West Chester University - Serpentine Yearbook (West Chester, PA)

Page 23 text:

Class IBooli Staff Assistant Editors V r. Fred Woodley i H. MoKGAN Ruth 4 Lucy B. Howe Ina M. Jenkyn Editor-in-Chief Frank A. Finnegan Associate Editors Robert M. Taylor 1 Charles L. Farabaugh % Caroline S. Thawley • l C. Justus Criswell o Dorothy E. Youngman U Mabel L. W ' eidman Athletic Editors Olin L. Evans ijEthel V. Watts Artists A Howard E. Hudson i Mabel R. Brubaker W Myrtle I. Blinn J A Caroline S. Parke Business Manager % Ira E. Ladv 15

Page 25 text:

Cbc normal School ' s Cite Ristory T is a dirticult task the class has ijixen the writer in asking him to write the hfe story of the West Chester State Normal School. It is almost like asking- a nian to write a biography of his wife. If he is gemiineh- fond of her. t(i write his real estimate of her is to s])eak in terms that to every- one outside of the family will seem absurdly tender: to conceal his feelings and to try to do sober justice to her i|ualities, better and worse, will seem to everyone in the family rank injustice. Then there are certain things mie would have to say because she ' . -ould not be satisfied if he did not. It is almost as hard for one who has given fifteen of the riper years of his life in the ser ice of a great school to write fairly the stor - of its life. If sometimes the account seems o erfond, the reader must remember that it was written for those in the family. The ComiiKinwealth of I ' cnnsvhania is ])articularl - fortunate in the relationsliip that exists between the State and her Normal Schools. In some of the States the Normal Schools have ])een ])nrely private institu- tions. Slowly these institutions die out. and State institutions take their place. In otlier places the State starts the Normal School as a child of its own. and here the local conditi(.ins ha e comparati ely little infiu- ence on tlie (le ' elopment of the school. In Pennsylvania the State decided on the number of schools which might he established, and the amount of resources a school must have to begin the wiirk and then left it to each neighborhood to decide when it was ready and able to make its beginning. In this way each of the Normal Schools of the Commonwealth has an indi ' iduality of its own. Amongst these our own Normal School has a particularly clear note of person- ality, de eloi)ed in response to its splendid enxironment. 17