One- and two-room schools represent a paradoxical time in Texas 
history when school played second fiddle to family duties but still 
served as the focus of community life.

    Luther Bryan Clegg’s The Empty Schoolhouse provides a direct 
link to the past through interviews with students who attended 
these schools and teachers who taught in this area between Fort 
Worth and Odessa and the Hill Country and Amarillo. Former 
students share stories describing Friday afternoon "literary 
societies," dead snakes in desk drawers, pranks, fires, travel to
and from school, and discipline.

    Drawing on historical and sociological data as well as 
interviews, Clegg presents intriguing accounts of rural life, 
preserving the uniqueness of the "olden days."

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LUTHER BRYAN CLEGG is a professor of curriculum and 
instruction at Texas Christian University in Fort Worth, Texas.



What people are saying about this book

". . . will provide a realistic view of what actually took place in the 
rural schoolhouses of West Texas."—Legacies