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In Memory of our CSAA Co-Founder Our 2026 Annual CSAA Country School Conference ended on such a high note this week, that we know our dear friend Bill Sherman would have approved! We did however, pay tribute to Bill as co-founder of the Country School Association of America at the annual meeting. It was strange to be without him, a sad loss for all of us who kew him. But, he would be happy we carried on with his mission of schoolhouse preservation, spreading the word while adding many new members. Bill Sherman was "everyman" to country schools as you will witness in our video tribute below. We also honor his wife Faith who will remain our dear friend and fellow preservationist.
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Sunday Free Events Near Geneva, NY We'll be back after the 2026 CSAA Country School Conference with all kinds of news for you! Conference begins Sunday and ends Tuesday with the area coach tour of country school museums. Sunday Schoolhouse drive it-yourself tour is free for all.    CLICK ON FLAG TO ACESS "THE "PATRIOTIC READER" DIGITAL EDITION Carry the Torch in 2026!
July 4th 2026 will be the official 250th birthday of the United States of America. Celebrations are being held in every one of our 50 states to honor our experiment as a constitutional republic, of the people, for the people, by the people. Are we still promoting the patriotism that holds a nation together? Do today's public schools engage our children in patriotic ideals as they did in the country schools of the past? Open up The Patriotic Reader, by Bemis, Holtz & Smith of more than a century ago and you can make the assessment. The copyright is 1917, when patriotism and love of country were foremost in the minds of teachers and scholars alike in our nation's one-room schools. Savvy schoolbook publishers offered patriotic readers designed to teach the ideals embodied in the very best of our history. They included poetry, short stories, quotations, songs, character studies, and biographies...all designed to highlight the great men and women who forged a free nation from the American Revolution onward. Any three of the quotations below are appropriate to the task, boldly reflecting the spirit of our great thinkers. Daniel Webster proclaimed, "I was born an American: I will live an American: I shall die an American." Benjamin Harrison ordered this: "Do not be ashamed to love the flag or to confess your love of it. Make much of it; tell its history; sing of it. It now floats over our schools, and it ought to hang from the windows of all our homes on all our public days. Every man should rise when a national air is given at a concert or public meeting." Henry Cabot Lodge added, "Believe in your country,- be Americans." And so it goes. The chapter headings speak of the stories that children loved to hear.
I guarantee you'll find inspiration for your country school's living history experience! Access the digital copy of The Patriotic Reader by clicking on the flag above. Poets and They Know It! When you open the inside covers of a very old book, you may just find messages written in the past to people of that present! There may be drawings, doodles, or unrelated initials. Frequently you are wowed by a show of elegant Spencerian Script. Some of the more sophisticated entries are hand-inscribed poems; playful, possessive, sentimental, or even threatening. We'll even examine few. These artistic meanderings are often called “flyleaf scribblings,” “book rhymes,” or “flyleaf inscriptions.” Schoolbooks were convenient places for students to leave their musings. Blame boredom, runaway imagination, or the tradition of leaving a message on the last day of school to memorialize their experience. At the turn of the 20th century, Clifton Johnson, author of The Country School, dedicated an entire chapter on flyleaf scribblings in another of his books entitled, (click on link) Old Time Schools and Schoolbooks. Like initials carved into trees, school clapboards, or desks, like love locks chained to a bridge, flyleaf scribblings acknowledge a moment in time that says…“I was here.” Here are some examples I found in the front and back leaves of ancient copies of Town's Fourth Reader(1847), Dubb's Complete Mental Arithmetic (1893, and Course and Methods by John T. Prince (1886) I'll wager you have a few good ones to share. Flyleaf Poetry Remember well, and bear in mind, A constant friend is hard to find. But if you find one just as true, Leave not the old one for the new. Valeria C. Moses 1851 May virtues attend you And peace be your end Are the sincere wishes Of Jane, your friend. Happy did we meet, Happy have we been, Happy may we part, Happy may we meet again! 1851 Cyrene G. Webster Gilmanton, NH Written in the end page of Town’s Fourth Reader For photos below: Click on the photos to enlarge. Check out the ominous warnings of one book owner! I like this one: "See these leaves ain't (ant) torn apart, before this book is learnt by heart."  |
