Children Go Back 100 Years for a Lesson : Education: Students visit 1889 replica of Timber School as part of Stagecoach Inn Museum and take part in the lessons of the day.

Filing into the one-room schoolhouse, the children slid into the well-worn, shiny 150-year-old Welsh desks and curiously surveyed the potbellied stove, the portraits of George Washington and Abraham Lincoln above the blackboard and, finally, Miss Jones.

As the students shuffled their feet on the unfinished wooden floor, the teacher explained the ground rules of life in the classroom during the 1880s. The group of 10 children had come Wednesday morning to the Stagecoach Inn Museum in Newbury Park, which gives living history programs to schoolchildren throughout Ventura County and the San Fernando Valley.

“A hundred years ago, teachers were very strict and students had to be very polite,” explained Miss Jones, who is really Vivian Rattray, a retired grade-school instructor. “The teacher would enter and say, ‘Manners,’ and then the boys would bow and the girls would curtsy and say ‘Good Morning, Miss Jones.’

“Manners.”

The assembled children, boys wearing bandannas around their necks and girls with patterned aprons tied about their waists, performed as instructed.

They rose, bowed and curtsied and dutifully recited.

The three schools--one of which had been on the museum’s waiting list for two years--came to visit the just-opened Timber School, a three-quarter scale reproduction of the original, which was built in 1889 on land purchased for $50.

“It’s so beautiful,” museum volunteer Louise Livesay said of the new “old” school. “We’ve all been looking forward to this for such a long time. It’s just perfect. The desks. Everything.”

More than five years after the idea first began to percolate among historically minded residents of the Conejo Valley, the school was dedicated Sunday amid much hoopla.

And rightfully so. A collaboration of local residents, the Conejo Valley Historical Society and students at Newbury Park High School, the building is a physical manifestation of focused community efforts.

There is also the added benefit that the school portion of the museum’s “Pioneer Days” program designed for third- through fifth-graders no longer has to be conducted alfresco on the grass.

Originally built in 1889, the Timber School was the second school in the Conejo Valley. It was used until 1925 and was replaced by a new Timber School which is currently Conejo Valley High School.

That the lessons weren’t too challenging and that Rattray never rapped the knuckles of unruly pupils suited the fourth-graders from Carden School of Camarillo just fine.

“It was real good,” said student Tyler Colbert, 9, of Ventura. “It was old-fashioned and I like that.”

Moreover, some parts of the abbreviated half-hour school day weren’t that different from his modern school day.

“We have to say ‘Good morning’ anyway to our teachers,” Tyler said.

Other students thought perhaps a revision of their schools was in order.

“We should bow before class because it’s polite,” said Tom Paternoster, 9, of Agoura Hills, a student at St. Martin-In-The-Fields Parish School in Winnetka.

He tried to stifle a laugh as he issued the declaration. His classmates simply burst out laughing. They said he talks too much in class and shouldn’t be believed.

The schoolhouse itself evokes faithful memories of century-old academic life. The antique wood desks--each with built-in ink wells that have sliding wooden covers--are arranged in neat rows. An organ, more than 150 years old, sits in the back corner. A U.S. flag with 38 stars hangs on the wall next to a narrow table with a washbowl and bar of soap.

The students, who rotated through different activities in groups of about 10, filed into the Timber School through separate entrances for boys and girls, each with its own tiny coatroom.

Rattray rushed through a brief tour of subjects studied in 1889: the three Rs, with geography thrown in for good measure.

The students read from reproductions of McGuffey’s Third Reader, wrote on black slates with chalk, stood when called on and shot their hands eagerly into the air, straining to answer the easy questions Rattray asked.

“The questions were pretty easy,” Tyler admitted after school had let out.

And when asked if he liked this school day better than his usual one, his answer revealed a wisdom beyond his years.

His reply: “No comment.”