NORMAL SCHOOLS (ante). The establishment of these schools in the United States is due, it is said, to a suggestion by prof. Denison Olmsted in an oration delivered in New Bitten, Conn., in 1816, and to various recommendations in the official messages of De Witt Clinton while governor of New York. In 1838 a gentleman in Massachu setts, Mr. Edmund Dwight, offered $10,000 for the purpose of establishing such a school on condition that the state would appropriate an equal amount. This was accepted and the first school was established at Lexington in July, 1839. Others soon came into exist ence in Massachusetts and elsewhere; and now nearly every state in the union has one or more either sustained by a county, city, or the state itself. In 1873 the total number of these schools was reported to be 119, the number of instructors connected with them about 900, and the students 17,000. They usually embrace the model or pattern school
together with the acadbmical features of the ordinary school. The conditions of admis sion are about the same in each, and require that the candidate be not less than sixteen years of age, and that he be able to pass a satisfactory examination in reading, spelling, writing, arithmetic, and the elements of English grammar, He must also intend to teach after graduating during a certain specified time. The courses of study are principally limited to the branches required to be taught in the public schools, together with a thor ough theoretical and practical preparation for the special duties of a teacher. In some of the schools, however the classics and modern. languages are the accounts of time various states mention kill be found of these schools individually.