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

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igi4 SERPENTINE Page n Editor-in-Chief Ernest Sciiultz Assislant Editors Associate Edifurs Rebecca Greenburc Myrtle Fretz Ann Entriken Mildred Fink Pearl H. Jacobs Helen Kaufeman V. Leroy Brooke Ruth Kerr C. Raymond Miche.mer AFary Lennox XoRMAN C. Somers Atldctic Editors Chas. HiiMMiG Elizabeth Holden Artists Ada Cooper Violet Seeger Alva Lambert Vera Rvman Frances E. Rtll Business Mgr. Asst. Business Mgr. Irwin H. Loose H. May Hl ' NTEr

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Page 10 SERPENTINE 1914 1914 SERPENTINE STAFF

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Page 12 SERPENTINE 1914 % fl ' ' |C) THE members of the class of 1914 in tlie West Chester State Normal School l)elongs the honor of being the first graduates of a State owned Normal School in Pennsylvania. Prior to that year the school at West Ches- ter, like all the other Normal Schools in Pennsyh ania, had been a private institution, recognized and aided l y the State. But West Chester was destined to be the first real State Normal School in the Keystone State. December 30, 1913, witnessed the transfer of the ownership and control of the school to the Commonwealth. Nineteen hundred and fourteen marks the dawn of a new era in the history of the training of teachers in Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania has thirteen training-schools for teachers. Some of these schools grew out of earlier academies; others originated in the generous action of the communities in which they are located; all of them were made possible by the subscriptions of public-spirited citizens. The West Chester Normal School belongs to the first group. It is the .successor of the West Chester Academy, which was founded in 1812, and had a long and honorable record as an in- stitution of learning. In 1869, the trustees of the old Academy decided to sell its property and to devote the proceeds to the building of a Normal School. With the twenty-nine thousand dollars realized from this sale, forty-two thousand more from the subscriptions of generous citizens, fifteen thousand from the State, and a loan of twenty thousand, the new Normal School purchased a tract of land in the southern part of the liorough of West Chester, erected its first building, and opened its doors in 1871. bVoni its beginning the West Chester Normal School has l)een exceptionally fortunate in the sagacity and devotion of the members of its Board of Trustees. The first president of this board was the Rev. William E. Moore, and its first secretary was Captain Robert T. Cornwell, who served the school as trustee with exceptional efliciencv for many years. It is peculiarly appropriate that to Captain Cornwell should fall the honor of being elected first president of the Board of Trustees appointed by the State in 1914, when the school was reorganized as a State institution. In the long list of prominent citizens of West Chester who have served on the Board of Trustees since the founding of the school, special mention may be made of Wilmer Worthington, M.D., W ' illiam B. Waddell. Joseph J. Lewis, Robert E. Mona- ghan, .Addison Alay. Alfred P. Reid, Evans Rogers, J- Preston Thomas, and |ohn T. Pinkerton.