Framingham State University - Dial Yearbook (Framingham, MA)

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13 Hall Was also built during this administration and named in honor of Miss Abby W. May, at that time a member of the State Board of Education. Miss Hyde was succeeded by Mr. Henry Whittemore in 1898. In this year the heirs of Mrs. Augustus Hemenway, desiring to give up the Hemenway School of Household Arts, offered it on liberal terms to the state. The Board of Education accepted and installed it at Framingham where it has since been a valued part of the school. Wells Hall, in honor of Mrs. Kate Gannett Wells, was built in 1889. Of our present principal, Mr. Whittemore, there are no words to express the love, honor, and respect which We have for him as he, in his great unselfishness and love for his school and for us, follows in the very footsteps of the first great principals, who made our Normal School. It is good for us to contemplate the struggle of those first pupils Whose success was so great, that we, with the advantage of modern buildings and apparatus may try to make ourselves what they Were, Worthy graduates of the First State Normal School of America. M. C. N. sit 93 Some Anecdotes of the First Class How pleasantly within those walls We lived-a group of merry girls. -L. E. H arris. IXTY-NINE years ago the 3rd of next July, three girls went to Lexington, lNLIassachusetts, to take examinations. Going off' to take examinations is not a very unusual proceeding for us-We have all done it-but it was different for them. They were going to take examinations for entrance to a school which up to that time had never existed, a school unlike any that had ever been seen on this side of the Atlantic. Word had gone forth that the examiners Were to be grave learned meng and it' was with fear and trembling that they faced them. They were examined in turn in reading, writing, English, grammar, geography and arithmeticg and in their intense desire to do their best they forgot the beating storm outside.

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12 earnestness and zeal in the work which had marked their labors in the Normal School. By this time, the school had outgrown the buildings in Lex- ington and the Fuller Academy in 'West Newton was bought for its better accommodation. It was fitted up by contributions from the citizens of West Newton, Mr. Mann, the Secretary of the Board of Education, Mr. Pierce, and some of their friends. Here, the school was set upon a strong basis, not however without some attacks being made upon it, one of which, the most violent, in 1847, called forth a reply' from both Mr. Pierce and some of his pupils. Mr. Pierce again resigned April, 18419, and at this time a reception was given in his honor at West Newton, testifying the love which the people had for him. He was succeeded by Reverend Eben S. Stearns in September, 1849. He was a fit successor to ,the men who preceded him and soon won the love and cordial cooperation of his teachers and pupils. He was very earnest and under him the school increased so much in popularity that to keep the numbers within bounds the entrance examinations were made more rigid and for the first time a three-years' course was adopted. The first written diplomas were given in 1850. Again, the school outgrew its accommodations and new ones were decided upon in Framingham May 13, 1852. Appropria- tions were made by the legislature, by the town, and by the presi- dent of the Boston and Albany Railroad. The inhabitants of Framingham gave five and three-quarters acres of land for the site. There is no need to speak of the beauty of the place chosen, it still speaks for itself. Mr. Stearns resigned in September, 1855 and Mr. George Bigelow was his successor. He was a very capable man whose ideas were 'fadvanced and progressivef' Nothing unusual hap- pened while he was principal, but at this time the demand for teachers began to be larger than the supply. Miss Annie F.. Johnson, the first woman principal of the Normal School succeeded Mr. Bigelow in 1866. During her suc- cessful administration the school building was enlarged, a boarding house was established, and the practice school, which had been discontinued since the removal of the Normal School to Fram- ingham, was reestablished. Miss Hyde took charge of the school in 1875. She made the practice school a requisite of the Normal training and its numbers increased until it occupied a large part of the first floor of the building. Crocker Hall, named for a former teacher, was built in 1866, but was partly destroyed by fire in 1887 and was rebuilt. May

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14: They were all admitted. This was Wednesday. By Saturday their number was increased to five. They boarded in neighboring families. Sunday, Mr. Pierce told the five girls that he would call for them to go to church with him. They went to the church on the common and were shown to a pew not far from Mr. and lNIrs. Pierce. It was a square pew with a door in one side and with high-backed, uncushioned, wooden seats around the other three. The girls entered it feeling that, as pupils of the new Normal School, they were the observed of all beholders. They felt anxious to do just what was right in this strange church so, when the congregation stood during the long opening prayer, they also arose. The seats 'projected far out into the pew and, as the girls did not know that they could be turned up, there was not much room. Nevertheless they accommodated themselves as best they could and composed themselves into a properly reverential frame of mind. This was rudely broken, however, when, just as the minister said Amen,,' every seat in the church came down with a bang. They jumped, looked at each other and-sad to relate- laughed. And thus it was that the pupils of the Normal School were first introduced to the public. The next Monday, school was opened in the sitting room with lessons in reading, grammar and arithmetic. By Thursday they had moved upstairs and their number was increased to eight. By the end of the year the class consisted of twenty-five. This was surely rapid growth--an increase of SZLW. Their class room was furnished with green-topped double desks. All around the room was a formidable blackboard which in after years suggested trials to their minds to which we of the present day have only two equals-our special topics and uplat- form exercises. Fortunately, however, there were also pleasant associations with this blackboard. We hear tales of one guileless looking equation which extended up and down three lengths of the blackboard only to come to the wonderful conclusion that 0:0 Many were the graphic delineations of square roots, and one ambitious young lady is even rumored to have attempted to bound fthink of that Miss O-J the State of Single Blessedness. Oh, she was a true daughter of normality. They were as ready to argue for the sake of hearing them- selves talk as we are today. One sweltering day the subject came up for discussion, Does hot tea or ice cream make one the cooler ? QAsk Miss B--.Q One restless study hour a certain young lady tied her neighbor so securely to the rope of the bell in the tower that every time she stirred it jingled. From that time on Miss B-- was