Innovation 1872

(Rules posted by a Manhattan Principal in 1872)

• Each teacher will bring a bucket of water and a scuttle of coal for the day's session.
• Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs for the individual tastes of your children.
• Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes, or two evenings if they go to church regularly.
• Women teachers who marry or engage in other unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
• Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents pool or public halls, or get shaved in a barber shop, will give good reason to suspect his worth, intentions, integrity and honesty.
• The teacher who performs his labours faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of 25 cents per week in his pay, if the Board of Education agrees.