Reading, writing, arithmetic in the Mesnerhaus

The present building was built as a school and sexton’s house in 1868. School lessons were already held in Mittelberg in 1642. Documentary evidence shows that the schoolmaster back then, Christian Jochum, was recorded in the marriage register of the Mittelberg parish. Clearly legible records in so-called Alp Books (community registers) of the 16th and 17th centuries demonstrate that Walser farmers were by no means illiterate. Up until the introduction of compulsory school attendance (1775) pastors or various individual citizens educated those who were willing to learn in the basic cultural techniques of reading, writing and arithmethic.

Up until the year 1842 school instruction was given in the old sexton’s house, which was located on the same site. From 1842 to 1869 the physician Alois Heim offered his house – the so-called “Heimenhaus” – as a place of instruction. While only the boys of the village received tutoring here, the girls were given a school education by nuns in the former “cloister” (the present site of the music pavilion. This specifically organized girls’ school was closed in 1876.

The sexton’ house served – from 1869 until the construction of a schoolhouse in 1952 – as a village school, with two classrooms for the 6 to 14 year old children, and as living quarters for the sexton. It was not until 1997 that the rooms on the ground floor were remodeled to become the new rectory.