Salisbury University - Evergreen Yearbook (Salisbury, MD)

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EVERGREE N —1 9 2 6 is distant only an hour’s ride. Wilmington, Philadelphia, and Baltimore are in comfortable motoring distance. The Pennsylvania Railroad’s trunk line from New York to Norfolk and the South passes through Salisbury. The site selected by the Building Commission, a farm of nearly thirty acres just south of Salisbury, is ideal for the purpose. The grounds com¬ prise attractive lawns, ornamented with flowers, trees, shrubbery, and evergreens; playground areas, gardens, and an orchard. A distinctive feature is the athletic field, where training in all forms of sports will be given. The State Normal School at Salisbury has rooms for resident students on the second and third floors of each wing. The administration building, yet to be built, wil l have similar rooms on the third and fourth floors. Group baths and a student’s laundry are conveniently located, and each room will have a lavatory with hot and cold running water. Rooms accom¬ modate two students. Two of the best rooms are set aside for infirmary purposes, where necessary care can be given any student taken sick. Everything possible is done for the health, comfort, and happiness of the students in attendance. Their social, moral, and religious life is prop¬ erly supervised, and parents may entrust their sons and daughters to this school with every assurance they will receive the careful and sympathetic guidance of well-trained institutional directors. There is pressing need for elementary school teachers who know how to teach a rural school and who are content to live in the country. The Maryland State Normal School at Salisbury will attempt to meet this need. The course of study is designed to prepare teachers primarily for service in rural schools. At the same time there is sufficient differentiation to satisfy the demand for trained teachers for graded town or consolidated schools. All courses are conducted with a single aim in view, namely, the train¬ ing of high school graduates in the science and art of teaching. The cur¬ riculum is strictly professional from the outset, and conducted on a recog¬ nized collegiate level. It will include the acquisition of much new subject- matter along with preparation for classroom presentation. Graduates of the Maryland State Normal School at Salisbury can secure two years of college credit at some of the leading universities and teachers’ colleges. By completing the first two years of college work at this Normal School and teaching at least two years to fulfill the obligation to the State the ambitious teacher is in a position to win the B. S. degree in Education in two more years. A college education secured in this way will cost considerably less than if the entire four years are spent succes¬ sively at one institution. It should be noted also that college graduates trained in elementary education are scarce. In this field of education service the future offers joy, large opportunity, and adequate financial returns. It is in its plan for practice teaching also that the State Normal School at Salisbury takes a decided step forward. It is located within easy dis¬ tance of a well graded city system of public schools having a semi-annual system of promotion. Within a radius of seven miles from the normal school are more than a dozen typical one and two teacher rural schools, all on improved highways. As many of the town and country schools as needed are available for practice teaching. An understanding has been reac hed between the Board of Trustees of the State Normal School and Page Eight

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E V E RG RE E N —1 9 2 6 History of School The General Assembly of 1922, by joint resolution, created a Com¬ mission “to investigate the need and desirability of establishing a State Normal School on the Eastern Shore of Maryland; to have plans prepared for the establishment of such a school, if deemed desirable; to select and purchase a site for same, and to erect buildings out of any funds which may be provided therefor. The commission consisted of Dr. Henry M. Fitz- hugh, President of the State Board of Education; Dr. Albert S. Cook, State Superintendent of Schools; William S. Gordy, Jr., State Comptroller; L. W. Gunby, President of the Board of Education of Wicomico County; Charles R. Disharoon, Orlando Harrison, and John B. Robins, Senators from Wicomico, Worcester and Somerset Counties respectively. The Com¬ mission was formally organized on July 28, 1922 by theelection of CharlesR. Disharoon as Chairman; William S. Gordy, Jr., Treasurer, and William J. Holloway, Secretary. In the General Construction Loan of 1922, there was included an item of $117,000 “for the purchase of land for the construction and equipment of a State Normal School to be located at Salisbury.” It accordingly be¬ came the duty of this Commission to carry out the expressed will of the Legislature by purchasing a site at Salisbury and initiating a building program. A site containing twenty-nine acres, ideally located near Salisbury, was purchased. Competent school architects were engaged to prepare plans and specifications. Following sound principles of school and resi¬ dence-hall architecture, they have, it is believed, evolved a group of build¬ ings which, when erected, will make it possible to do the work which the State has a right to expect of its normal schools. The school will be fire¬ proof throughout. The style of architecture followed, Maryland Colonial, has made it possible to present beautiful group of buildings practically under one roof. The Legislature of 1924 appropriated $205,000 for additional buildings to be expended by the State Board of Education who, with the State Su¬ perintendent of Schools, constitute the Board of Trustees of State Normal Schools. The Commission therefore went out of existence, after having rendered the State an incalculable service by its selection of an unusually good site and the initiation of a building program which will assure for the State a school of the highest type. The second appropriation was found sufficient to complete the north wing and the north connecting wing. The construction of the administration building, the auditorium-gymna¬ sium, and the south wing must be deferred until the General Assembly of 1927 provides the necessary funds. Salisbury, chosen by the General Assembly of 1922 as the location for the needed new teacher-training institution, is a modern, progressive little city, with cultured, refined people who will do their part to make life at the State Normal School pleasant and profitable. Situated at the junction of two railroads, at the head of navigation on the Wicomico River, with hard surfaced highways radiating in every direction, it is easily accessible from all parts of the Eastern Shore of Maryland. Its lakes and rivers give it a natural setting of rare beauty. Opportunities for boating, bath¬ ing, and fishing are right at hand. Maryland’s seaside resort, Ocean City, Page Seven

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EVERGREE N —1 9 2 6 the Board of Education of Wicomico County whereby, under conditions mutually satisfactory, the local schools may be used as a laboratory for observation, demonstration, and practice teaching. Experience has proved that such a plan, if wisely administered, not only furnishes the teacher- training institution with the facilities it must have in order to do its work well, but it invariably provides a stimulus to a sane and steady growth in the professional insight, and professional skill of the entire teaching staff of the school system with which it co-operates. In addition to the local schools there has been provided, in conjunction with the normal school, an elementary school which exemplifies the best current practice in elementary school planning, and which will accommo¬ date seven grades in four classrooms. The teachers in this school are graduates of a teachers’ college, specialists in elementary education. For the first two years, or until the normal school is enlarged, two classrooms are devoted to the elementary school, one-half of the building being needed for normal school purposes. The plan of graded practice teaching is followed, the work proceeding through the several steps of observation, participation, group teaching, all under expert supervision. The school opened on September 7, 1925, with an enrollment of one hundred and five students. Mr. Holloway, Principal of the Maryland State Normal School at Sal¬ isbury, claims that no school can be deemed a successful school unless it has public sympathy and support. It may have the best teachers availa¬ ble; it may have the finest buildings that can be designed, with adequate equipment in every department; it is still not a success unless there is back of it an informed, responsible, participating public sentiment, anxious and willing to know what is going on in the school, assuming its proper share of the responsibility for its conduct, and partcipating, so far as it can helpfully do so, in its several activities. That this school, although only in its first year, has such community spirit is evidenced by the gifts which it has received from two of the leading fra¬ ternal bodies. On last Armistice Day, Chesapeake Royal Arch Chapter, No. 17, with elaborate ceremonies, unveiled a if the school a flag, flag staff and pedestal with bronze tablet in honor of the members of the Chapter who participated in the World War. On Lin¬ coln’s Birthday, the Wicomico Association, comprising five councils, of the Junior Order United American Mechanics, with beautiful and impressive exercises held in the school auditorium, presented to the school a lovely silk American flag and pedestal for use in the auditorium. This new State Normal School has begun its work auspiciously. It has already justified the faith of its sponsors by supplying a long felt need for higher educational facilities in this part of the State. A fine school spirit has developed, students seem to be happy and contented, and are engaging in their duties with commendable zeal. There is every prospect for greater usefulness and success in the future. Page Nine