Could you abide by rules that applied to teachers at that time? This half of a stereoscopic view of Center School at 7 North Road in 1875 shows several teachers who likely had to comply.
The Rules
1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys.
2. Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day’s session.
3. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs to the individual taste of the pupils.
4. Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly.
5. After ten hours in school, the teachers may spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.
6. The school will dismiss women teachers who marry or engage in unseemly conduct.
7. Every teacher should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of his earnings for his benefit during his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.
8. Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, visits pool or public halls, or gets shaved in a barber shop invites suspicion about his worth, intention, integrity, and honesty.
9. The Board of Education will grant a teacher a twenty‑five‑cent weekly raise if he performs his labor faithfully and without fault for five years.