The overwhelming majority of Indiana’s remaining schoolhouses were first known as common schools. Funded by the state and administered by the county township in which they stood, the schoolhouses were “common” insofar as the kids of a typical, common, resident -rather the offspring of a bigwig- could attend classes at one. The system -which the state first paid for in 1851- was a major change to the previous arrangement of subscription schools.

I think it’s ironic that these old-fashioned common schools are actually still so common today. I’ve located and photographed more than two hundred of them in East-Central Indiana alone!