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Mountain Memories
Pages 58 - 59
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.In those days if a child was to come home from school with reddened Knuckles, or a slightly elongated ear lobe, they problbly went back to school the next day with a sore bottom as well !
The role of teaching was not an easy role to fulfill in educational aspects either. The community placed full responsibility on this person's teaching abilities, and a child was not expected to be promoted unless that child knew his lessons well. Courses of instruction were to be repeated until improvements in the report card showed justifiable grades for promotion into the next year of study. A child who failed to pass was considered a failure on the teachers part as well, for the child had not been 'learned'.
Graduating from the eighth grade was in receiving a well learned education, and the eighth grade diploma signified this as a grand achievement and accompli shment.
For those students wishing to further their education beyond eight years of learning, the school in Mountain was able to provide courses of intruct-tion in attaining two years of higher learning. Many of the settlers in the Town of Armstrong were able to give their children this education, granting that they had a place in which to stay/ or were in walking distance of the school. Many chose to ride a horse into town rather than walk/ so a shed was used on the Sever Anderson farm next door to the school yard in.which to tether their horses for the day.
In 1914 the Mountain School was enlarged to provide for a full four year course of high school. This building was then entitled the Union Free High School, the first of its kind in the state of Wisconsin, for this school was to be maintained and funded by the taxpayers within the borders of the Town of Armstrong. Upon inspection by state officials after two years of operation, the Union Free High School was declared as one of the best schools in the entire state.
58
The Union Free High School
This picture is courtesy of Lester McAllen.
The settlers in the Town of Armstrong created the schools in which our children would continue to receive a free and fair education. The town of Mountain not only overcame a devastating fire in the rebuilding of their school in 1905, but now made it possible for their children to be rewarded with a high school education in this school to sit atop the hill in Mountain in 1914.
The school in 1989 serves to educate Kindergarten through Eighth Grade. . In 1948 the high school was closed due to a shift in the population. Those not of this community decided the enrollment no , longer called for the high school classes to be held at this school.
Although the local residents, almost to a man, opposed this decision, state officals and Suring District officers eliminated the Mountain School District at a meeting held at the school house.