Normal schools, and other institutions, agencies, and means designed for the professional education of teachers

Part I.-united States And British Provinces. Part Il-europe

HARTFORD:

PUBLISHED BY CASE, TIFFANY AND COMPANY. 1851.

CIRCULAR.

The following pages constitute the second of the series of Essays which the undersigned was authorized by the Legislature in 1850 to prepare for general circulation in Connecticut, on topics connected with the condition and improvement of our Conunon Schools. The necessity and importance of specific preparation for the business of teaching are recognized by the State in its recent legislation for the establishment of an institution to be devoted exclusively to this object. The gradual development of this idea from its first formal presentation by Rev. Thomas H. Gallaudetj in 1825, to its partial realization in the State Normal School at New Britain, in 1850, is traced in the documents which are here embodied.

While Connecticut was discussing the subject, or slumbering over it, ' with the half patriarchal, half poetical dream," which is apt to come over us when we think of our "venerable common school system," Massachusetts was acting not only in this but in other departments of educational improvement, with a vigor and liberality which has placed her public schools over at least one half of her territory, at least a half century in advance of our own in towns of the same wealth and population. New- York, too, whose school system as originally drafted by a native of Connecticut, was copied in its essential features from our own, under the lead of De Witt Clinton in 1826, commenced a series of improvements which resulted in Teachers Departments, District Libraries, Union Schools, County Inspection Teachers' Institutes, and a Normal School, which have done more, and are doing more now to develop the resources of the State than her gigantic system of railroads and canals.

The city of Philadelphia, whose system of public schools, made free by taxation on property, went into operation only two years before Connecticut passed a law exempting the people from the obligation of raising a tax on property for a portion of the expense of supporting common schools — {the most disastrous law ever placed on her statute book) — has now a system of public instruction from the Primary School for children four years of age, to the Normal School in which the female teachers of all her schools can be trained, maintained with a liberality, and embracing opportunities of an extended English, classical, and business education, which is free to all and practically enjoyed by the children of the rich and poor — of which we have no approach in any city of our State.

The State of Michigan, which has been admitted into the Union since the idea of a Normal School was first presented in Connecticut, has set

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apart, not. the bonus of a bank as a temporary experiment, but a permanent fund for the endowment of an institution devoted exclusively to the professional education of teachers.

The province of Upper Canada, stimulated by the example of the neighboring State of New- York, has within ten years organized a system of common schools more complete in its plan, more efficient in its administration, and embracing more of the agencies of educational progress, than the system of any one of the United States. At the head of these agencies of progress stands the Provincial Normal School,for which,besides a standing appropriation of $10,000 a year for the current expenses, the sum of $55,000 has just been almost unanimously voted by the Legislature, to provide a suitable building and apparatus for the accommodation of the school.

Some notice of these institutions will be given in the following pages, together with the republication of a number of documents and addresses setting forth the origin, nature, and advantages of Normal Schools, and her institutions, agencies, and means, for the prof essional education and improvement of teachers, in the United States.

This Essay will be followed by a volume on the same great topic, in which an account will be given of the organization and course of instruction of several of the best Normal Seminaries in Europe, together with an outline of the system of Public Schools in the countries where these Seminaries have been longest in operation. Although not prepared exclusively or originally for this series of publications, copies will be furnished to all orders from any part of the State, on the same terms with the Principles of School Architecture, viz : at half the cost of publication. HENRY BARNARD,

Superintendent of Common Schools.

Hartford, January 6th, 185L

NORMAL SCHOOLS IN THE UNITED STATES,

Contents

Page.

Introduction, . . . . • "?

Table. Number, location, and date of erection of Normal Schools, ... 8