University of Northern Iowa - Old Gold Yearbook (Cedar Falls, IA)

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 College Hospital. Formerly President » Cottage. 1890 laughter and merry voices of children at their meals. Old Room A was the place of prayers and of struggles with lessons. On third floor were the store rooms where every- thing from starch to ginghams was on hand, and above this was the great, dark attic where the children always loved to play. Higher yet in the tower hung the same old bell which now calls the training school pupils to their les- sons. In the words of P. M. Shaffer let us say, “Blessings on thee, old Central Hall.” The time had now come when two homes for soldiers orphans could well serve all needs, so the one at Cedar Falls was to be vacated. A few men in Iowa had watched and studied the new movement in education which had resulted in the establishment of a Normal School at Remis, in France, in J6 4, at Halle in J697, in Prussia in J735, in Massachusetts in 1839 and then in neighboring states. In this vacated building these men saw Iowa's opportunity. Mr. E. G. Miller, of Waterloo, proposed the bill in the sen- ate of the Fifteenth Legislature creating and locating the Iowa State Normal School. The fight was a hard one; dissension, criticism or indifference seemed the heritage of the new school. Governor Kirkwood signed the bill which passed the Sixteenth Legislature, and appointed the first board of directors who received the building and property belonging to the Soldiers Orphans’ Home at Cedar Falls. On June 7, 1876, Prof. James C. Gilchrist, of Mason

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South Hall. 1802 North and South Hall North Hall. 1868 Beginnings in our School History The Great Civil War had ended. Iowa, the first free state from the Louisiana Purchase, though young, had been none the less patriotic. At Shiloh, Vicfcburg, Atlanta, to the Gulf and to the Sea” her sons had borne Old Glory and when all was over thousands of children were father- less. No place in all her blooming prairies was too good or too beautiful, so here, on forty acres, beside the Cedar, Iowa in J868 erected a home for her soldiers' orphans. Where is the student, proud of his native state, whose heart does not glow with a feeling of reverence as he walks beneath the shadow of old Central Hall, or within her walls stops to meditate on the noble cause for which she was built and which she has served?” Those same four walls which now resound with the blow of the mallet, the pounding of the hammer, the bus of electric machinery, which in the years from J890 to 1903 reechoed the com- mands of the cadet captain and the tramp, tramp of the boys in drill, then from 1869 to J876, gave back peals of

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Administration Building. 1896 City, was chosen as principal of the Iowa State Normal School. The board met again on July J2th and chose the faculty: Mr. Moses W. Bartlett as professor of Ancient Languages, Mr. D. S. Wright as professor of Mathematics and English, and Miss Frances L. Webster, professor of Geography and History. Later Mr. E. W. Burnham was secured to teach Music and give lessons on the one piano and few organs owned by the institution. Letters were now sent to county superintendents authorizing them to hold examinations for those desiring admission to the school. On Tuesday, September 6, 1876, the school opened. The faculty received the students in Room A, devotional exer- cises were led by the principal and enrollment by Profes- sor Bartlett concluded the work of the forenoon. After dinner came the recitations in which faculty and students alike participated and to Professor Wright was granted the privilege of hearing the first What is grammar? Can you just imagine how he asked it and then set his lips in that line which, while it demands a good answer, at the same time destroys all possibility of there ever being one? Such was the beginning—one building in which all lived, studied and recited, four professors and twenty-seven stu- dents, most of whom had been teachers. Many present-day customs date from the school's be- ginning. The first Sunday evening, September (1, J876,