This bronze served as the master model for the plasters that Rogers sold to a broad audience of middle-class Americans. In the 1860s Rogers' works addressed key social issues, and with Uncle Ned's School he took on the difficult question of freed slaves education and their future opportunities as new United States citizens. In the years after the Civil War, former slaves organized many new schools that ranged from brand-new structures to improvised classrooms in cellars or old sheds. Here Rogers showed one such informal school in his only group made up entirely of African Americans. The elderly cobbler Uncle Ned pauses in his work to assist one of his students with a question about the book that she points out to him as he leans on a ramshackle cabinet. At his feet a young boy with a tattered book open on his lap mischievously tickles the cobbler's foot with a feather. Though the girl is respectably dressed, the man and boy wear ragged, patched clothing, and all are barefoot. In depicting a cobbler and his charges without shoes of their own, Rogers pointed out their continued poverty, emphasizing the need for education to better their situation. Rogers knew that his audience would be familiar with the character of Uncle Ned from the popular 1848 Stephen Foster song of that name. In Foster's song the title character is a docile, obedient, aging slave who is blind. Rogers turned the caricature on its head by showing Uncle Ned perpetrating what would have been a crime in some Southern states when Foster's song was written: teaching a slave to read. However, the figure of the boy who has stopped studying to tease his teacher presents another stereotype that raises questions about Rogers' intentions. Does the boy represent harmless comic relief, or does he allude to concerns that African Americans lacked the determination and persistence to learn? The present-day scholar Kirk Savage has suggested that Rogers may have juxtaposed the boy and girl to pose a subtle question about which stereotype would prevail: the lazy scamp or the earnest pupil. Rogers' sales catalogues noted that the older man was "too much occupied to attend to" the boy's mischief, suggesting that Uncle Ned will not be deterred in his efforts. Uncle Ned's School was widely praised for its nuanced depiction of a momentous issue. Rogers himself considered it an important work; he exhibited the sculpture at the National Academy of Design, his first contribution in three years. A Philadelphia writer called it much better than any of his previous groups. Rogers presented a copy to the abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher, who responded, "I am pleased with the complete rendering of the story, with a few means, and without exaggeration. Its simplicity is as agreeable as its errand is noble."

This bronze served as the master model for the plasters that Rogers sold to a broad audience of middle-class Americans. Rogers had taken childhood education as a theme in the past, including the intimate drama of the student under pressure in The School Examination of 1867 and the budding romance of The Favored Scholar, 1872. For this work, however, Rogers surprised viewers by referring to a period in one's life rather than to an actual school subject. The title suggests that School Days is not a commentary on contemporary life but a nostalgic glimpse of a fleeting period of innocence and enjoyment. The scene takes place on the street where two children (modeled after Rogers' daughter Katherine and his son Charles) have stopped on their way to school, fascinated by an organ grinder and his monkey. The man stands with his weight on his back foot cranking his instrument somewhat perfunctorily. Organ grinders were a common (and, for some, annoying) part of New York street life, and many were recent immigrants. Though Rogers did not specify his street musician's nationality, several commentators described him as Italian, perhaps based on the figure's bushy hair and mustache. The girl is entranced by the remarkably detailed figures dancing in the organ, and the boy is discovering that the monkey has stolen his hat. Rogers issued this group at approximately the same time as The Traveling Magician (1936.637, 1926.35). He may have intended the two views of street life to function as pendants. It has been said that monkeys were considered bad luck during this period, and, indeed, School Days seemed ill-fated. Rogers exhibited it at the National Academy of Design's 1877 annual exhibition, where it seems not to have attracted critical notice. The group sold poorly; perhaps a scene of urban street life was considered inappropriate for middle-class parlors.