oldenburg-l - Nachricht 2006-10 00041

[Werner Honkomp <werner(a)honkomp.de>]

Hello Margot,
in additional what I told about the school in Damme.

The Meyer-Holgrefe estate is located in the Bauernschaft (farm group) Holte-Bokern. This Bauerschaft is the smallest in the parish Damme and close to the parish, Therefore there was not and own side-school and kids must go to the main-school (Knabenschule) in Damme.
The Visitation report of 1862 listed that the following subjects were taught: religion, reading, writing, speaking, arithmetic, object-lessons, world chronicle, singing.
All children were required to attend school between 6 and 15 years.
The daily lessons time was of 8-12 hours and from 1 to 4 hours in the winter and summertime.
In the Bauerschaften was the lessons time in the summer only between 8-12, in the afternon the kids must work on the fields.
You can therefore assume that the education was better at the main-school and the change was much bigger to come to the higher school and later to the Normalschule, but for this the need money.

That's all what I could find.

Werner Honkomp


> Dear Fred,

> You people really are amazing!

> The reason I'm so interested in the schooling (apart from general
> curiosity) is that my great grandmother (the daughter of a Heuerman) in
> Damme was the first teacher in a small district school in Stearns
> County and from what I recall my family saying about her, she clearly
> had educational aspirations for herself and her children -- or at least
> for her sons, if not her daughters, although the youngest did make it
> to university in the early 20s. Would she have had enough training at
> the school on the  Meyer-Holzgrefe estate (Volkschule? Dorfschule?
> Landschule?) to enable her to teach once the family arrived in the U.S.
> in 1870? I doubt that she went  to Normal School but I gather that the
> requirements for teaching weren't all that strict at the time.

> Thanks again!

> Margot