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Blab school


A vocal school, blab school or ABC school or Old-time School was a type of children's primary school in North America, outdated and obsolete as the 19th century progressed. The school children recited (blabbed) their lessons out loud separately or in chorus with others as a method of learning.

Blab is the shortened form of the word "blabber," meaning to talk much without making sense. From Old English comes the word muðettan, meaning "to blab," which was to speak from the mouth.Middle English had the noun blabbe, "one who does not control his tongue."

A blab school was where the school children repeated back their teacher's oral lesson at the top of their voices. The school children vocalized out their lesson in "Chinese fashion" as harmonized voices in unison. In more elegant terms, instead of saying they were blab schools they were referred to as vocal schools.

The neighbors of such a children's school of the 19th century would hear all the noise coming from the school of the children reciting the teacher's lesson aloud, and then dubbed the schools "blab" schools since it sounded like "blab-blab-blab."

A blab school was popular in frontier days of the American West, since many settlers could not read. These one-room schools were called "old field" schools and were log cabins, many times with just dirt floors. The students sat on wooden backless benches. This type of school was referred to as an "Old-time School" in the Appalachian region of Virginia in the 19th century.

A blab school was basically without books and paper for the students. The schooling consisted of a teacher, with perhaps one or two books, speaking a short oral lesson and the schoolchildren reciting it back with a loud voice several times until memorized. The only requirement needed to become a teacher was to know how to read.

Reciting the information learned was a form of entertainment in frontier days as well as a means of learning. In those days paper was scarce so memorizing was the preferred method over writing things down. The subjects of reading, writing, and arithmetic were the basic ABC items in the 19th century typically learned by the young children reciting out loud the lesson. In blab schools it was typical for a teacher to comment about a child grasping his lesson. This student was referred to as a "leather-head" and was awarded with praise from his teacher.


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