oldenburg-l - Nachricht 2006-10 00017

[Margot King <margot.king(a)ca.inter.net>]

I'm back again with what probably is another simple-minded question but 
the list members have been so generous with their answers to my other 
questions that I'm hoping that perhaps someone can help me out.

What kind of education would the children of the Heuerleute in 
Oldenburg have had in the middle of the nineteenth century?  My great 
great grandfather (Johann Heinrich Bergmann) was a tenant farmer in 
Damme but only a few years after the family's arrival in the U.S. in 
1870, he was on the school board in Stearns County MN and his daughter, 
my great grandmother Berardina, was the first teacher in one of the 
small district schools there. She must have had some kind of schooling 
but would it have been enough for her to teach?  I know that there were 
Progymasia all over Germany at the time but am not sure how the 
Heuerleute would have fit into this scheme or indeed whether she would 
have attended such a school.

I'd be most grateful for any help in this area and/or suggestions for 
further reading.

Margot King