The School Teacher and the Waif

D.W. Griffith's Biograph short The Schoolteacher and the Waif (1912) can be seen as foundational in terms of this storyline. Nora, the waif, played by Mary Pickford, is forced to attend school--she is actually dragged through the dirt kicking and screaming--by local officials. She warms to her teacher for the way that he defends her against the taunts of some other students, but subsequently rejects him when she has to wear a dunce cap during a spelling bee.