Past Chores and Education
to
Today’s Chores and Education
There are many similarities and differences between life today and life in the 1700’s-1800’s. There are similarities
and differences between chores and education. Comparing and contrasting these topics can show all sorts of people how harder
life was back in the day.
The
similarities of chores today vary in many ways from the chores back then. One similarity would be cleaning the house. Most
people have “cleaning the house” on their chore list. Another similarity would be farm work. People who live on
a ranch, farm, or own crops have to do farm work. Same with today, farmers have to tend to their crops or tend to their animals.
The differences of chores dominate the similarities of chores. Differences between the chores were that the children had to
wake up early and start their chores early. The women had to take care of the house, and the men had to take care of the farm,
animals, and their business if they owned one. Timothy and his father out of the book “My Brother Sam is Dead,”
had to take care of the animals and the tavern, while Mother had to take care of the house and the cooking. When Father died,
Timothy and Mother had to take care of the tavern and the animals alone. Another difference would be the machinery used to
pick the crops, milk the cows, and transition from place to place around the farm or property. Crop picking tractors, cow
milking systems, and ATV’s are some machines used around a traditional farm. These machines are very helpful to today’s
farming.
Similarities in education between today and back in the 1700’s-1800’s
are not many. A similarity in education would be that schools today and schools back then had some kind of grading system.
Another similarity would be that the children back in the day usually wore decent looking clothing to school like we do in
Christian schools today. Again differences dominate similarities. There are many differences in education from the 1700’s-1800’s
to today’s time. One difference would be that children didn’t have to go to school; they could stay home and work
on the farm. Such as, Timothy in the book. He didn’t have to go to school and he chose not to, because he wanted to
help his mother out with the business and animals. Unlike Timothy, Sam went to school before he ran off to war. Another difference
was that school wasn’t long, it was fairly short. Back then there wasn’t a teacher for each grade; one of the
higher grade students would help either the teacher or just teach the class themselves. The school houses were much smaller
than today’s schools in the United States and all
the students no matter what age, were taught on the same level as all the other kids. If you wanted a well-paying, educated
job, you had to go to college to apply for a job such as a lawyer or a surveyor. Sam went to Yale College to earn a degree and get a well-paying
and educated job, but then he dropped out and joined the Patriots in war. In the time period of the 21st century,
we have bigger schools, larger colleges, and more benefits in education.
Now, bringing this all to a conclusion, look at the amount
of differences and similarities there are in education and chores of the past and present. Seeing how harder life was back
then during the war, makes people think twice about complaining because they have to clean the bathroom. It also makes teachers
today, think about how hard it would have been to teach a couple different grades at one time. Next time, stop and think about
the chores and education back then compared today. What will it be like in the future?
