After display of so great administrative ability as appeared in Miss Lyon and her successors, it strikes one as still another mark of the traditional reluctance to recognize true values, that close upon half a century from the founding of the institution had passed before the name of a woman appeared in the list of trustees. Meantime every principal of the seminary had been a woman, every resident physician had been a woman, and every anniversary address had been made by a man.
The debt which the public owes to a few individuals who have used lavishly, for its benefit, their own great endowments, whether of brains or of money, before this same public was conscious of its own highest needs, is distinctly traceable in the kindergarten, kitchen-garden, industrial school, college, and university movements of the present day. Truly, many of these to whom much has been given have read their duty in the light of the scripture, “Of him much shall be required.” When values are once demonstrated to the people, they are ever ready to carry on important work with liberality.
While recognizing the importance of the many lines of educational effort, if we sought to learn which has done most to give a solid basis of thoroughness to woman’s education, and, secondarily, to general education, during the middle part of the present century, we should find the answer in the Normal Schools. While other institutions have contributed greatly to increase the scope of woman’s study, these have added thereto the important consideration of methods.
As a part of the thrifty policy which the States have shown when dealing with the education of girls, they have furnished Normal School instruction with the especial view to getting skilled labor in return.
Perhaps there is nothing which would insure so great care in instilling first principles. The result has certainly been to make their invaluable influence felt from the cities to the remotest school districts.
The story of the establishment of these schools is another story of personal struggle against more than indifference, and indifference itself may justly be regarded as a solid substance.
The interest in Normal Schools in America, which was aroused by Prof. Denison Ormstead in 1816, and was advocated by De Witt Clinton, by Gallaudet, and by Horace Mann, grew to fervor in the Rev. Charles Brooks of Medford, Mass., who caught his inspiration from Dr. Julius, of Hamburg, who was sent to the United States by the King of Prussia to study our public institutions. In 1865 Mr. Brooks rode in his chaise over two thousand miles to present the subject, at his own cost, to the people. He held conventions and presented the topic in pulpits as “Christian Culture.” He says, “My discouragements were legion.”
The leading paper in Boston and in New England expressed its sense of the absurdity of the movement by admitting a caustic communication, which ended by representing Rev. Mr. Brooks with a fool’s cap on his head, marching up State Street at the head of a crowd of ragamuffin young men and women, who bore a banner, inscribed, “To a Normal School in the clouds.” Mr. Brooks was, however, invited to speak on the subject before the House of Representatives, and “some members of the Legislature called the new movement by funny names.”
But educators like George B. Emerson, and thinkers like Rev. William Ellery Channing, and statesmen like Horace Mann lent their aid, and, stirred by Mr. Brooks, support was given in public speech by Hon. John Q. Adams and Daniel Webster.
Mr. Mann was Secretary of the Board of Education upon its organization in 1837, and, in his first report, recommended that the Legislature establish Normal Schools. A donation of $10,000 being made by Mr. Dwight to stimulate this interest, a State appropriation was made, and a Normal School for girls was opened at Lexington, Mass., in 1838. Later, others were opened, some of which admitted boys also, but for the first twenty years, eighty-seven per cent. of the graduates were girls. These schools are now widely scattered through the United States. The history of that at Oswego, N. Y., is of especial interest.