School starts again last week. That's good news for some; less so for many others.

Stay-at-home parents may delight in having fewer whines from bored youngsters and more time to themselves. The end of summertime's eight-hour daycare expense will leave a little more jingle in the jeans of working parents, too.

For some in generations past, getting an education was considered inconvenient and unnecessary. School took growing boys out of the fields, leaving fathers with more work than workers. But when North Carolina's Board of Education mandated that "a school must be within walking distance (one mile) for every child," things changed quickly. New schoolhouses suddenly appeared in outlying areas. The family farm's demands had to be adjusted. Work began earlier and ended later.

Set well back in the woods near Highway 21, the first Cherry Lane School is overlooked by thousands of Parkway visitors every year. A neighbor's grandfather passed the state's written tests in English, history, math and such, and taught the community's annual crop of youngsters. Inside is a small fireplace, its arched top perhaps the brickmason's whimsy. The fellas' privy was across a shallow ravine out back. Girls didn't have to walk quite so far to theirs, just a little ways from the building in the other direction.

A large book in the county library has photographs of 27 area schools, their students and teachers. The pictures show the kids in simple, often poorly-fitting, clothes. Cash was tight, so homemade and hand-me-downs were the rule. Every group of students includes a bunch of small children. The numbers of older kids shrunk in most schools, as they moved on to jobs around here or elsewhere. An elderly man's question brings the point to life.

"I quit school after I'd finished the third grade book three times. Did that mean I was a third grader or a ninth grader?"

Typically, rural schools had just one instructor until the student body reached 25 or so. From there on more teachers were essential. Zion School started in 1850. Laurel Springs School followed in 1876, then Wolf Branch in 1885, the Sparta Institute in 1887, and Halsey School two years later. The Irwin Grocery School of 1896 had nearly 50 pupils when Major Finley Joines was its instructor. Rich Hill and Pine Swamp came along in 1899, just before the school-building rush of the early 1900's. Joines stayed at Irwin until 1902, when he moved to Rock Creek. He returned to his old school later and remained there through 1919.

Included in the photos dated, "Early 1900's," are Bledsoe, Toliver, Rocky Ridge, Hooker, Choate, Rock Creek and Crab Creek, The First Music School, Elk Creek Academy and Pleasant Grove. Walter Irwin left Elk Creek to head Pleasant Grove, but in the 1902 picture, Rowan Richardson had become its instructor and holds a ruler like a threat. In 1904, Turkey Knob's student body was 75 strong! Little Pine, Belview Academy, Laurel Branch, Nile and Pine Fork inched their way to the "Roaring Twenties." Pictures of the Whitehead, Vox and Dividing Ridge student bodies are dated 1920-23.

Burning wood for heat posed two lingering problems for the early schools. One was that a fire could destroy the building like it did the first Elk Creek Academy, or worse, injure the people inside. The other was getting stove wood out from beneath the building where it stayed dry. On an unusually cold day, two young boys were given the task of fetching some kindling. When they didn't return promptly, the teacher went looking for them. There they sat, warming themselves at a small fire they'd built beneath the dry wooden floor.

Another school fire illustrated the importance of school materials. "Hurry outside, children," the teacher shouted, "and be sure to put your books someplace safe!" One little girl left hers under the building.

Years later a second Cherry Lane School was built to comply with new educational requirements for minorities, but it was miles from that community. The policy was called "separate but equal." Realistically, it was one but not the other, as illustrated by Alleghany's "colored" high school students being bused to Wilkes County.

Sparta Institute became Sparta School, and taught all grades until the last class graduated in 1967.

Two other area schools stood out in the first half of the 1900's: Glade Valley, Alleghany's Christian boarding school that was unable to realize its full potential, and Virginia-Carolina School, centered on the North Carolina/Virginia border in Ashe County. With the state line running east and west down the hallway, grades one through six met on one side, and seven through twelve on the other. The school, conceived during tight budget times for both states, served its purpose, then closed its doors for good.