University of Wisconsin River Falls - Meletean Yearbook (River Falls, WI)

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ONE of the great American illusions is the faith displayed in the things that are new. from new machines to new ideas. Up-to-dateness is the greatest virtue. In the effort to achieve this super-excellence, frantic haste is made to discard last year’s model, to reject last year’s book and to deny the beliefs and faiths of yesterday. The chaos which characterizes our social order today may be traced in large part to the feverish haste with which the American people have rejected everything of the past. Schools and colleges have anxiously struggled to head this procession. Methods, materials and objectives have been so frequently changed that all have been confused as to the real aims of education. No philosophy of education should be formulated in any but the broadest terms and based upon the past experiences of the race. The fundamental needs of society and individuals remain constant year after year, generation after generation. Education is a social process, whose aim is to produce not only useful and law-abiding citizens, but also those whose intellectual horizons have been enlarged, whose range of interests have been increased and whose sympathies have been deepened. To fail in these larger and more fundamental aspects of education is to fail all along the line. Colleges must keep alive idealism in the souls of youth and must foster those sentiments of honor and loyalty without which our religious, political and social institutions cannot endure. This is not the doctrine of conservatism: it is a plea that no program for the future, within our colleges or without, can fail to recognize the lessons of the past. Tu»nW‘Ont

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President J. H. Ames Twentg

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THE COLLEGE RELIGION, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and means of education shall be forever encouraged”—thus ran the first provision for education as it appeared in the Ordinance of the Northwest Territory in 1787. Many of the pioneers of Wisconsin came from the New England and Eastern states where they had already become impressed with the value of schools. In January, 1849, less than a year after Wisconsin had been admitted as a state the first plan for securing teacher training in Wisconsin was established in the form of a normal department in the state university. During the next few years the normal department made a gradual growth. In 1857 the legislature passed an act to encourage academies and normal schools. This act set aside one-fourth of the gross proceeds of the swamp lands granted to Wisconsin in 1850 for the purpose of maintaining teacher training institutions. It also provided for a board of normal school regents to distribute the income to academies and normal schools which had an organized department for the training of teachers. Later on, in 1865, further legislation was passed donating one-half of the gross proceeds from swamp lands to the normal school fund. The Act of 1865 really established the normal school fund for two reasons: first, because of need of adequate legislation to conserve the funds which the state was deriving from swamp and overflow lands, and second, the failure of university and academics to develop normal departments to meet the demand of the state for training teachers. The income from these funds was to be applied to establishing, supporting, and maintaining normal schools. The first decision of the board of regents was to build a normal school in each of the six congressional districts, but they later proposed that whenever a city or town in the state should offer to give a site, suitable buildings, and fixtures for a state normal school, the said board of regents might consider the same, and select the one most feasible for the maintenance of an institution of this kind. The following year. 1866, the board of regents decided to locate schools at Whitewater and Platteville. The donation from Platteville of the building of the Platteville Academy thus made it possible to open school in October of the same year, giving Platteville the first normal school in this state. White-water being delayed by having to erect suitable buildings was not able to open until April. 1868. At the meeting of the board of regents in May. 1866. Oshkosh was selected as a third suitable location for a normal school. At this time it was also decided to establish schools at Stoughton and Sheboygan, but the motion was soon withdrawn for the latter two places. Erection of buildings for the Oshkosh school began in 1869. and this school was opened in the fall of 1871. The first three normal schools established thus far were located in the southern and eastern part of the state. The congressional districts in the northern part of the state demanded that the next teacher training institution be located in their territory. In July, 1871. the board of regents, accompanied by the governor, made a tour throughout northwestern Wisconsin, and as a result of this inspection it was decided in January, 1872, to locate the fourth school at River Falls in the St. Croix Valley. The city of River Falls and surrounding country contributed $37,000 and ten acres of land as an inducement to secure the location of the institution. Work was started immediately on the new school and the formal opening and T ipmiy-Two