The Little White Schoolhouse Summary

Dr. Ellis Ford Hartford (1905-present) is a 1947 graduate of the University of Kentucky, former Dean of the University school, and Dean of the community college system. Hartford began his education at Kentucky Wesleyan but after an injury pertaining to sports he decided to drop school and begin working at an oil refinery near Hammond and Gary, Indiana. Not long after he’d begun, he decided to instead move back to Kentucky where he received his teaching certificate at the Bowling Green State Normal School. His only novel published was The Little White School House
The Little White Schoolhouse is, to me, a look into the past. Not only did my grandma often tell me of growing up as a child and attending a one-room school, but our town has a little, white, one-room school that sits up on the hill and overlooks our high school. In The Little White Schoolhouse, Ellis Ford Hartford gives us a vivid picture of what life was …show more content…
Hartford describes how he sees the differences between when he first began teaching and now, and explains his view of what being a "professional" entails. Hartford recalled a 1908 law which required separate high schools and eliminated the one-room school system. He discussed early efforts at commercial education and vocational classes as early as 1910 and 1920. Hartford explained the emphasis he placed on understanding grammar in English before applying it to foreign languages and his practical approaches towards this concept for both teachers and students. As well as writing about a one-room school, we can easily say that he was an expert at what he was describing as well. Hartford not only lived in a time where one-room schools were a reality, but he was involved seeing that he taught in that time as well. Hartford had full intentions of wanting the reader to see, through his eyes, what it was like then, because it is so different from what we have