Ever wonder what your great-grandparents were learning about in school? A history museum in Kentucky might have some answers for you.
An exam which was taken by eighth-grade students in 1912 was recently donated to the Bullit County History Museum, and it’s been a popular item ever since. Over a hundred years ago, kids were learning about many of the same things modern-day children learn about, with a few exceptions.
“For us, this is just fascinating. It puts us in the mindset of 1912,” said David Lee Strange, a museum volunteer. “Some people say that the questions are trivial, but the questions relate to what the children at the time would have been familiar with.”
Some of the questions lead to a haunting realization, such as this one from the Geography section: “Locate the following countries which border each other: Turkey, Greece, Serbia, Montenegro, Romania.”
“1912 was right around the corner from what would become World War I. Eighteen students in Bullitt County would go on to die in that war,” Strange said.
For many, the exam has been an eye-opener into a time that has largely been forgotten; a little piece of history left by our ancestors to give us clues as to how they lived and learned.