[Part of Historical display at Halls Gap Victoria]
1. You will not marry during the term of your contract
2. You are not to keep company with men.
3. You must be home between the hours of 8pm and 6am unless attending a school function
4. You may not loiter down town in ice-cream parlours
5. You may not travel beyond the city limits with out the permission of the chair man of the board.
6. You may not ride in a carriage or auto mobile with any man unless he is you father or brother.
7. You may not smoke cigarettes.
8. You may not dress in bright colours
9. You may under no circumstances dye your hair
10. You must wear at least two petticoats and your dresses must not be shorter than two inches above the ankle.
11. To keep the school clean you must:
a. Sweep the floor a least once daily
b. Scrub the floor with hot soapy water at least once weekly
c. Clean the blackboard at least once a day
d. Start the fire at 7:00am so that the room will be warm by 8:00am.
Just as well it's not 1915. I've broken most of these.
ReplyDeletearen't you glad it's 2009
ReplyDeleteLet's see, if you obeyed 2 then there'd probably be no problem with 1 and if you followed 5 there'd probably be no hope of 2 anyway. (Who'd want to go out with any man that would support these rules?!)
ReplyDeleteToo bad for the missions prayer meeting with 3 and sweeping and scrubbing the school floor a la 11 would be sure to dull the one bright colour you might find in such a drab sounding place! (Your love of brown skirts would come in handy here, Simone.)
If you'd managed to survive the interview it should have been easy-peasy to meet these rules. The rest of us would run away screaming! :-)
No ice cream parlours!!!!!
ReplyDeleteBec. Ice cream palours are dangerous places. I hope you never go near them.
ReplyDeleteOh but Bec, she could go to an ice-cream parlour, she just wasn't allowed to "loiter" there.
ReplyDeleteI mean we've all heard what goes on in ice-cream parlours; those terrible dens of iniquity.
Just think, she might [gasp!] meet a man if she stayed there long enough to say "hello" to her neighbour walking in with her three kids; you know the one, that former teacher who met her husband at the ice-cream parlour.
only TWO petticoats? Those were some riske times..
ReplyDeleteGoodness, she was allowed to show an ankle!
ReplyDeleteYou can just see it when the school inspector came around and she hasn't started the fire because she's so warm from the petticoats, "Oh, but sir, how could anyone possibly be cold!"
I wonder, though, what they will Blog about in 95 years time... things we think are normal.
ReplyDelete