In the 1920s, all classrooms within public and denominational education in the Netherlands were established in recognisable buildings. Desks were set-up in successive rows. Pupils of the same age and of equal study levels were taught by a man, or woman, who had enjoyed sound vocational training in this field. The teachers had schoolbooks and many educational appliances at their disposal for explaining the lessons, such as stuffed animals for biology classes and wall charts for history lessons. A century and a half earlier, around 1780, the education system in the Netherlands was set-up in an entirely different way. Instead of classical teaching pupils were taught individually in a simple environment which is absolutely incomparable to the classroom of 1920. Boys and girls of different ages all sat in a disorderly manner at long tables and even on the ground. Hardly any schoolbooks were available. Grades and report cards did not yet exist. Paintings and drawings from the seventeenth and eighteenth century depicting classrooms often show somewhat disorderly looking rooms with a teacher in charge, holding a rod or other instrument of punishment. In this talk I will discuss the changes between 1780-1920 within the Dutch educational system: What was the role of the Dutch government and the teachers associations in the transformation and professionalization of male and female teachers the classroom?