The first school in Witt Township was a contribution school taught by Gay in an abandoned cabin seventeen feet square on East Fork Creek near the Browns.

A contribution school was provided whenever parents felt the need of a school and could find a teacher. State qualification laws were not enforced. Any abandoned cabin school or church was utilized.

Fees were one or two dollars per month per pupil. Schools were in session only in the winter when boys were not needed in the fields. Seats were split log benches and any table or arrangement could be used as a desk. The room was lighted by a fireplace and school was in session ten hours with only a lunch period off.

Text books included the New Testament as reader and speller. Pike's arithmetic and Kirkluan's grammar. Promotion was from book to book.

Married teachers were paid "in kind". potatoes, etc. Single teachers boarded around.

John Wheat taught in the southwest of the township until succeeded by Ben Norman in 1839.

Maxev School was the first Public School built in 1850 in Section 16 near Gooseneck Church.

During Civil War years women were permitted to teach and school board members took over the "wholloping duties". In 1877 Lizzie Shrout taught a spring term for small children. Her salary was set at 20 dollars per month. No teacher, especially a woman, should be paid more than a man.

Her school challenged Gooseneck to a spelling bee. One program of her school included the recitations: 'Somebody's Darling",
'Mr. Caudle's Lecture on Shirt Buttons," "No Sects In Heaven" and "Socrates Snooks".

Maple Grove School was brought from Section 7 to the present location of the Duty Home. Later it was taken near the John Maxev residence and put on a lot donated by R. Dixon. It became the Witt District 66 School. Later, as Witt grew, a third room was added.

In 1901-02 the teachers were R. Barringer and Lizzie Hughes. When the Parkview School was completed more than ninety pupils attended and the teachers were E. A. Lewey. Addie Hanks, and Eva Lewis ( Mrs. N. O. Carriker).

The seven country schools that remained after Maple Grove was brought into the Witt Village limits were:

Prairie College, near Bock's, once taught by Ida Moser.
Pleasant Hill, or Thumb, in Section 19 rear Norman Drew's farm.
Pleasant View, or Gooseneck, in Section 16 near land of Durward Holmes and Russell Armentrout.
Olive Branch, Section 28 near land of Lillie Knodle.
Starr, Section 21, near Anna Houck and Louis O'Malley farms.
Kroeger on Nokomis-Fillmore road.
Sandy Bend on Nokomis Blacktop north of Hamlin's.

All the buildings have been sold. Some are community centers, others have been torn down.

Taken from “Witt Centennial Book 1868-1968”