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The mission hall.

The village school.

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Misson Hall and Village School

Popular movements developed in the 1800s. The earliest were the free church and the temperance movements later followed by the labour and the sports movements. Each movement sought to define and teach model behaviour and to educate its members.

In 1842, public education was introduced in Sweden.
Schools were supposed to raise and educate children, but the state also wanted to control the growing number of poor people.

Mission Hall

The mission hall.

Members of the free church movement wanted to make the church less rigid and to liberate it from coercion and hierarchy.

The Mission Covenant Church of Sweden was founded in 1878. Around that time, it built many mission halls like this one in rural areas. The buildings were not like ordinary churches. They were usually simple buildings furnished with plain benches and unpainted walls and ceilings.

The mission hall was used for weekly meetings of the Mission Covenant congregation but the building could also be used for sewing society meetings, musical performances, harvest festivals and coffee and social gatherings. It was also a gathering place for young people.

The Museum´s mission hall was inaugurated in 1886 and comes from Frössvi in Romfartuna Parish. It is used today by various congregations for religious service and for social activities. It may also be hired for baptisms, weddings and funerals.

Village School

Lesson in the village school.

The most important subjects in school were reading,
writing, arithmetic, Christianity, Bible history and church hymns.

Maintenance of the school garden was also part of the curriculum. Every school had a garden for cultivation of flowers and vegetables and a tree nursery. Vegetables commonly grown around the turn of the century are grown in the Museum´s school garden. Many of them can be seen on the wall charts inside the school.

When this school was built in RÃ¥sbo in Nora Parish in 1877, the school board donated peonies and gooseberry, red currant and white currant bushes and fruit and maple trees to the school.

Many parents did not want their children to go to school. They were needed as labour on the farm. Sometimes children did not go to school because they did not have good clothes and shoes.

At first, public schools were for poor children. Children from families that were better off received private tutoring at home or were sent to private schools. In village schools like this one, girls and boys of all ages sat together on one classroom. Many of them came a long way to attend school.

The teacher lived in the same building as the school. Public school teachers in rural areas were usually women. In addition to teaching, they repaired school desks, cleaned, made their own ink and took care of the school garden. The school teacher might also be the parish clerk, church organist or Sunday school teacher.

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