Bridgewater State University - Alpha Yearbook (Bridgewater, MA)

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Page 18 NORMAL OFFERING . , Volume XI except Wednesday and Saturday afternoons. The studies of the first term were Arithmetic, Mental and Written, Mechanics, Physiology, Grammar, Geography of North America, and the Drawing of Maps. ' The studies of the second term were Arithmetic, Hydrostatics and Pneumatics, General Grammar, Punctuation, Parsing, Physical Geography, Geography of South America and Asia. 4 Studies of third term were Astronomy, Bookkeeping, Optics, Electri- city, etc., Theory and Practice of Teaching, Parsing, Geography of Europe, Africa and Oceanica. During all the terms all the pupils attended to Reading, Spelling, Enunciation, writing abstracts, essays, etc. The elecfive studies were Algebra, Geometry, Trigonometry, Survey ing, Itellectual Philosophy, Rhetoric, Natural History, Constitution of Massachusetts and of the 'United States. Students might extend their course as far' as they chose. We studied Arithmetic very thoroughly, also Geography and Grammar. For a text book in Geography, we used McCulloch's Geographical Dictionary a volume four inches thick. Geo- graphy was then considered to be the a'esc1fzflz'on of the surface of the earth and its products. De Sacy's General Grammar and Greene's Analysis were fruitful studies, the latter included logical analysis of the thought, and grammatical analysis of the expression. Three of the young men made a Trigonometrical survey of Carver's Pond and mapped it. This map was used by the publisher of a map of Plymouth .County Psychology had not then'come into the course of study, but Mr. Tillinghast was our text book in the Theory and Art of Teaching known and read by all of us. Horace Mann closed his service as Secretary of the State Board of Education in 1848 and was succeeded by Dr. Barnas Sears. He- secured for the school two most fruitful courses of lectures. One by Louis Agassiz, the great naturalist, who had recently come to this country. The first sentence of his first lecture was I see before me many bright eyes, I have come to help you see. Then he delineated upon the ,board a huge grasshopper and showed us how he lived and used his sensegorgans. We sovved the seed of the objective study of natural objects which has sprung up and borne fruit in our courses in Natural Science. The other

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voiume Xi NORMAL OFFERING Page 17 Life at Bridgewater Sixty Years Ago. Albert G. Boyden. WHEN I was a pupil in the school in the years 1848-49, I the school had been in its new home,-the first building in this hemisphereerected for a State Normal School,- two years. The erection of this building by the State was an epoch in the life of the school, it gave the school a permanent home and placed it on the roll of State institutions. It was no longer an experiment. The building was an attractive wooden structure of the Tuscan order sixty-four feet by forty-two and two stories in height. On the first floor the right front door opened into the men's ante-room and the left opened into the woman's ante-room, and beyond the cross hall was 'a class room and the model schoolroom. Stairways led from the ante-rooms to the second floor on which was the Assembly Hall with desks for eighty-four students, and a class room in each front corner twenty-one feet by twelve' The Assembly Hall was a light cheerful room with an entablature and tinted walls. Each room was supplied with new furniture. Blackboards extended around each schoolroom. The library was small and there was but little apparatus. The location was on the corner of School and Summer Streets, one and one-half acres in extent, a part of the present School lot. Imagine the School in this bright home pursuing its onward, upward course. The personnel of the School included Nicholas Tillinghast, the principal, Richard Edwards, the first assistant and Dana P. Calburn, the second assistant. It was a strong Faculty, the Principal was a graduate of the West Point Military Academy and each of the Assistants became a normal school principal in a few years. The students numbered fifty-six, twenty-seven men and twenty-nine women. Co-eds you 'will note, with two surplus women for chaperons. It was a body of working students from the middle ranks who knew the value of time and money. The course of studies extended, through three consecutive terms of fourteen weeks each. We had a three hours session each half week day

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Volume XI NORMAL OFFERING Page 19 course of lectures was by Prof. Arnold Guyot, who came over with Agassiz, who revolutionized the teaching of geography in this country by teaching that geography is the study of the earth as the home of man. On Tuesday evenings once a fortnight the students had a social gathering at the house of the Principal, and on alternate Friday evenings we had our Lyceum meetings, with debates by the young men, and the Normal Offering a paper sustained by the women. These were live meetings. Most of the students boarded in the families of the village at two dollars a week. They roomed in chambers mostly. Some were so lofty that they had attic chambers which looked out upon the front view of life, while some had to be content with the posterior view. A few boarded themselves. Some of the men roomed in Bachelor's Hall, and some formed a Club and Madam Loring cooked their meals for them. Physical exercise was not neglected though we had no gymnasium. The students knew the names of all the streets, and knew all the roads for miles around, and many a, lesson on nature study was learned in their long walks. Carver's Pond in those days was noted for its lilies and snapping turtles. Lover's Lane, a cart path through the woods from Bedford Street to South, across the acreage now known as New Dublin, was distinguished for its scenic beauty. Round baseball was a regular game in the spring, and genuine football, without any toggery or rooting, was a vigorous fall game in which the ball was kicked sky-high. The school was an Institution even then though it was only eight to nine years of age. Institution is the act of setting up g establishment. It was an organized body of persons for the distract purpose of educat- ing teachers. An institution is built upon the men who found it. In this case the first members of the State Board of Education and the first Principal of the school. He was a man of heroic temper, an ardent lover of truth, with keen insight and great analytic power, a'man of faith and prayer, a ripe scholar, who gave hinzsrof to his work, and the word fail was not in his vocabulary. Thank God for the Bridgewater spirit of progress, of enlargement, of culture, of devotion, of service, of inspiration, which has quickened so many thousands of young lives. It has been the animus of the Institution from its very beginning, and is marching on to multiply its achievement.