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Page 2 RULES FOR TEACHERS 1872 1. Teachers each day will fill lamps, clean chimneys. 2. Each teacher will bring a pail 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 per week for courting purposes or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly. 5. Following ten hours in school the teacher may pass the remaining time reading the Bible or similar good books. 6. Women instructors who marry or partake of improper conduct will be dismissed. 7. All instructors should lay aside from each pay a goodly sum of their earnings for their benefit during declining years, so they will not become a burden on society. 8. Any teacher who smokes, drinks liquor in any form, visits pool or public halls, or is shaved in a barber shop will give good reason to suspect his worth, intention, and honesty. NOTE: The teacher who performs his labour faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of twenty-five cents per week in his pay, providing the Board of Education approves. [Taken from the Scugog Shores Museum] ============ Page 3 Virgil School 1872-1997 The history of Virgil School dates back far before the construction of the existing building. As early as 1829, Mr. Dorland began teaching a day school at the Crossroads. As early as 1939, land was purchased from the farm of Mr. Lawrence. The early school, located a few hundred yards south of our present site, was built in Lawrenceville, later to be renamed Virgil. It was named School Section No. 8 because at that time the township of Niagara had been divided into ten separate school sections. School Section No. 8 was originally laid out to include all of the military reserve which lay to the west of School Section No. 1 in Niagara-on-the-Lake. Each school ran its own affairs, and at School Section No. 8 each family paid 250¢ month per student to pay the teacher. This changed in 1870 when taxes were collected from the municipality and school financing was left to the trustees. By 1872 the need for a new school was realized and a more modern stone school house replaced the frame building. This room is the original single room of School Section No. 8. Although the entranceway has been changed from the front door, the atmosphere of the original classroom is recreated each year with the ringing of the school bell to mark dismissal of classes for the summer. By 1922 attendance had increased making a second room necessary. At this time, additional land was acquired to extend the school grounds. In this diagram we see the floor plan of the structure as it was in the 1920's.