Salem State University - Clipper Yearbook

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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

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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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7 5 ffl efffzfzztueffsrzfy I 930 The building was dedicated and the school opened, September 14, 1854. The school opened with a faculty consisting of the principal and one assistant teacher and with seventy-two students, of whom forty-eight were subsequently graduated. Of this first class, Miss Rebecca Manning, of this city,-a cousin of Nathaniel Haw- thorne, and Mrs. Josephine CDevereuxD Farrar, of Bradford, Mass., are the only surviv- ing members. . Since its establishment there have been enrolled more than nine thousand students of whom nearly six thousand have been graduated. During its history there have been live principals and nearly two hundred and fifty teachers, including those who have taught in the training school. ln consequence of the steadily increasing membership, the original building, which had served the needs of the school until 1870, was enlarged at an expense of 825,000 This building, nowowned by the City of Salem and occupied by the school administration oliices of the School Department, continued to serve the purposes of the State until the present building was completed and occupied in September, 1896. From that time until 1912, when the training school building was erected, the ele- mentary school occupied the first floor of the normal school building. History and biography are inseparable. Not only had this school the advantage of the experience of the earlier normal schools and of a much larger measure of popular support, but it was extremely fortunate in its early leadership. The vigorous and constructive administration of Doctor Edwards attracted wide attention. After having practically established three normal schools, he was successively State Super- intendent of Schools of Illinois and President of Blackburn College. In 1857, Alpheus Crosby, for many years professor of Greek in Dartmouth College, became the successor of Doctor Edwards. He not only magnified the importance of scholarship, but he did much to keep the fires of patriotism burning during the four dark years of the Civil War. Professor Crosby was succeeded by Doctor Daniel' B. Hagar, a scholarly man already widely known in educational circles as the efficient principal of the Jamaica Plain High school. In the language inscribed on the memorial tablet written after thirty-one years of efficient service, he was A noble teacher-a patriotic citizen-a lover of truth-a Christian gentleman. ln 1896, Doctor Walter P. Beckwith became principal of the school. His ten years of service were conspicuous for a highly practical administration which was the log- ical sequence of his long experience as a teacher and superintendent of schools. All of these men and the present principal have been ably supported by faculties of efficient and loyal teachers, many of whom have achieved national prominence as teachers and authors in their respective professional fields. All available reports of the work of the school in early days indicate excessive emphasis upon the academic element, yet there is abundant evidence of a consistent effort to emerge from this type of education into what we now call professionalized subject matter. The essential facts of psychology were taught, together, with the fundamental principles of teaching, but the application of these principles in the normal schools themselves came but slowly. Training schools were few in number and 16