My father was very hot tempered, especially when he puni- shed his children. But this is understandable because he had to keep 9 children in order.

I'll never forget an event which I experienced during my school years. One of the boys in the classroom behind me talked during the lesson and the teacher asked me who had talked. I

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answered: "I do not know." And that was true. The teacher did not believe me. And as a punishment I was told to write "I

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am a liar" 10 times. I told my father about it and he wrote a letter to the teacher in his clear and characteristic letters: "Dear Mr.

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teacher! I am sorry that you are so coarse and childish. If

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someone is a liar, so he may write it. But not my son!

This deportment of my father impressed me so deeply that even today I still remember clearly the exact words of the letter he wrote. Then my father ordered me to take the letter to the school and on no account to write the sentence the teacher demanded from me. The teacher took the letter, went to my sister and asked her if my father had written the letter. "Yes!" said my sister. But now the teacher again ordered that I was to write: "I am a liar!" I told the teacher that my father had forbidden to do that.

Harscheid school building, built in 1837

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Kaspar Heinrich Simon".

Kaspar Heinrich Simon

born 13. May 1818 in Hoff
died 11. February 1884 in Harscheid

Elisabeth Dax

born 28. October 1814 in Harscheid
died 17. February 1885 in Harscheid

Simon

Dax

* Wilhelm was the son of Kaspar Heinrich Simon and Elisabeth Dax
and the brother of

Amalie Simon

.

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The teacher tried to force me, without success. In his rage he threw me out of the school. That was not right. When I

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came home my father just said: "Okay, you can stay at home!" It is a very difficult thing to keep children away from school, but my father did not care. The inspector for school affairs came into our house and told my father that the teacher intended to change the sentence in "All people are liars" and all the boys were to write this. My father said: "No, not my son." The mayor of the county tried to appease my father. My father said: "No, it's not me who keeps my son out of school, the teacher threw him out." Now the whole business became a matter of the government and my father got his right. The teacher had to promise not to do anything against me, and after 6 weeks of forced vacation I

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went to school again. It is my duty to say that during the following years the relations between the teacher and me were always good.

The improvement of the school system in our homeland was one of the most important changes in the first half of the 19th century.

At the beginning of the century the children of the poor smallholders had to assist from March to November in farming, then only a so-called winter school existed, held in a farmhouse. In 1821, in the upper floor and the barn of the farmhouse of Johann Heinrich Dax, who lived in the western part of Harscheid, the authorities instigated the start of a two-class school, led by the teacher Johann Heinrich Baum.

After in 1825 the kingdom of Prussia introduced compulsory schooling**, in the village centre the first municipal two-class school was constructed, a

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solid stone building, and inaugurated in 1837.

In 1839 the teachers of this school had a budget of 328

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thalers, 18

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silver

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groats ("Groschen") and 9

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pica- yunes / pennies ("Pfennig") available.

Fritz Baum (1837 - 1866) and Hermann Ley (1866 - 1874) were the first teachers in Harscheid after the fresh start of the school in 1837.

The fact that, in spite of some progress, school attendance kept being rather insufficient is proven by the signatures in many account books which, also around 1850, often consist of just three crosses.

On the 16th of November 1842 vicar Steins wrote to the school inspector Jüngst in Wiehl: "Yesterday afternoon I was in Harscheid and found, from the large number of children, only 88 pupils being present. 320

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children are required to attend school here, 50 to 60 of them, though, and that's quite enormous and absolutely illegitimate, are dispensed, i.e. deprived of any school education at all. The assistant teacher lessons 200

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children and receives 50 thalers school money, the first teacher for 90 children 300 thalers, though. 320

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children and two teachers, that's impossible. For this number at least three teachers are necessary. The school in Harscheid causes me great anxiety." The high number of pupils is explained by the fact that at that time ten villages belonged to the school district of Harscheid.

**In Prussia already from 1717 school attendance had been compulsory, for all boys and for all gilrs, but with many regional and other exemptions. A general obligation of this kind, without any exemption for the whole of Prussia was valid since 1825. The Prussian

school law

, valid since 1847 compelled all children between 6 and 14 years of age to attend school for 8 years.

School and teachers in Harscheid

( from: Karl Schmitz, Chronik von Harscheid, Harscheid 1999)

written by Wilhelm Simon in 1927

Chronicle of the Simon family (6)

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