well, eight graders 100 years ago are now mostly today's grannies and grandpas. they were taught grammar for 1 hour, arithmetic for 1.25 hours, their U.S. history for 45 minutes, Orthography for 1 hour, geography. in total this will take 4 hours and 10 minutes for 1 school day. the 8th-grade year is 1 year. and the school (work) for an eighth-grader at that time was very difficult with the subjects. for one, in today we have only taken grammar (ELA), arithmetic,(MATH) U.S. history, Geography(SOCIAL STUDIES) and we have sadly left out Orthography or it is something I can't relate it to.