For education historians, finding out what actually went on in classrooms is tricky. It’s easy enough to find old textbooks, old curricular standards, etc. But in order to find out what regular students did on any given regular school day it tough.

I wonder if this boring work led the students to murmur…?

I stumbled across a clue from May 19, 1831 in the archives yesterday. I’m working with the papers of Joseph Lancaster for my new book, and it turns out someone used the backsides of old school worksheets to make records of Lancaster’s correspondence.

So, by mere chance, we can know what John Taggart did for at least part of his school day, May 19, 1831. We can even see the one time he forgot a “y.”