State Normal School Research Articles

Science in the Elementary Grades

Of the many articles which dealt with the history of elementary science, only Kuslan's (1959a), which attempts to determine the status of elementary science in the schools of Connecticut during the period 18501900, merits the name of research. Unfortunately, neither the published report nor the unpublished summary reveals the source of the data, but conditions of a century ago paralleled those disclosed by findings of current studies. In the latter half of the 19th century, there was an ever-mounting pressure on the common schools to teach science, but the lack of adequately trained teachers, equipment, and suitable textbooks effectively nullified these pressures (p. 287). It is obvious that this statement applies to elementary science in the mid-twentieth century, also. According to Kuslan, when the State Normal School at New Britain was opened in 1850, little science was taught in elementary schools. The science taught in the normal schools was frequently titled Familiar or Science of Common Things, a forerunner of today's General Science. Later in the century, in the early '80's, elementary science grew through the efforts of such men as Arthur Boothby Morrill and Charles D. Hine. These men who formulated this early philosophy of elementary-school science worked indefatigably through the last years of the nineteenth century to make elementary-school science a vital part of the curriculum. This effort apparently set the pace for the Connecticut

Did You Say Modern?

Have you developed an attitude of comfortable complacency in your teaching, telling yourself you are up-to-date and using the most modern techniques? Is smugness and self-satisfaction part of that warm feeling as you survey your classroom daily? Perhaps a look into the past will startle you and develop an appreciative attitude toward educators of another day. It was in 1847 that David Perkins Page, first principal of the State Normal School in Albany, New York, penned his thoughts on THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF TEACHING, a book destined to be a best seller in its time and one which holds sage advice for the teacher today. Note well these thoughts of more than a century ago! Are you a firm advocate of the report card or do you plan for the parent-teacher conference because everybody else does nowadays? David Page advises:

(6) On the Establishment Period of the Massachusetts State Normal School

(6) On the Establishment Period of the Massachusetts State Normal School

The natural history of disease; Frank Billings memorial lecture.

Appropriately, we are met today to honor the memory of a great clinician and medical statesman, Frank Billings, in Chicago, where his fine professional stature and eminence were attained. In 1878, a sturdy farm lad from Iowa County, Wisconsin, matriculated in the Chicago Medical College (now Northwestern University Medical School). Of splendid Anglo-Saxon stock, he was superbly endowed physically and intellectually. Upon completion of a common public school education, young Billings had attended the Platteville (Wisconsin) State Normal School for two years. Thereafter, he taught a country school in the town of Eden. His prompt advancement to the principalship of the Platteville High School was, in retrospect, a true forecast of his driving ambition and capacity. Upon graduation from the Chicago Medical College, Dr. Billings served an internship in Cook County Hospital, a coveted post for the young physicians of that period. The investment of postgraduate studies in London, Paris,

The natural history of disease; Frank Billings memorial lecture.

Appropriately, we are met today to honor the memory of a great clinician and medical statesman, Frank Billings, in Chicago, where his fine professional stature and eminence were attained. In 1878, a sturdy farm lad from Iowa County, Wisconsin, matriculated in the Chicago Medical College (now North-western University Medical School). Of splendid Anglo-Saxon stock, he was superbly endowed physically and intellectually. Upon completion of a common public school education, young Billings had attended the Platteville (Wisconsin) State Normal School for two years. Thereafter, he taught a country school in the town of Eden. His prompt advancement to the principalship of the Platteville High School was, in retrospect, a true forecast of his driving ambition and capacity. Upon graduation from the Chicago Medical College, Dr. Billings served an internship in Cook County Hospital, a coveted post for the young physicians of that period. The investment of postgraduate studies in London, Paris,

Eastern Illinois State College; Fifty Years of Public Service.

Eastern Illinois State College; Fifty Years of Public Service. By Charles H. Coleman. Eastern Illinois State College Bulletin, No. 189 and A Century of Teacher Education in Connecticut: The Story of the New Britain State Normal School and the Teachers College of Connecticut, 1849–1949. By Herbert E. Fowler Get access William O. Lynch William O. Lynch Indiana University Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 37, Issue 2, September 1950, Pages 357–358, https://doi.org/10.2307/1892175 Published: 01 September 1950

A Writing Vocabulary for Grade I

C HILDREN enter Grade I with a keen desire to express their ideas in writing. Until recently most children were taught cursive writing from the start, but, during the past ten or twelve years, more and more schools have adopted manuscript writing for the first two grades. Freeman,' after surveying the handwriting instruction in public schools, reported that 84.3 per cent of the 727 school systems responding use manuscript writing. Of the 620 school systems answering the question concerning the grades in which manuscript writing is taught, 97.4 per cent indicated that it is taught in Grade I. Polkinghorne2 and a group of teachers in the Laboratory School of the University of Chicago studied the practices used in the teaching of handwriting in four types of schools and school systems: (i) public-school systems in cities with populations of one hundred thousand or more, (2) private schools with enrolments of one hundred or more, (3) laboratory schools connected with state teacher-training colleges and normal schools, and (4) schools of various types in the Chicago area. It was found that 89.3 per cent of the 178 respondents use manuscript writing for beginning instruction. Thus studies have shown that man-

The Actual and Potential Use of Laboratory Schools in State Normal Schools and Teachers Colleges. E. I. F. Williams

Previous articleNext article No AccessEducational WritingsThe Actual and Potential Use of Laboratory Schools in State Normal Schools and Teachers Colleges. E. I. F. Williams Stephen M. CoreyStephen M. Corey Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUS Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by The Elementary School Journal Volume 42, Number 9May, 1942 Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/458095 Views: 1Total views on this site Copyright 1942 The University of ChicagoPDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

The Actual and Potential Use of Laboratory Schools in State Normal Schools and Teachers Colleges of the United States

The Actual and Potential Use of Laboratory Schools in State Normal Schools and Teachers Colleges of the United States

Urban Planning and Land Policies

Journal Article Urban Planning and Land Policies. Vol. II of the Supplementary Report of the Urbanism Committee to the National Resources Committee. (Washington, D. C.: Government Printing Office, 1939. v + 366 pp. Maps, photographs, tables, and charts. $1.00.) Get access F. Roger Dunn F. Roger Dunn State Normal School, Potsdam, New York Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of American History, Volume 28, Issue 3, December 1941, Pages 477–478, https://doi.org/10.2307/1887182 Published: 01 December 1941

Historical Development of State Normal Schools for White Teachers in Maryland

Historical Development of State Normal Schools for White Teachers in Maryland

On Behalf of the M.E.J. Club of Potsdam State Normal School

On Behalf of the M.E.J. Club of Potsdam State Normal School

The Public Forum and the College

F OR a number of years the two communities of Fargo, North Dakota, and Moorhead, Minnesota, have maintained a public forum during the winter season. These two communities on either side of the Red River of the North are closely knit together in their social, cultural, and educational activities. Forwardlooking citizens formed the FargoMoorhead Open Forum, and drew as liberally as they could upon the funds and the facilities of foundations, local colleges, and other institutions, supplemented by a local budget. The open-forum idea was certainly well understood and was liberally patronized up to the winter season of 1938-39In August, 1938, the North Dakota Agricultural College and the local committee sent out a number of invitations to near-by communities requesting that they participate in a more extensive forum program. The local forum committee agreed that the program for the year should be under the direction of the College, and suggested that invitations be sent to neighboring towns to participate. This invitation was accepted by Fairmount, a town of about six hundred people, which is fifty-five miles south of Fargo; by Wahpeton, the site of the State School of Science and a town of three thousand, which is fifty miles to the south; by Kindred, a rural community of five hundred people to the southwest; and Mayville, a town of twelve hundred, fifty miles to the northwest, and the home of one of the state normal schools. It was interesting to note that the public schools, institutions of higher learning, women's clubs, the American Legion, churches, and commercial clubs were quite active in sending representatives. At this meeting the whole program of the open forum was discussed at length. It was the unanimous opinion of those who attended that the Federal government should be approached, through the Office of Education, with a request that these five centers be established as a part of the demonstration program then being conducted by the Federal government. The request was sent in and an immediate answer informed the committee that a demonstration center would be established with Fargo as the headquarters. This word was conveyed to the five communities involved with the request that they call a community meeting and discuss the whole program. The final plan provided one forum meeting a week in each of the five com-

An exhibit in tenure

The data presented below are taken from a larger study which carries this material together with biographical sketches of most of the presidents indicated, representing the administration of the state normal schools and teachers colleges for a century. One of the original studies is in the archives of the American Association bf Teachers Colleges at Oneonta, New York, the other in the vault of the library of George Peabody College for Teachers.

A Survey of College Bands

THE college or university band director faced with the problem of formulating policies for a collegiate band has found the information available in this field very inadequate and, in many instances, quite unreliable. It was with this thought in mind that the project of making a survey of college bands was conducted. Three hundred and fifty-one collegiate institutions throughout the United States were circularized with a six-page questionnaire covering various phases of instrumental ensembles and every effort was made to formulate as practical a survey as possible. After mailing out over 700 questionnaires and follow-up letters, returns were received from 186 colleges, universities, state normal schools, and conservatories, which replied in full or in part to the survey on orchestras, bands, and instrumental ensembles. The band questionnaire received 154 replies from 46 states. To clarify the information, returns were grouped into five divisions:

Some of the Founders and Workers of the Kansas Natural History Society and the Kansas Academy of Science

In the middle 1860's with the establishment of the state government at Topeka and the organization of the State University at Lawrence, the State Agricultural College at Manhattan and the State Normal School at Emporia, many young men and women, fresh from college, came to Kansas to take positions in these several institutions. Kansas at that time was new ground for workers in the sciences and they speedily began investigating their novel surroundings, finding much that was new to these teachers educated in the eastern colleges. Those interested in natural history speedily gravitated to a common center and founded the Kansas Natural History Society in 1868. The members subdivided the field for investigation, each taking subjects for study in which he had become especially interested in his college days back east. The first president of the Natural History Society, Prof. B. F. Mudge, of the Agricultural College, selected for his special line of work, geology, and traveled widely over the state collecting rocks, fossils and minerals and making frequent reports to the Society, describing his discoveries. His trips over western Kansas were made somewhat dangerous by the hostility of the Indians, who did not understand why he should be collecting rocks from their hills, and other hunters should be killing their buffalo with many-shot guns. A president of the Agricultural College who was not acquainted with Mudge was not wiser than these natives of Kansas, for he caused his collection of old bones and stones to be thrown out of the museum onto a refuse heap. Some weeks later Professor Mudge visited Manhattan and investigated the refuse heap. He discovered some fossil shells new to science that he had collected in Saline county. Very fortunately the bones of toothed birds, Odontornithes, which Professor Mudge found in western Kansas were not left in the museum of the Agricultural College, but rest securely in the museum of Yale University. Among these collectors of specimens in natural history, Prof. F. H. Snow of the State University, ranks easily first. In 1905 he had in his collection of insects more than 170,000 specimens belonging to 21,000 species. Besides this magnificent collection of insects, Doctor Snow had made a fine collection of plants, several Kansas meteorites, a complete list of Kansas birds, a good collection of fossils and had accumulated valuable data for a study of Kansas weather. Doctor Snow learned that the museums of the world were anxious to get specimens of a certain tiger beetle that might be found in semiarid regions such as those in western Kansas. He accordingly made a trip to western Kansas with some student helpers. At first unsuccessful, the party found this beetle, Amblychila cylindriformis, in great abundance, so many that Doctor Snow sold part of the collection for enough to pay the expenses of the trip and the expenses of the students until they graduated. Warren Knaus, editor of a paper at McPherson, Kan., collected only beetles, but with such success that in 1905 he had collected members of 5,512 species and in 19131 had increased the number to about 75,000 specimens belonging to

Robert Frost and the American College

Asked to name the dean of America's living poets, doubtless every college executive in the country would answer promptly, Robert Frost. Doubtless, too, if pressed, these executives would continue that the poet spent several years in residence at the University of Michigan and that he is now associated with Amherst College. Yet many of these educational helmsmen would be unprepared for the suggestion that Frost could counsel them sagely in matters academic.(1) And with little wonder, because Frost has written no autobiographical or descriptive account of his background and experience as a teacher, he has never formally proclaimed his philosophy as an educator, and he has not enlarged upon his particular methods and results. The aim of this paper, then, is concisely to state the chief facts, succinctly to set forth his fundamental principles, and briefly to indicate his procedures and their consequences both in the classroom and out of it. The emphasis will, of course, be upon points of special interest or pertinence in the field of higher education. Of old New England stock, William Prescott Frost, Jr., the poet's father, taught for some time in Lewiston, Pennsylvania. There he met and married another teacher, Isabelle Moody, daughter of a Scotch sea captain. When he died in San Francisco in 1885 his wife returned with her two children (Robert, the elder, was ten) to her husband's former home in Lawrence, Massachusetts, and for years thereafter supported her family by teaching in neighboring towns or in her own private school. Thus Frost was born of teachers and grew up in an atmosphere which was surcharged with the problems of teaching. In his early years in grammar school Frost was an extremely indifferent and careless student, preferring games and fun to studies. Then, abruptly, he decided to apply himself. In consequence he made up the deficiencies of a number of years in one year, entered Lawrence High School in 1889, took part in several activities, and in three years was graduated at the head of his class. There followed a few months at Dartmouth on a scholarship, and later he spent two years at Harvard; for leaving each school he had his private and sufficient reasons. But he liked teaching: for his mother he finished out a difficult year in 1893; for all of one year and part of another he taught a little country school at Salem, New Hampshire; another year he taught English, Latin, and algebra in his mother's private school; one year, while he was in Harvard, he taught history in the evening high school at North Cambridge; and during the next he commuted regularly to Lawrence to meet an evening class and talk over the new books. Beginning in 1905 he supplemented his income from farming near Derry, New Hampshire, by teaching parttime in Pinkerton Academy in the village; not long thereafter he assumed a full schedule (seven consecutive classes daily); and by 1911 he had so manifested his worth that he was offered the principalship. Instead, however, he accepted an offer to teach psychology in the New Hampshire State Normal School at Plymouth. In the autumn of 1912 he went to England with his family, and there, as everyone knows, on the appearance of A Boy's Will, 1913, and, even more notably, on the publication of North of Boston, 1914, he was hailed as the distinguished artist he long had been. Shortly after his return to America in the spring of 1915 he was called to the Phi Beta Kappa exercises at Tufts, and in 1916 he read a poem at similar exercises at Harvard. Almost at once, too, institutions of higher learning began to honor themselves by conferring degrees on him. Teaching, however, was still in his blood. In the autumn of 1916 he began the first of three years at Amherst, teaching classes in Shakespeare, American literature, modern poetry, and advanced composition. Then, after one year of freedom from all academic engagements and another of only informal teaching, he spent two years, 1921-23, as Fellow of Creative Arts at Michigan. …

TEACHERS: SUPPLY AND DEMAND: Today's Situation and the Problem of Prediction

How many teachers are needed? How many will be needed tomorrow? The answers depend on a number of different factors, which are here analyzed by the President of the New Jersey State Normal School at Newark with special reference to the New Jersey situation but with practical suggestions applicable to other states and to the country as a whole. He emphasizes the variability of these factors in terms of time and place, and especially in terms of a philosophy of values. The term “needed” has several different meanings which have to be considered from as many points of view. The problem of occupational supply and demand, present and future, is one of superlative importance. This article is a trenchant discussion of the problem as it presents itself in the field of teaching to administrators of teacher‐training institutions and as it deserves to be understood by those responsible for the determination of public educational policies.

The Service of the Public Junior College in the Current Crisis

The junior college had its beginning in a desire for democratization of educational opportunity. The churches led the way in educational democratization through the establishment and the maintenance of the early academy, college, and university. Perhaps nowhere in the whole program of planning and striving for equal opportunity for all have the American people been more sincere and consequently more successful than in the field of education. From thinking which was at first somewhat hazy, the point of view has become accepted that a man born to any position in society should be free to determine his own level on the basis of his native ability, his ambition, and his willingness to struggle for the things which he most desires. It is, therefore, not unusual or surprising that the American people should have early supplemented the fine work of the church school and the private school with the establishment of the public school. The free public high school came to supplement the private academy. The state universities, the agricultural and engineering colleges, and the state teachers' colleges grew up beside the private colleges and in their graduate schools continued the work of the private institutions. Tuition in the high school was free to the families within the school district. Later, state laws required that tuition be paid for a pupil outside the high-school district by the district that had failed to provide the pupil with an opportunity for high-school training. Tuition in the state normal schools, colleges, and universities was made low and often was waived in an effort to

The Hop Industry of the Yakima Valley, Washington

the state. In the case of San Luis Obispo county, the Swiss ranchers have made effective use of the coast lands and native vegetation REFERENCES 1 First notice of Swiss settlers in San Luis Obispo County appears In the San Luis Pioneer, Vol. 6, No, 213, September 13, 1873. Hor general economic and geographic descriptions of San Luis ' Obispo and the Santa Lucia area, see the various papers of John Wesley Coulter. The presence of a Swiss element In the population, however, has been entirely ignored from a cultural standpoint by Mr. Coulter and others, * Data on Someo and other Swiss villages may be iound in Diotlonaire Géographique de la Suisse (Neuchatol, 1902), and Diotlonaire Historique et Biographique do la Suisse (Neuohatel, 1932). in the successful development of a specialized industry: they are, in fact, responsible for the current land utilization of the area. 3 Diotlonaire Géographique de ?a Suisse, ß; 219. ' Compiled from the San Luis Obispo directory, 1931-1932 (Ban Luis Obispo, 1932). " San Luis Obispo Tribune for May 5, 1894. Souvenir edition. • Bureau of the Census report, 1930, ' MS. notes of the late Thomas P. Hunt, In files of th* TJ, C. Dept. of Agriculture, Berkeley, CaI. More recent figures would probably be somewhat lower, for many of the ranchers have been forced to operate their own ranches during the last five years. The Hop Industry of the Yakima Valley, Washington OTIS W. FREEMAN State Normal School, Cheney, Washington The Yakima Valley in south central Washington comprises one of the most productive irrigated areas in the United States. The Yakima River and other streams with sources in the Cascades supply the needed water. The Yakima Valley is separated into two nearly equal divisions by a ridge crossing the Valley through which the Yakima River has cut a passage called Union Gkip. Hops are commercially grown chiefly around Toppenish and Moxee City in the upper Valley . Moxee "Valley lies at an elevation of 1,000 feot ahovo sea level. The soil is deep and fertile and is mostly classified as Yakim-n sandy loam. It is generally woll drained which prevents alkali accumulation destructive to hops. Most Moxee hop farmers have fifteen to twenty acres in the crop. In 1929 Yakima County had .120 farmers with 2,172 acres in hops that produced 4,044,050 pounds. This was about 5/6 of the production in the state. Only the Salem district in Oregon exceeds the Yakima Valley in importance in the Union. Hop vines nro raised from cuttings placed in rows 8 feet apart. Tho crop requires much labor during tho year, including pruning the roots in the spring, several irrigations and cultivations when necessary , stringing tho vinos, and finally picking and curing tho hop cones. Hops nro generally raised by tho wire trellis system with cross wires between the polos to support the vines. Labor for picking consists of local residents , Indians from the Yakima Reservation , 'and transients. Several thousand workers are neoded during the hop picking season. Hops ara cured in kilns, gonorally built of wood 30 or 40 feot square. The quality of hoer depends in part upon certain constituents of hops, especially soluble rosins and lupulin. The greatest handicap to hop producers comes from gront price variations. The legalization of boor caused high prices which resulted in ex-j, pnnding production faster than consumption and as a result prices in 1934-3!) were generally tinder the cost of production. (S) ...