29

Seth Wells of the Watervliet community was released from all other duties
and appointed General Superintendent of Believers' Literature, Schools, etc.
for the Watervliet, Lebanon and Hancock communities. Regular schoolhouses
were built; the boys were to have twelve weeks of schooling in winter; the
girls twelve weeks in summer. The number of weeks of instruction was gradu-
ally increased in number until by 1915 the school year was 36 weeks. Civics,
physiology, and anatomy and rules of health were added to the curriculum
and, by 1870, music was included.
"The schools have been at times public schools and at times
private, but Shaker teachers preferred to let pupils learn at
their own rate. Each went through the arithmetic book, for
instance, as fast or as slow as need be, thus no child need
fail from competitive pressure/1 *"
In East Canterbury the first school was in a barn and the children had
to sit on the floor or provide themselves with a box or block of wood. When
the children tired of studying reading and spelling, the boys learned to set
card-teeth (used in carding wool and cotton), the girls learned to knit. At
first in teaching arithmetic, since they had no textbook, the teacher used
beans, kernels of corn, and small billets of wood to teach addition, sub-
traction, etc.

Industries
The Shakers were "common11 people--not highly educated,, refined,
cultivated or elegant--but ordinary people with ordinary talents and skills.
But since their whole lives were devoted to their religion, their ordinary

18. Frost, Sister Marguerite. The Shaker Story, Canterbury Shakers,
Canterbury, N. H, n. d.