Take a look at these lovely photos to see how the first day of school has changed from the past century.
A young boy and girl on the way to school for the start of a new term in the 1920sA girl’s first day of school in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, circa 1921Japanese children in traditional garb start school in California in 1927A 5-year-old girl shows off her books after her first day of kindergarten, circa 1929A mother takes her daughter by the hand as they head to school in the late 1920s or early 1930sA young Australian boy stares into a classroom already full of students, circa 1930Children on their way home from school, with book bags strapped on their backs, after the first day of classes in Germany, circa 1930Parents and their children are seen outside a school in Tokyo in the early 20th centuryStudents in France greet a photographer at the start of a new term by shaking their schoolbags in 1932During World War II, Parisian students line up a courtyard on the first day of classesA little boy in Paris says goodbye to his mother outside a school in September 1945As their instruction begins in 1948, students at the Lucy D. Anthony school examine a small turtleIn 1948, a young girl shares a moment with her mother outside the Lucy D. Anthony school in Madison, New JerseyJoyce Payne and Vincent Baker have fun depicting their teacher at a school in New York’s Harlem community on Sep. 13, 1948Nap-time on the first day in 1949Wide-eyed children listening to fairy-tales on their first school day in 1949Children getting to know their new teacher, circa 1950Students eagerly vie to be called on at a New York school, circa 1950Teacher Agnes Bolton stands in the schoolhouse door on the first day of classes for her only pupil, Jimmy MacLellan, in Scotland, circa 1950Five-year-old Howard Crafter has a tough time adjusting at the St. Nicholas County school, circa 1952Richard Sharp on his first day at the St. Nicholas County Primary School in Loughton, England, circa 1952Children hard at work on Sept. 15, 1959Delores York heads off for her first day at a previously all-white school in September 1960 in ArkansasTwo brothers about to start the new school year, circa 1964Mary Lynch, an assistant principal at a school in Boston’s Roxbury community, leads first graders to a school in the city’s North End on Sept. 6, 1967. Operation Exodus, a voluntary busing program organized by Roxbury parents, transported students from overcrowded schools in predominantly black neighborhoods to schools in predominantly white neighborhoods that had vacant seatsChildren walk up a flight of stairs to attend a newly desegregated school in Berkeley, California, 1968Jim Hard (left) of Framingham, Massachusetts, gets acquainted with Joseph Reis of the Roxbury neighborhood at the Trotter School in Boston on Sept. 3, 1969Canadian kindergarten teacher Trisha Langley teaching her first lessons on Sept. 7, 1971Students at the Mary E. Curley School in Boston on Sept. 8, 1975Maranda Francisco seems taken aback by a classmate’s antics on Sept. 20, 1987Students line up at the Side Creek Elementary School in Aurora, Colorado, on Aug. 11, 1987Schools kids arrive at Ellis Elementary School in Denver on Aug. 31, 1988Five-year-old Dylan O’ Sullivan appears determined to make it a good year as he heads into class in Denver on Aug. 30, 1989
Yesterday Today