Salem State University - Clipper Yearbook

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75 M efiffz 71 1'-versa 731 I 930 The QEhuIutiun uf the jliurmal btbuul Qpstem nf jliilasaarbusetts FRANK W. XVRIGHT, Deputy Commifrionef' of Education N this historic city the three hundredth anniversary of the coming of the charter of the Massachusetts Bay Colony and the foundation of organized civil government in America is about to be celebrated. It is appropriate that we should gather here to commemorate the evolution of an historic institution, the normal school, that has now become an accepted part of the public school system of every state in the union, and the founding of a school that was a significant contribution to the normal movement. Democratic government and public education are closely allied. Indeed, it may well be said that democracy is the result of public education, and not the cause, as we have so largely heretofore assumed. ln the town of Plymouth stands a house that bears distinction as the home of the first teacher in the Pilgrim colony. In 1635 Philemon Pormort became the first master of the Boston Latin School in the Puritan colony. Significant it is that it required two hundred years to germinate the idea that a teacher should be trained for service before entering the classroom. In 1850 there were seven state normal school in existence. Three of these-West Newton Qnow Framinghaml, Bridgewater and Westfield-were in Massachusetts and the remaining four were distributed as follows: Albany, foundediin 1845, Philadelphia, in 1848, New Britain, Connecticut, in 1849, and Ypsilanti, Michigan, in 1850. What is known as the period of decline in the schools of Massachusetts immedi- ately preceded the establishment of the State Board of Education and the foundation of normal schools, In a memoir of Edmund Dwight, written about 1850, Professor Francis Bowen of Harvard said that the common school system of New England of the early thirties had degenerated into routine and was starved by parsimony. Any hovel would answer for a schoolhouse, any primer would do for a textbook, and any farmer's apprentice was competent to keep school. From such a condition grew the demand for the improvement of schools at the source-the teacher in the classroom. To James G. Carter of Lancaster belongs much of the credit for a movement that was to correct the deplorable condition just described. Fifteen years of unremitting effort to secure seminaries for teachers began in 1824 in a series of articles in the Boiron Patriot under the pen name, Franklin , A A second name, that of Reverend Charles Brooks of Hingham, will always be remembered in connection with the evolution of the Massachusetts Normal Schools. During a visit to Europe Mr. Brooks became interested in teacher training as carried on in Prussia and France. Upon his return he began an agitation for the establishment of a normal school in the Old Colony. Brooks spoke in all parts of the state, and in the memorable year of 1837, in which the Board of Education was established, he spoke twice in the hall ofthe House of Representatives. His theme on all these occa- sions was As is the Teacher, so is the School' '. After the enactment of the law making the first appropriations for State Normal Schools, Brooks renewed his efforts for the establishment of a school in the Old 12

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1 930 75M Qxffzfzzfuersary Colony, and was largely instrumental in founding the State Normal School at Bridge- water. ln this connection it is of interest to note that at a meeting, held at Hanover on September 3, 1838, the topic was, A Normal School in Plymouth County , and the speakers were Horace Mann, Daniel Webster and John Quincy Adams. With the coming of the Board of Education in 1837, two new champions of the cause of teacher training appeared. Horace Mann, as president of the Senate, signed the act creating the Board of Education. He gave up a career in the law and in poli- tics and accepted the secretary-ship provided in the Act. An interested observer of what had been going on was Edmund Dwight, a Boston merchant who donated 510,000 for the cause of education. Dwight was appointed a member of the first Board of Education, and immediately gave tangible evidence of his belief that normal schools were essential to the improvement of public education in Massachusetts. The Board of Education held its first meeting on June 29, 1837. Here begins the interesting story of the actual establishment of State Normal Schools in Massachusetts. No more interesting chapter can be written in the annals of American Education. Four approximate dates mark the evo ution o Massachusetts. These dates are: 1839, 1854, 1874, and 1895. Acting under a legislative resolve empowering the Board of Education rouse an amount up to 320,000 in qualifying teachers for the common schools, halfofwhichwas to be state funds, the Board voted to establish three schools which were opened as follows: Lexington Cnow Framinghamlluly 3, 1839, Barre Cnow Westfieldb September 14, 1839, and Bridgewater September 9, 1840. These schools, originally called normal schools, were, by legislative resolve, called State Normal Schools in 1845. Under authority of legislativeienactment and subsequent vote by the Board of Education Horace Mann and Cyrus Peirce of Nantucket, newly elected principal, 7 journeyed out to Lexington to open, just off the Battle Green in a building now used as the Masonic Hall, the first normal school in America. Undramatic indeed is the first d entry in the diary of Cyrus Peirce, the first principal of the first normal school. lt rea sz Lexington, July 3d, 1839 This day the Normal School, the first in the country, commenced. Three pupils-Misses Hawkins, Smith and Damon, were examined by l ' f the State Normal Schools in the Board of visitors and admitted. The normal school movement in Massachusetts did not develop without vigorous opposition. The period from 1839 to 1845 may well be called the period of experiment and controversy. Opponents of both the Board of Education and the Normal Schools were numerous and active. Two committee reports recommending the abolition of the Board and the Normal Schools were made to the General Court in 1840, the first by a committee on retrenchment fthe present discussion of educational costs is not newD and a second by the Committee on Education. Debate on these committee reports brought to the legislature numerous memorials in defense of the Normal Schools and the Board, one from the school committee of Salem which 1 quote in part: The school committee of Salem accordingly beg leave to remonstrate respectfully and earnestly against the passage of the bill which has been 13