"Oh, I remember this."

"Hey, I had one of these!"

Many summer visitors to the Monticello Area Historical Society's newest museum display, Slate Boards to Smart Boards, stepped back into their own school days.

The society has transformed the museum's main display room into a school room, where books, desks, lunch boxes and sports equipment highlight the history of Green County schools and the evolution of teaching and learning.

In the back corner sits the old potbelly stove. Those whose desks sat near the stove always seemed to be too warm, while those who sat furthest away were too often chilly.

A portable blackboard and a wall-mounted white board, displayed side by side, show the advance in presenting daily lessons to students. After school chores for students have gone away with the days of banging clean the dusty erasers.

An array of school desks show the progression of student seating. Once mounted to the floor, and even attached to one another, desks became lighter, airy and plastic – easier to move for group projects.

A hard-covered book was, at one time, a valuable item, and students were required to treat them as such. No marking in books was allowed. But once in a while, a lucky student may find his copy was written in and not erased well, leaving faint but readable answers to the questions at the ends of chapters – and homework became a breeze.

The use of books in school remained unchanged for many decades in American schools, but the internet changed all that. Computers and tablets now provide online access to reading materials more commonly than books.

The most common writing utensil has now become the computer keyboard, but writing began with an erasable slate board and chalk, reusable when writing paper was premium. Eventually though, ink and pens came to school. Ink wells, circular holes cut into the desktops, held the ink bottles secure – and so began the stories of dipping in the ink the pigtails of the girl sitting in front of you.

Fountain pens and ballpoint pens arrived on the scene, making life a little less messy for everyone.

Pencils were graphite rods sandwiched between wooden sticks. Pencil sharpeners were invented - and replaced the pocketknife - to grind off the wood and leave a sharpened point for writing. Erasers were sold separately, before they came crimped to one end in the mid-1850s. And then the rods were dispensable through hollow, plastic tubes with just a click of a button.

Typewriters became electrified and then computerized, televised and miniaturized. The QWERTY keyboard is the only familiar part remaining.

Computers are replacing books on the shelf; maps on the wall; radios on the desks; stenographs, duplicators and copy machines in the corners; and test papers. The MAHS museum may be the last place to see them.

But not everything about the old school has evaporated. Baseball bats and gloves still line the sports closets. Footballs, basketballs and soccer balls still have to be rounded up after recess play.

And lunch, whether it comes to school in a tin pail with you or gets served up hot from the cafeteria kitchen, is still the most important period of the day for some kids.

Slate Boards to Smart Boards opened this season and will remain on display to the public through next year. Woelffer Drug Store, restored, is home to the MAHS museum, at 204 N. Main Street in Monticello. The museum is open Saturdays, 10:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m., through October. Free admission.