A Whole School Fits in One Room?: Visit “Mud College”, a One Room Schoolhouse Near Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and See How!

Imagine a day where you ride your horse to school; jump and scream with your teacher when a huge green frog leaps up from her work papers or; you join the mass exodus as a scholar’s pet dog comes to life chasing an intruding squirrel across the desks, out the door and up to safety in the nearest tall oak! Join author Elizabeth Habermann, docent in the Living History Program at the Pleasant Grove, one-room, School, known as “Mud College,” as she takes you back in time into the sights, sounds, and interactions within an actual, rural 19th-century school full of amusing, adventurous and downright awesome young scholars! Mud College is a rare surviving example of a rural one-room schoolhouse in Mount Joy Township, Adams County, between Littlestown and Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. While the names and experiences in the book are fictionalized, this wonderful collection of stories for children springs from generations of actual Mud College scholars. This was a time when both teaching and learning presented challenges we can only imagine today. Youngsters had to balance daily farm and household chores, and difficulties just getting to and from school, while still progressing in their lessons. The lone teacher managed without electricity, running water, or other conveniences while teaching children in the first through eighth grades. A Whole School Fits in One Room? is an experience in history coming alive! The author hopes these short and entertaining historically-rooted stories will whet the young reader’s appetite for history. Their character-building themes impart valuable lessons on how the support of family and friends can foster a belief that one’s behavior can contribute to a better world ahead, a timeless value at any age.