Ichabod Crane thinks very highly of himself and his education especially in relation to the uneducated farmers and country dwellers he lives among. He takes pride in the fact that he is one of the few well-educated people in the town.

The parents view education as something that should be available and provided in the town as long as the cost is not too great. They do not pay the schoolmaster enough for room and board, instead having him live with the families of his students on a rotating basis, one week at a time.  The story states that Ichabod Crane helps out with light work and taking care of the children outside of school to make sure he is not seen as a burden  on the “purses of his rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievous burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones.”

In addition, he is looked at favorably by the women in the town who consider him to be more sophisticated and cultured than the residents of the town. He is considered “a man of some importance in the female circle of a rural neighborhood; being considered a kind of idle, gentlemanlike personage, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments to the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in learning only to the parson.”