pupil teachers, who have served an apprenticeship of five years in the best elementary schools of the kingdom, have spent three years in the Training Colleges, and having gained the certificates of merit, are actively engaged as teachers. 349. Governor Clinton on Teacher-Training Schools (Randall, S. S., Common School System of the State of New York, p. 27. Troy, 1851) In 1827 Governor DeWitt Clinton, in his message to the legislature, thus recommends the establishment of academies in the different counties of the State, in large part to train teachers for schools. The great bulwark of republican government is the cultivation of education; for the right of suffrage cannot be exercised in a salutary manner without intelligence. It is gratifying to find that education continues to flourish. We may safely estimate the number of our common schools at 8000; the number of children taught during the last year, on an average of eight months, at 430,000; and the sum expended in education at 200,000 dollars. It is, however, too palpable that our system. is surrounded by imperfections which demand the wise consideration and improving interposition of the legislature. In the first place, there is no provision made for the education of competent instructors. Of the eight thousand now employed in this state, too many are destitute of the requisite qualifications, and perhaps no considerable number are able to teach beyond rudimental instruction. Ten years of a child's life, from five to fifteen, may be spent in a common school; and ought this immense portion of time to be absorbed in learning what can be acquired in a short period? Perhaps one-fourth of our population is annually instructed in our common schools; and ought the minds and morals of the rising, and perhaps the destinies of all future generations, to be entrusted to the guardianship of incompetence? The scale of instruction must be elevated; the standard of education ought to be raised, and a central school on the monitorial plan ought to be established in each county for the education of teachers, and as exemplars for other momentous purposes connected with the improvement of the human mind. 350. Organization of the First Massachusetts Normal Schools (Tenth Annual Report Massachusetts State Board of Education. Boston, 1846) From 1825 on, James Carter and others had been trying to get a state normal school established in Massachusetts. In 1839 a citizen of Boston, Mr. Edmund Dwight, authorized Horace Mann, then Secretary of the Massachusetts State Board of Edu cation, to say to the legislature that he would personally give $10,000 for the project, if the State of Massachusetts would appropriate a similar sum. This was done, by the following: (a) The Organizing Law Relative to qualifying teachers for common schools Whereas, by letter from the Honorable Horace Mann, Secretary of the Board of Education, addressed, on the 12th of March current, to the President of the Senate, and the Speaker of the House of Representatives, it appears, that private munificence has placed at his disposal the sum of ten thousand dollars, to promote the cause of popular education in Massachusetts, on condition that the Commonwealth will contribute from unappropriated funds, the same amount in aid of the same cause, the two sums to be drawn upon equally from time to time, as needed, and to be disbursed under the direction of the Board of Education in qualifying teachers for our Common Schools; therefore, Resolved, That his Excellency, the Governor, be, and he is hereby authorized and requested, by and with the advice and consent of the Council, to draw his warrant upon the Treasurer of the Commonwealth in favor of the Board of Education, for the sum of $10,000, in such installments and at such times, as said Board may request: provided, said Board, in their request, shall certify, that the Secretary of said Board has placed at their disposal an amount equal to that for which such application may by them be made; both sums to be expended, under the direction of said Board, in qualifying teachers for the Common Schools in Massachusetts. Resolved, That the Board of Education shall render an annual account of the manner in which said moneys have been by them expended. The State Board of Education, after mature deliberation, decided to establish three state normal schools, rather than give the money to the Academies, as New York had done. This was done, and the first three state normal schools in the United States opened at Lexington, July 3, 1839; Barre, September 4, 1839; and Bridgewater, September 9, 1840. For these schools the Board established admission requirements and a course of study, as follows: (b) Admission and Instruction As a prerequisite to admission, candidates must declare it to be their intention to qualify themselves to become school teachers. If they belong to the State, or have an intention and a reasonable expectation of keeping school in the State, tuition is gratis. Otherwise, a tuition fee is charged, which is intended to be about the same as is usually charged at good academies in the same neighborhood.... If males, pupils must have attained the age of seventeen years complete, and of sixteen, if females; and they must be free from any disease or infirmity, which would unfit them for the office of school teachers. They must undergo an examination, and prove themselves to be well versed in orthography, reading, writing, English grammar, geography, and arithmetic. They must furnish satisfactory evidence of good intellectual capacity and of high moral character and principles. Examinations for admission take place at the commencement of each term, of which there are three in a year. Term of study. ... . . The minimum of the term of study is one year, and this must be in consecutive terms of the schools. . . . Course of study. The studies first to be attended to in the State Normal Schools are those which the law requires to be taught in the district schools, namely, orthography, reading, writing, English grammar, geography, and arithmetic. When these are mastered, those of a higher order will be progressively taken. For those who wish to remain at the school more than one year, and for all belonging to the school, so far as their previous attainments will permit, the following course is arranged: 1. Orthography, reading, grammar, composition, rhetoric, and logic. 2. Writing and drawing. 3. Arithmetic, mental and written, algebra, geometry, bookkeeping, navigation, surveying. 4. Geography, ancient and modern, with chronology, statistics and general history. 5. Human Physiology, and hygiene or the Laws of Health. 6. Mental Philosophy. 7. Music. 8. Constitution and History of Massachusetts and of the United States. 9. Natural Philosophy and Astronomy. 10. Natural History. II. The principles of piety and morality, common to all sects of Christians. 12. The science and art of teaching, with reference to all the abovenamed studies. Religious exercises. A portion of the Scriptures shall be read daily, in every State Normal School. To these new schools Mr. Mann gave most hearty support, and helped them to weather legislative storms for a decade before they became firmly established as parts of the school system of the State. Probably nowhere else in the Union could the normal school have been established at so early a date, or, if established, been allowed to remain. Speaking at the dedication of the first building for normal school purposes erected in the United States, at Bridgewater, in 1846, Mr. Mann showed the deep interest he felt in the establishment of normal schools, when he said: (c) Importance of the Normal School I believe the Normal schools to be a new instrumentality in the advancement of the race. I believe that without them free schools themselves would be shorn of their strength and their healing power, and would at length become mere charity-schools, and thus die out in FIG. 84. THE FIRST NORMAL SCHOOL BUILDING IN THE At Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Dedicated by Horace Mann, in 1846 fact and in form. Neither the art of printing, nor the trial by jury, nor a free press, nor free suffrage, can long exist to any beneficial and salutary purpose without schools for the training of teachers; for if the character and qualifications of teachers be allowed to degenerate, the free schools will become pauper schools, and the pauper schools will produce pauper souls, and the free press will become a false and licentious press, and ignorant voters will become venal voters, and through the medium and guise of republican forms an oligarchy of profligate and flagitious men will govern the land; nay, the universal diffusion and ultimate triumph of all-glorious Christianity itself must await the time when knowledge shall be diffused among men through the instrumentality of good schools. Coiled up in this institution, as in a spring, there is a vigor whose uncoiling may wheel the spheres. and hearing the pupils recite what they had memorized from the work of the teacher was largely confined to keeping order and with small texts, almost entirely devoid of illustrations, the early textbooks are here reproduced. With such subject-matter, early educational history, a few typical pages from two popular To illustrate the type of instruction that was common in our 351. Examples of Instruction from Early Textbooks Q. What name did they give to it? Q. Did this territory become the property of Q. In what year, was Georgia founded? A. In the year 1732. Q. From whom, did it derive its name? Q. Who is mentioned as the promoter of Q. How is Savannah situated' CHAPTER VII. COMMENCEMENT OF HOSTILITIES. Q. What occasioned the battle of Lexington? Q. Were the Lexington corps successful in A. No: they were dispersed, and some of Q. When did the battle of Lexington take FIG. 35. Two PAGES FROM DAVENPORT'S "HISTORY OF THE UNITED STATES" These show the catechetical form of the volume |