Salem State University - Clipper Yearbook

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75172 Qfiffzfzzivefsrzfcy I Q30 recently reported by the Committee on Education. They desire to express their approbation of all the leading measures of the Board of Education, and so far as their testimony may avail, to shield that distinguished body of faithful and disinterested public servants from any imputation which may injure their official reputations or excite a doubt of the importance and use- fulness of their services. ln this crisis, in a letter to the committee of the Whig Convention which notified him of his renomination as a candidate for Governor, Edward Everett helped with- stand the attack when he said, l have given much thought to the subject of educa- tion. I believe all persons who have bestowed much attention to this subject are of the opinion that our common schools in general stand in need of great improvement, and that this can take place in no way so effectually as by increasing the qualifications of instructors. Concurring in this opinion l have labored to promote that object, and could not but rejoice in the opportunity afforded by the concurrence of public and private liberality to make a fair experiment of institutions for the education of teach- ers. With 184 votes to sustain the committee report, a change of 31 votes in the Gen- eral Court of 1840 would have abolished the Board of Education and the Normal Schools, and would, according to Henry Barnard, have changed the whole condition of public instruction in this country for half a century, if not forever. At the end of a probationary, three-year period, the success of the normal schools though moderate, had been such that the legislature appropriated S6000 annually to carry them on for another three years. The original discussions of the Board of Education contemplated the possible establishment of four schools, one of which should be in Essex County. Limitation of funds reduced the initial number to three, and the school at Salem was not opened until 1854. The four remaining State Normal Schools, those at Fitchburg, Lowell, Hyannis, and North Adams, were established by legislative enactment in 1895. Fitchburg was opened in that year. The three remaining schools were opened in 1897. Through its secretary and the principals of the several schools, the Massachusetts Board of Education had direct administrative control of the normal schools from their establishment in 1839 and subsequent years until the reorganization of the state government under constitutional amendment in 1919. This reorganization brought into existence the Department of Education with an Advisory Board of Education. The department with the advice and counsel of the Advisory Board now carried the executive functions of the earlier Board of Education. Today the normal school plants in Massachusetts represent an investment in excess of six million dollars. We, in Massachusetts, have not, however, departed from the fundamental purpose of the normal school, the training of teachers for the public schools. Massachusetts very early and very clearly established the idea that normal schools were professional schools, and not secondary schools or colleges of liberal arts. In 1865 Massachusetts established the two-year normal school course, which is now the standard minimum course for most of the nation. In 1870 a four-year course ' 14

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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

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1 930 75 M efTm2z'fz1ef.va1'y was introduced, and a tendency in that direction is most marked. In 1928 and 1929 five of our schools adopted a minimum three-year course in recognition of the need for a longer period of training. In 1894 admission was based upon the completion of a four-year high school course, which has in turn become the standard of the normal schools and teachers colleges. In 1921 legislative sanction was secured for the award of a degree in the state normal schools. The number receiving the degree, in the five institutions now granting it, is increasing with surprising rapidity. In 1860 four State Normal Schools had been established in Massachusetts and nine schools in the United States. Today, approximately one hundred and seventy state normal schools and teachers' colleges have grown from the seed sown in this Commonwealth ninety years ago. Three students enrolled in the first normal school at Lexington. Three thousand are now enrolled in the State Normal Schools of Massa- chusetts, and approximately 253,000 in the state normal schools and teachers' colleges of the nation. Ninety years of growth in Massachusetts and seventy-five years in this institution have demonstrated beyond any doubt the fundamental value of the normal school as a major factor in a state program of education. justifiably proud of her past achievements in this field, Massachusetts looks forward with confidence to the future development of her program for the training of teachers. The Qalem 5HutmaI Satbuulg East, iBte5ent anti jfuture ' DR. ASBURY PITMAN, Principal, Salem Normal School FULL century has passed since the beginning of the revival of education in Massachusetts which a decade later gave birth to the first normal school in America at Framingham. Then followed, for the remainder of the first quarter of that century, a period of storm and stress in which three professional schools were con- stantly attacked by public press, platform and pulpit and, most bitterly of all, by organized groups of alleged educators who, in 1840, carried their fight into the State Legislature. The answer to this attack was the opening of the Normal School at Bridgewater, in September of that year, later, increased capacity and more generous provision for this and the two other existing schools, and, in 1846, the erection, at Bridgewater, of the first normal school building in America. The enrollmentiin these three schools steadily increased, and the question of the establishment of a fourth school soon received serious consideration. Apparently the first suggestion that this proposed school should be located in Salem was made in August, 1852, by the Honorable Charles W. Upham, then Mayor of the City. The city of Salem furnished according to agreement the site formerly occupied by the Registry of Deeds, at the corner of Summer and Broad Streets, erected thereon the original building, and furnished the same. The total cost of the building, exclusive of the site which was valued at 55000, was about 313,000 Of this sum, S2000 was con- tributed by the Eastern Railroad Corporation and S6000 was appropriated by the State, which later authorized, in addition to this, the expenditure of S2500 for grading and equipment. ' 15