SCHOOL: The commercial department of the high school has a new method for teaching the typewriter — this from The Era on Oct. 20, 1900.

“Hereafter letters on the keys will be covered up and the pupils will learn the keys the same way that a music pupil learns keys on a piano.”

We remember typing class in high school — the home row keys, using the repetition of a single letter and counting spaces to make a reindeer on the typing paper. The teacher at the front of the class dictating what letter to type, when to space and when to hit return.

We remember having at home an old 40-pound black metal beast of a typewriter, with a messy ribbon and a few broken keys.

How different things are now. We doubt most children today have used a typewriter.

We asked our youngest employee, Caleb Huntoon, if he had ever used one. He had, an electric one once with his grandmother and a manual typewriter once at the Salamanca Antiques Mall.

“I tried to pick it up,” he told us. “It was heavy.”

It’s a far cry from today’s cellphones that can access most of the information the world has to offer right in the palm of one’s hand. Technology has certainly changed a lot in 118 years.

ELECTION: We found it fascinating how Bradford residents learned about election results in 1900, courtesy of the Nov. 6, 1900, edition of The Era.

“The Evening Star will exhibit by means of a stereopticon, full returns of the election from the nation, state, and county and city this evening at the corner of Mechanic street and Chautauqua Place.”

A stereopticon was a projector referred to as a “magic lantern.”

“A telegraph operator will be stationed in Pompeion Hall, where the stereopticon will be placed, and the returns will be flashed on a large canvas suspended across Chautauqua Place. Moving pictures will be shown between the returns.”