[Every day] we climbed cement steps onto a generous cement porch that ran almost the full length of the front of the red brick building. There were two long, bricked-in doorways on each side of the unsheltered porch with the school's only door in between. Previously, the schoolhouse had two entrances, one for the boys and one for the girls. There may have been a window, where the single doorway stood, between the two doors. We went through the entrance door and entered a hallway. Overhead was a bell and rope. At the end of the hall we entered a large room. The teacher's desk was on our right and faced the back of the room. Wooden desks, for the students, faced the teacher's desk. The desks, not fastened together, were of various sizes. There was a storage space under the desk top as well as an additional place for tablets and books in a sliding drawer under the desk's seat. Each desk had an ink well, for penmanship practice, at the top, right hand corner, although ink wasn't furnished to students until they were in one of the higher grades. I don't recall being taught to print, although Marian said she learned to print before being taught cursive writing. Ruled, pencil tablets were used for most of the written as­signments. A trough at the top of the desk held our pencils. In front of the students' desks and facing the teacher's desk were two long, wood benches with wood backs. We called them recitation benches. For instance, the teacher would call, "Third grade reading class, rise, pass," and the children in that class marched, with their reading books, to the recitation benches where the teacher had the students read individually from their assigned lessons. The classes, being small, were composed of from one to six pupils. Generally only one recitation bench was utilized; however, sometimes the teacher would have another class come forward and sit on the second bench. We referred to this bench as the preparatory bench.

Behind the teacher's desk was the girls' cloak room. The hall separated it from the combination boys' cloak room and coal room. The cloak rooms, where we stored our lunch pails and outer garments, were entered from the schoolroom and were utilized as dressing rooms when we put on our annual Christmas pageant. A large, coal furnace was in front of the boys cloak room. While we didn't have electricity, our kerosene lamps were seldom used except for evening school events as large windows provided adequate light. Three windows, with blackboards in between, composed each side wall. What we referred to as our library was at the back of the room. Corner wooden cabinets held school supplies and a large bookcase, in the middle of the rear wall, held books for eight grades as well as a small stack of National Geographic magazines. Each shelf had its own glass cover that slid up and over the books when opened.

An average of twenty-five students were taught arithmetic, grammar, history, physiology (hygiene), penmanship, reading, spelling, geography, music and drawing. In addition children were graded in deportment, industry and, on the nine marking periods, days attended were noted along with days missed. Fern E. Bickford, Branch County Commissioner, listed six rules for students on the front of the Coldwater-Batavia Township Public School Report Cards:

    1.    Be clean in person, dress, habits, thoughts and speech.
    2.    Be dutiful, polite and respectful to parents, teachers and all whom            you may meet.
    3.    Strive to build up a good character, and your reputation will take            care of itself.
    4.    Be earnest in play in the time for play, and equally earnest in work
           in the time for work.
    5.    Cultivate promptness, energy and patient industry. They are worth            more to you than money or influence in securing success in life.
     6.   Finally be courteous, obedient, thoughtful, earnest, attentive,            studious and industrious if you would win the highest esteem of your            teachers, schoolmates, parents and the general public.

In the grading system of A through E, A was 95 to 100 and E was below 60.

At the beginning of the school day everyone stood and pledged allegiance to our flag, sang one verse of America and recited the Lord's Prayer. A­fterward, individual class lessons began. We had a morning and afternoon recess and a longer lunch period. If the weather was good, the children spent almost an hour playing outside. If the weather was bad, the teacher organized quieter games inside such as spelling bees. If a student wasn't feeling well they were allowed to sleep on the preparatory recitation bench near the furnace. This was especially helpful when a child had a severe cold during the winter months. The warmth of the fire and the cover of a cozy blanket was excellent medicine. At lunch we retrieved our lunch pails from the cloak rooms and returned to our seats to eat. If we were thirsty, we drank water from a galvanized pail that sat on a table in the cloak room. In addition to a white, enamel wash basin in each cloak room, a long handled tin cup was in the water pails for boys and girls to drink from. In later years, proper health measures were taken and each student brought their own drinking cup. Earlier in the day an older boy pumped fresh water from the well, located in the front of the school building, and carried the large pails of water to the cloak rooms. When cold weather froze the pump, Mr. Burton brought fresh water when he came to school to build a fire in the furnace. By the time students arrived, the room was always warm and cozy. During the cold weather, the older boys shoveled coal into the furnace at various times during the school day.

At the end of each school month, we had a party along with refresh­ments such as cookies, candy, cider or apples. The theme was usually geared toward the season, but the Christmas program was the most fun of all. Much of our time, before Christmas, was spent making gifts for our parents. One year we used newspaper and paste and fashioned small vases. On a sunny afternoon, a week or two before the program, the entire school walked to Burton Woods to pick out the Christmas tree. The woods were on the west side of the Hodunk Road between the Miller Lake and Hurley Roads.

Soon after rehearsal started, the teacher's desk and recitation benches were moved and sheets were strung up to separate the stage and audience. For our program we usually acted out a play about the birth of Jesus and sang traditional Christmas songs. Our repertoire included: We Three Kings of Orient Are, Away in a Manger, Jolly Old Saint Nicholas, It Came Upon the Midnight Clear and Silent Night. Most of our teachers accompanied our songs on an old pump organ that stood near the teachers desk on the west wall.

We rehearsed our parts for at least a month and on the night of the program our parents, dressed in their best clothes, came to see the Christmas play and hear us sing Christmas carols.

After we presented our program, Santa, usually Mr. Burton and made to look fatter with a hidden pillow, came in from the hall wearing the expected red costume. On his back he carried a bag of presents for us. We always received a nice sack of candy, unshelled nuts and fruit and exchanged small, inexpensive presents with our school friends. The sweets included chocolate drops, hard Christmas candy and pastel colored sugar confections.

While a good deal of time was spent learning the four R's and celebrating holidays, good health habits were also stressed when I attended grade school. Throughout the years, most of our teachers insisted we bring a clean handkerchief to school each day; this was before the invention of tissues. Some teachers inspected our fingernails and when I cut mine with a pair of dull scissors I was accused of biting my nails. My protests fell on deaf ears.

What I learned, attending the country school, was a set of values in a much simpler world. The six rules Fern Bickford listed on my report card would still be a valuable guide for children today. I enjoyed attending the one-room school, just as I enjoyed living a simple and comfortable country life. I considered myself rich, even though I lacked modern comforts. Perhaps the best lesson I learned, during my childhood, was that money and possessions were not important as long as I had a happy heart and a contented mind. Even though many years have passed since I attended the Branch County Centennial School, time cannot steal the treasure I keep in my heart of that wonderful memory or dim the pleasant thoughts I still have of the happy days I spent in grade school.