The 1908 Biennial Report of the Superintendent of Public Instruction, Henry C. Morrison, reemphasized the need for more normal schools, pointing out that the normal school at Plymouth had an average of 37 graduates per year, and that Manchester no longer maintained its training school. He suggested a total of four new schools, including one in Keene. As an appendix, he also printed the New Hampshire State Teachers’ Association Declaration of Principles for 1907 and 1908, both of which called for new normal schools.
REPORT
OF THE
SUPERINTENDENT
OF
PUBLIC INSTRUCTION
(Henry C. Morrison)
BEING THE
FIFTY-FIFTH REPORT UPON THE PUBLIC
SCHOOLS OF NEW HAMPSHIRE
CONCORD.
1908.
(P. 322)
CHAPTER IX
MORE NORMAL SCHOOL NEEDED
The average size of the last five graduating classes in the regular course at Plymouth has been thirty-seven students. It is not likely that the average for any future period of five years will be less than this. It is probable that the average will slowly but steadily rise; it cannot rise above seventy-five and cannot reach that mark without seriously impairing the efficiency of the school….
The cities of Concord, Nashua, and Portsmouth still maintain city training schools. The city of Manchester has done so until the present year….
(P. 323)
Now the Manchester city training school has been given up and the school board will in the future employ only normal graduates. This is in line with the history of the city training school all over the country, and all of our remaining three will undoubtedly be discontinued in due course of time. one or more probably at once should state normal schools be established in their vicinity. I think we must therefore regard the city training school as a negligible quantity in forecasting the needs of the state.
(P. 324)
In any event, the aggregate output is not likely to be above twenty.
Other sources of supply are the normal schools of neighboring states, but since there is a home demand for their graduates, and since all our neighboring states, save Maine, pay higher wages, it is not likely that we are more than holding our own in the exchange of graduates….
We must therefore set off against the average three hundred fifty-five, who are teaching for the first time annually, the average thirty-seven who are graduated from the regular courses of the normal school annually. We evidently need then in some way over nine times as many new trained teachers annually as we are now getting….
Nor are we called upon to reopen the question, Are normal trained teachers any better than those without such training? The fact is, the demand from our own school boards for normal trained teachers is far in excess of the supply.
Should the demand be met by enlarging the present school or by providing other schools? Unquestionably the latter.
(P. 325)
The village schools of Plymouth have children enough to afford training facilities for less than the present enrollment of the normal school. To increase the size of this normal school is to make the training of teachers impossible.
Schools need to be located where a large proportion of the students can board at home. Prospective teachers are usually without large financial means. The board bill is and always will be an obstacle to preparation for teaching….
Schools need to be located in sections as remote as possible from Plymouth in order to reach those sections not reached by Plymouth and also in order not to interfere with the legitimate Plymouth territory.
Schools need to be located in cities large enough to furnish abundant training facilities for any growth of normal schools which may be deemed expedient….
No school should be established in a locality in which there will be danger of temptation to the upbuilding of a very large school. All the data at our disposal point to the principle that the needs of the state would be best served by a policy which would contemplate ultimately five normal schools, - four in addition to Plymouth, distributed somewhat as follows as to maximum size; two of 150 students each; two of 250 students each; one of 350 students. A large enrolment of students is fatal to efficiency in any higher institution, unless unlimited money and power are available with which to pay and endow the principal.
(P. 326)
In such schools you must have for principal a man of such organizing ability that he can command a very high salary and then you must furnish him with means to employ exclusively a very high grade of associates and a large number of them…. Better several small schools with principals and teachers within our means, in which every student comes directly under the influence of principal and strongest teachers….
(P. 327)
The greatest most evident need of more normal schools is undoubtedly in the counties of Cheshire, Sullivan, Hillsborough and Rockingham, - and the greatest of all in the first two.
The proper location of the new schools, all of which ought to be and probably will be established within the next ten years, should therefore, as it seems to me, be:
I. In the southwest part of the state, in Keene, the only community in that part of the state which has an average attendance sufficient to furnish training facilities.
(P. 328)
This school should contemplate a maximum enrolment of 250.
II. In the lower Merrimack valley, at either Manchester or Nashua. This school should be planned for a maximum enrolment of 350, and either city has training facilities amply sufficient to carry this number.
III. In the southeastern part of the state at either Portsmouth, Dover, or Rochester, either of which has attendance sufficient to warrant a normal school with a maximum enrolment of 250.
IV. In the extreme northern part of the state, either at Lancaster, Colebrook or Berlin. Lancaster and Colebrook could either of them carry enrolment equal to that of Plymouth, , Berlin one considerably larger.
Schools located as above suggested would fulfill the essential requirements of distribution.
1. Each would supply a part of the state now poorly supplied with trained teachers, and would draw for its enrolment upon areas which now furnish relatively few students.
2. With the exception of Colebrook, each of the towns named is a railroad center and that town is a natural center for a considerable number of towns lacking railroad facilities, In the cases of the first three locations, nearly all students could board at home.
3. Each has elementary schools sufficient to provide adequate training and model school facilities for the enrolment contemplated.
(P. 329)
The first cost of each school would not be greater than the cost of a moderate-sized city high school building. No dormitory construction need be provided for. I believe that it would be sound policy to construct a school building large enough only to contain the maximum enrolment, thus precluding so far as possible, the possibility that any one school should become outgrown….
All model and training school buildings should be provided for at the outset by the cities in which normal schools are located.
The plant to be provided by the state for each school, then, would simply be one substantial sanitary schoolhouse, as beautiful in architecture as circumstances should permit, and as well adapted to its purpose as science could show us how to construct. From $50,000 to $75,000 for each school, according to capacity needed, would suffice.
(P. 627)
APPENDIX G.
DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES OF THE NEW HAMPSHIRE STATE TEACHERS’ ASSOCIATION ADOPTED AT THE FIFTY-FOURTH MEETING, 1907
The proper education of its youth is the highest obligation that rests upon the state. This obligation can be met properly, only when the teaching force is of the best that can be had, and the best is none too good. Anyone can “keep school,” but only the trained educator can properly teach. The supply of trained teachers is not equal to the demand. The demand can be satisfied only by increasing the supply.
(P. 627)
We therefore reaffirm our belief in the need of more normal schools in this state, and urgently ask the next legislature to provide for their establishment, reminding them that an intelligent yeomanry is the best guarantee of peace, and that any sum of money spent for normal schools will do far more for the permanent uplift of the state than will the same amount spent on armories, which, in the main, benefit chiefly the cities for which they are purchased….
(P. 632)
DECLARATION OF PRINCIPLES OF THE NEW HAMPSHIRE STATE TEACHERS’ ASSOCIATION ADOPTED AT THE FIFTY-FIFTH MEETING, 1908
This Association, not only by its influence as members and individuals, but also by resolutions adopted at its annual meetings, has brought the attention of our citizens to needed legislation for promoting the efficiency of the schools throughout the state….
The principle that the child is a citizen of the state before he is a citizen of his own town has received the sanction of the law-making body of the state. Such a law, aided by a generous support from the state, has already begun to show its beneficent effects in a more truly democratic education and the provision of more nearly equal opportunities for every child in the state.
We, therefore, again affirm our belief in the equalization law of 1899, and recommend its extension.
While we congratulate ourselves upon the large number who have received state certification, we earnestly recommend to all members of this Association the advantage of obtaining this certificate for themselves….
We recommend that the legislature establish general qualifications for teaching in the public schools to the ultimate end, that none but those holding state certificates or their equivalent be employed….
Again we call attention to the lack of sufficient normal schools to supply our own needs. Our one normal school is wholly insufficient. Its standing is of such excellence that only the richer communities can obtain the services of its trained teachers. It is doing a noble work, but more schools of the same kind and standard are needed to afford a supply of teachers, mentally equipped and properly trained….