young Cattle one year not over, a young Beef Steer or Cow. The deferent articles as above to be delivered me at Mr. Eli Cowan's on or before the expiration. The Schoolhouse to be Comfortably fixed with a good roof writing Tables or Benches, also seats Benches to sit on. Fuel furnished when needed.

Employers Names (and number of scholars)

SCHOOL REGULATIONS

Signed T. Taylor, tutor

Saturday, October 13, 2001 8:11 PM

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