Remember this? Custom nib whittling optional

With teachers and students recently back in the classroom, we thought it would be timely to take a look back at what it used to be like to be an educator in Sault Ste. Marie.

Back in 1872, there were a few extra details a teacher was required to take care of - from bringing the coal for the day, to helping students whittle the nibs of their pens.

Teachers were also apparently suspect when it came to conducting their personal lives in a proper manner.

Marriage and improper conduct were firing offences for women, and men were cautioned to do their shaving at home, behind closed doors, not in a (shudder!) barber shop.

No smoking or drinking either, naturally.

The Sault Ste. Marie Museum lays out the rules teachers were required to abide below.

While you're at it, head on over to LOCAL2 where we have launched a new video series with the museum called Back in Time, which highlights Sault Ste. Marie's past.

1872

• Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys

• Each teacher will bring a pail of water and a scuttle of coal for the day’s session

• Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils

• Men teachers may take one evening per week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly

• Following ten hours in school, the teacher may pass the remaining time reading the Bible or similar good books

• Women instructors who marry or partake of improper conduct will be dismissed

• 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

• 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

NOTE:  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

Find out more of what the museum has to offer at www.saultmuseum.com