Moors School at Old District No, 2, Groton, Massachusetts

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Excerpt from Moors School at Old District No, 2, Groton, Massachusetts: The Story of a District School In the rural district the teacher becomes an Intimate friend of the parents of her pupils, more often living in their homes and learns of their hopes for their offspring and is fully In sympathy with the sentiment as expressed in the frontispiece of the New England primer of 1836. Children, like tender osiers, lake the bow. And as they first are fashioned always grow, For what we learn In youth, to that alone. In ages, we are by second nature prone. Tho ungraded school is an institution dating from the early days of tho settlement of this country and in the new colonies after 1700 that institution known as a traveling school, succeeded the old dames school. Under this arrangement the outlying districts were given a schoolmaster or mistress who went about gathering in various farm houses a few pupils who were taught the rudiments of the three R's - Reading, 'Ritning and 'Rithmetic. Shortly after 1700. there was less interest in educational matters than in the Pilgrim days, especially in tho Interior towns. The New England primer was quite an advance as a text book over the school book of the Pilgrim days, which was one book for the whole school, the old English hornbook. This was a single card, containing the alphabet and a few simple arithmetic tables, and the whole covered with a transparent sheet of horn to protect it from the inquisitive fingers of aspiring youth, who resorted to it for instruction where it hung suspended by a string from the wall. This is to be compared with the present day method when every pupil has ample text books furnished at public expense. In Groton, schools had been kept in the various angles or squadrons of tho town for many years previous to the promulgation of the new school law In 1789. These schools were in small and rough buildings, often cold and heated In a manner by fires in open fireplaces. An interpretation of the history of Groton leads us to believe that these schools were supported wholly by the parents of the children in tho particular squadron In which the school was maintained, until about tho year 1755. At this time, from the total amount of money appropriated by the town for schools, "twenty pounds was set apart for the 'outskirts.'" The year 1753, was the date of the setting up of Shirley and Pepperell as separate districts, and in the latter district the same method of providing for the "outskirts" was followed. Again in Groton in 1758, twenty pounds was set apart for the "reading and writing schools in the several angles of the town." besides thirty pounds for the grammar school at the center of the town. This amount was to be applied only for instruction and the inhabitants or the angles or squadrons, later called districts, undoubtedly provided their own rude schoolhouses on land contributed by individuals as is shown by tho clause in many of the deeds which provided that the land should revert to the original owners or their heirs or assigns, should the school cease to exist. From the year 1789. dates the beginning of Number Two school as a district school, for which the inhabitants of that part of the town were taxed for its maintenance. It is recorded in 1790, that there were sixty-six children of school age in "Major Moors' District No. 2." In 1792, the town voted to erect several schoolhouses on the sites oi the old ones and undoubtedly the present house In Major Joseph Moors' immediate neighborhood was built in accordance with this vote. The law of 1789, required that towns of