Volume 10 , Issue 43

Rural Schools - ?N? or Old Woodward Cty, O. T.

"It may come as somewhat of a surprise to learn there were 264 school districts established in Woodward County before Statehood. It?s not quite so surprising, though, once one remembers that Territorial Woodward County consisted of the western end of the Cherokee Outlet (or Strip, as some prefer), an area roughly sixty miles north-south and fifty miles east-west. All of present Harper and Woodward counties, the northern part of Ellis and the western end of Woods counties were contained within the borders of county ?N?, Oklahoma Territory, when it was opened for settlement September 16, 1893.

A little over a year later, November 6, 1894, the name of the county seat, Woodward, was given to the county and it remained so until November 16, 1907.....

* The Oklahoma Territorial Legislature had set a term of school as not less than three months, to be held between October1 and June 1, in each year.....

* Examination questions were prepared by The Territorial Board of Education, printed under the authority of the Territorial Superintendent of Public Instruction and sent to County Superintendents throughout the Territory, to be given on the last Friday and Saturday of January, April, or October.....

* Questions were designed to thoroughly test the teachers? knowledge with the following examples: "An arithmetic question on the October 1898 test was: ?A farmer has 110 acres of land; he plows 3 acres for 7 cows, and pastures 4 acres for 9 cows; how many cows did he keep, and many sheep, if 2/3 of the number of cows equals 2/5 the number of sheep?? Geography included, ?Name in order the bodies of water on which you would sail from Omaha to St. Petersburg.....

In order to prepare for these exams, prospective teachers attended Normal Institutes. These were two to four weeks in length and were held in Woodward from 1894 through 1913 for twenty-two terms. (Three were held in 1894.) Attendance records show eight persons for the April 1894 session with a steady increase until a peak of 154 was reached in 1911.51 Some attended Normal School at Alva.? -- County N - Woodward county Early Day Rural Schools
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