On rural teachers in the districts of Strandasýsla and Húnavatnssýsla 1887–1905

Abstract

From shortly before the middle of the 18th century, Icelandic homes were obliged to provide children with instruction in religion and reading. This obligation was extended in 1880, when writing and arithmetic were added. The homes were supposed to provide the instruction, monitored by parish priests. By the middle of the 19th century, the need for schools for children and teenagers was generally recognized and they were founded one by one, primarily in urban areas. In the countryside, teaching mainly took place in homes and clergymen were supposed to monitor the children’s progress. Formal compulsory education was not introduced by law until 1907, with parents previously having been free to choose whether or not they sent their children to school.

Many were concerned about the lack of schools but proponents of improved education often had to tackle obstacles deeply rooted in Icelandic history and culture, as well as in the firm belief that homeschooling was a cornerstone of society. There were also economic hindrances due to the high level of poverty amongst the general population and an ingrained reluctance to use public funds to cover communal expenses. Nevertheless, organised homeschooling was widely established in rural areas in the course of the 19th century, even though it was not available to all children and teenagers.

This is the first of two planned articles based on data regarding rural teachers in two districts in the Húnaflói Bay area; that is, Strandasýsla and Húnavatnssýsla, prior to the formal introduction of compulsory education. The National Archives of Iceland preserve reports from 1887 and onwards that deal with grant applications from rural teachers. These reports provide valuable information that can be used for various observations. This article aims to shed some light on the individuals who were responsible for teaching between 1887 and 1905 and will from now on be referred to as teachers, whether or not they were formally certified as such. An attempt is made to reveal the people behind the names found in the reports, and to find out what their education was and whether or not teaching was their main occupation in life.

The main conclusions are the following:

• There were far fewer rural teachers in the district of Strandasýsla than in that of Húnavatnssýsla. The main reasons for this are, on the one hand, the greater number of inhabitants in the latter district and, on the other, the apparent general lack of organized rural teaching in the Árneshreppur Commune in the far north of the district of Strandasýsla. This was also quite limited in the inner and northern parts of Steingrímsfjörður while it occurred fairly regularly in the southern parts of the district. This regional difference was less prominent in the district of Húnavatnssýsla and it should be kept in mind that rural teaching only reached some children and teenagers despite clear regulations regarding compulsory education for all.
• The proportion of male to female teachers in the Húnaflói Bay area was similar to that amongst rural teachers in all of Iceland in the school year of 1903–1904. However, the proportion of female teachers was considerably higher in both districts if the entire period 1887–1905 is compared to the general proportion in 1903–1904. This is an interesting finding.
• Information is available regarding the education of 76 of the 102 rural teachers who were active in the Húnaflói Bay area during the examined period. A clear difference appears between the two districts as 70% of rural teachers in the district of Húnavatnssýsla had some formal education while this only applies to 36% of the teachers in the district of Strandasýsla. Most of the formally educated boys had studied at secondary school or at an agricultural school while the girls went to domestic schools, but fifteen of the 21 girls attended the Women’s School of the district of Húnavatnssýsla at Ytri-Ey and Blönduós. As regards the teachers about whom no educational information is available, most of them are likely to have been self-educated.
• When 1901 is taken as a point of reference, both female and male teachers in the Húnaflói Bay area were a little younger than their colleagues elsewhere in the country. All the girls were 34 years of age or younger and this applied to 74% of the boys. All in all, just under 80% of the teachers in the Húnaflói Bay area were in this age category. A comparison of the school years 1894–1895, 1899–1900 and 1904–1905 also reveals that most of the teachers did not last long in their posts. This is in line with results of previous research which indicate that teaching was a temporary job that the teachers often abandoned when they got married.
• As the districts of Strandasýsla and Húnavatnssýsla were both sparsely populated and primarily inhabited by farmers, the author’s initial hypothesis was that most of the teachers would settle on a farm as their teaching careers ended. This hypothesis was not confirmed, as less than half of the male teachers took up farming and only 22% of the female teachers became farmers’ wives. Out of the 102 teachers who are known to have worked in the Húnaflói Bay area in 1887–1905, at least four men and six women can with certainty be said to have made teaching their main occupation in life. A few more came close to falling into this category, most of them male.