Poconos history expert tells of early years of schools
January 16, 2015
One of the earliest schools in what is now Monroe County was the church school at Christ Hamilton Church, with instruction in German to teach children the scriptures. Noted fraktur artist Johan Adam Eyer (Oyer) (1755-1837) was schoolmaster there in the early 1800s.
Janet Mishkin, adjunct professor of History at East Stroudsburg University and director and curator of Quiet Valley Living Farm, presented a program on Jan. 13 of early education in Pennsylvania to a combined meeting of the Sullivan Trail Questers and the Historical Association of Tobyhanna Township at the Clymer library in Pocono Pines.
Mishkin stated that free education became more structured starting with the School Act of 1834. Voluntary at first, subscription schools charging a fee per student opened their doors by funding poor children’s attendance. But agricultural communities, church schools and industrial owners, not wishing to lose their child labor, challenged the law. Local taxation evolved, eventually providing for free education of all children.
By 1854, local ward, township and borough schools were organized under a county superintendent to help provide consistent quality of education. But Mishkin said that it was the Pennsylvania Constitution of 1873 that established a mandatory system of free schools; and the Uniform Curriculum Act of 1893 strengthened educational objectives. By 1895, compulsory attendance for children ages 8 to 13 was enacted through Pennsylvania law.
Because of the large population and influence of a German population, the state allowed for instruction to be given in both English and German languages to encourage attendance and support of the schools.
Mishkin reported that, even by 1900, students attended school in Monroe County for only seven months. This allowed for scheduling of additional labor for the spring planting and fall harvest in what was still a rural, farming county. More populous areas faced similar challenges, with industrial development competing for child labor.
Locally, the first, log schoolhouse in Tobyhanna Township was erected in 1831.
By 1931, a multi-building campus housing grades 1 through 12 represented the community’s commitment to education. It was located at today’s site of the elementary center on Old Route 940 in Pocono Pines-Pocono Lake.
As an educator, Janet Mishkin’s perspective in presenting the historical account of education gave the group an in-depth picture of education’s evolution.
Pocono Record | January 16, 2015
