In the early days of Madison County, all education came either at home or by sending children to boarding schools across the nation.  Wealthy families often hired private tutors. In some communities, Sunday School classes provided a rudimentary education. Ohio is one of the 12 states which allow tax-based funding for parochial schools.  

Eventually communities began one room schools. These were for grades 1 thru 8. The room was arranged by age. The youngest sat in the front. Instead of paper for notes, hand-held chalk boards were common. The school year was 132 days instead of today’s 180.  Why? The school year had to end for children to help with the annual harvest. Older students were expected to help teach the younger students. The decision to build a school was based on an accepted (but not mandated) 5 mile rule, the most distance a student could be expected to walk. Some schools were segregated by sex with boys and girls on different sides of the room. Discipline was strict, including detentions, suspension, expulsion and even lashing.

These public schools started appearing in the 1830’s. Many of the early buildings were wood construction. Brick buildings started appearing in the 1870’s. After elementary education became mandatory, these became more common. Most were one room but some were two-room. These early schools started disappearing in the 1920’s and 1930’s, as they were consolidated into large community schools.

The following is an abstract from a Wikipedia article on one-room schools (pictures from other states are part of the article which is about room-room schools in general, not about Madison County)

“They had a place in popular folklore, with one fondly recalling a, “little house, on a little ground, with a little equipment, where a little teacher at a little salary, for a little while, teaches little children little things.” A less romantic view by sociologist Newell Sims reported on the majority of rural schools of all sizes in the 1930’s:

The utter inadequacy of the majority is the striking feature of rural school buildings. They are poorly situated, often without any grounds, or, with grounds that are grassless, treeless and beautyless. As structures they are poorly planned, poorly lighted, poorly heated, poorly seated, poorly equipped or virtually unequipped either for comfort or education, and poorly kept. Drinking water is not usually supplied. Sanitary arrangements and toilet facilities are as likely to be entirely lacking as to be provided in even a half-way decent manner.

Teachers in one-room schools were usually daughters of nearby farmers. They were recent graduates and spent a couple of years teaching before they quit to get married. The teachers were poorly prepared and needed to coach children of all ages/grades within one room. Their main role is well-described by a student from Kentucky in the 1940’s:

The teachers that taught in the one room, rural schools were very special people. During the winter months they would get to the school early to get a fire started in the potbelly, so the building would be warm for the students. On many occasions they would prepare a hot, noon meal on top of the stove, usually consisting of soup or stew of some kind. They took care of their students like a new mother hen would care for her newly hatched chicks; always looking out for their health and welfare.

A typical school day was 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., with morning and afternoon recesses of 15 minutes each and an hour period for lunch. “The older students were given the responsibility of bringing in water, carrying in coal or wood for the stove. The younger students would be given responsibilities according to their size and gender such as cleaning the black board (chalkboard), taking the erasers outside for dusting plus other duties that they were capable of doing.”

Transportation for children who lived too far to walk was often provided by horse-drawn kid hack or sulky, which could only travel a limited distance in a reasonable amount of time each morning and evening, or students might ride a horse, these being put out to pasture in an adjoining paddock during the day. In more recent times, students rode bicycles.

The vast majority of one-room schools have been torn down; a few were converted for other purposes. However, in a handful of rural communities, such as Mennonites and Amish, one-room or two-room schools survived longer.

The teacher’s residence, or was often attached to the school, or very close by, so that a male teacher’s wife and family were an integral part of the management and support system for the school. Single, female teachers were more often billeted or boarded with a local family to provide for social norms requiring social supervision of single females.”