The Little Greenbrier School sits in a tiny cove on the north side of the park. It is reachable from the Metcalf Bottoms picnic area. One of the first things noticed is a graveyard surrounded by a weathered picket fence. Many children are buried within, struck down in their early years by different types of ailments. As with most cemeteries in the Smokies and elsewhere, it is obvious when a sickness ran through the community by the dates on the tombstones. Many of the old and young would have died in the same time frame.
The school itself is a simple one-room structure representative of many that once stood in this area. Unlike today, there were no set dates for the start or end of the school year. The teachers were usually not from the immediate area. The community would pool their resources and pay them to teach lessons to the children for as long as their payment provided. In many cases, there were weeks in between school sessions. In larger communities, such as Cades Cove or Cataloochee, a teacher could be hired from the community to make school more routine.
We attended a ranger led program at the school that took a turn we did not expect. A retired school teacher named Miss Elsie Burrell was there to give a very informative talk on the school and what some kids went through just to get to school. Many walked for miles on trails over the nearby ridges to get a chance at education. A small piece of this education was learning how to spell and she was about to show us how spelling bees were conducted in the late 19th to early 20th centuries.
We have all participated in spelling bees at different times throughout our years in school. They announced a word and either you rattled off the correct spelling or you did not. That was all there was to it. Well, I assure you prior experience was no preparation for what was about to be learned in this schoolhouse.
The confident air of a schoolteacher was apparent in this woman’s actions and tone of voice. Dressed in period attire, it was not difficult to picture her as an instructor within these walls. Her mere presence demanded attention as she detailed what was to be done. The assumption this would be easy was soon shattered, for there was more to this than how a word was spelled. After the explanation, volunteers were requested from the assembled group. I am sure the number of people curious to do this dwindled as her talk progressed. The handful of brave souls now gathered at the front of the schoolroom and the contest began.
For every word given, a person had to do these steps.
1) Say the complete word
2) Say the first syllable
3) Spell the first syllable
4) Say the first syllable again
5) Say the first and second syllable
6) Say the second syllable
7) Spell the second syllable
8) Say the second syllable again
9) Say the first and second syllable again
As you can see this gets progressively harder.
10) Say the first, second, and third syllable
11) Say the third syllable
12) Spell the third syllable
13) Say the third syllable again
14) Say the first, second, and third syllable again
When you have spelled the last syllable, say the complete word again to finish. As you can imagine, this was over in record time without a winner. I have always considered myself a pretty good speller, but as a bystander, I was confused with them get tongue-tied.
Consider what the kids learned in this manner in the 1800s and early 1900s. It makes you wonder. Has progress given or taken away ? Is what we have gained worth what we have lost ?
Miss Elsie provided this wonderful program for the public until she was 95 years old. Sadly, she has passed on but her memory remains for those whose lives she touched as a schoolteacher and in her daily life.
Excerpt from Under the Smoke
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