1900s Teacher Requirements
Certification for teachers is a 20th Century phenomena. In the early 20th Century in North Dakota, most teachers were women. Often, women would start teaching immediately after graduating from high school. Some went on to Normal School and obtained a teaching degree after one year.

The South Dakota Historical Society document provides a glimpse of teaching in the Dakotas:

Instructions for Teachers, Dakota Territory, September 1872

1. Teachers will fill lamps, clean chimneys and trim wicks daily.
2. Each teacher will bring a scuttle of coal and a bucket of water for the day’s use.
3. Make your pens carefully. You may whittle nibs for the individual tastes of the children.
4. Men teachers may take one evening each week for courting purposes or two evenings a week if they go to church regularly
5. After ten hours of school, the teacher should spend the remaining time reading the Bible or other good books.
6. Women teachers who marry or engage in other unseemly conduct will be dismissed.
7. Every teacher should lay aside from his pay a goodly sum for his declining years so that he will not become a burden on society.
8. Any teacher who smokes, uses liquor in any form, frequents a pool hall, or gets shaved in a barber shop will give good reason for suspecting his worth, intentions, integrity and honesty.
9. The teacher who performs his labors faithfully and without fault for five years will be given an increase of 25 cents a week in his pay providing the Board of Education approves.