A Lot to Teach
Old one- and two-room schoolhouses still have a lot to teach. Their original educational mission may have come to an end by the middle of the twentieth century, but they continue to instruct us in architectural simplicity, elegance and adaptability. They abound in lessons about the past and the rapidity and breadth of change. Although attended by now elderly people still living among us, when compared to today’s institutions of elementary education it seems like millennia since the buildings were last regularly filled with students.
Built a century or two ago, these school buildings have proved remarkably adaptable though they are small and were constructed with a specific, limited purpose in mind. They survive in the guise of homes, community centers, offices, church parish halls, art galleries, restaurants, storage sheds, senior centers, and a host of other uses. Some remain empty awaiting their next act. Others have had several lives. Farmington’s North District Schoolhouse, an educational institution for about a century, became a tenement around 1900. Later it was a liquor store and now serves as a dentist’s office.
