54 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



In 1863 it was adopted by the State, and a grant of three thousand 

 dollars per year was made for its support, on condition of the 

 city's furnishing the necessary buildings and accommodations, 

 and of not less than fifty teachers designing to teach in the com- 

 mon schools of the State receiving free tuition each year. These 

 persons were to be recommended by county commissioners or city 

 superintendents and appointed by the State Superintendent. In 

 1865 a building was purchased and fitted up by the Oswego 

 Board of Education at a cost of twenty-six thousand dollars, 

 In 1866 a general act was passed by the Legislature, which 

 provided for four additional normal and training schools in 

 various parts of the State, to be governed by local boards, ap- 

 pointed and removable at will by the State Superintendent, and 

 supported by an annual grant of twelve thousand dollars each. 

 On March 27, 1867, the building provided by Oswego was ac- 

 cepted by the State. With the appointment of a local board of 

 thirteen, the Training School's connection with the city schools 

 ended, except that which necessarily arose from the Practice 

 School. So the city teachers' class had in six years grown into a 

 State Normal and Training School, and had produced four other 

 schools fashioned in its own image.* 



The development from a training class for the primary teach- 

 ers of one city to a school for the training of teachers for all 

 grades and for all parts of the State, necessitated an enlargement 

 of the curriculum. The one-year course was enlarged to courses 

 of two, three, and four years. The first covered the field of in- 

 struction below the high schools ; the second included high-school 

 work ; and the third added Latin and Greek, with German and 

 French as an alternative for Greek. The last year of each course 

 was devoted to professional work. In these enlargements there 

 was no departure from the original plan. Instruction in the sub- 

 ject matter to be taught, in the history and philosophy of educa- 

 tion, in psychology, in general methods of teaching, and methods 

 in detail for special subjects, and practice in teaching have from 

 the first characterized the Oswego school characteristics which 

 have been reproduced in most of the normal schools of the coun- 

 try. These enlargements were bitterly opposed by the private 

 school interests of the State, represented in the academies; but 

 they were forced upon the normal schools by two facts : most of 

 the appointees were too imperfectly instructed in the subjects to 

 enter at once upon the discussion of methods of teaching them ; 

 and if the schools had rejected all such appointees, their duty of 

 furnishing teachers for the public schools of the State would have 



* The Normal School at Albany already existed, but had been organized on a different 

 plan. 



