I reread the Ingall-Wilder Little School House series recently and was impressed with how one room school house operated with kids of all grades in the same roo

I reread the Ingall-Wilder Little School House series recently and was impressed with how one room school house operated with kids of all grades in the same room. Villages were not large enough for multiple teachers. Basically education in those days was memorizing and doing all the exercises in various primers. Teachers were often just teenage girls, not much older than the oldest students. Older people were too busy working or running households.