‘Normal schools’ trained teachers for decades

Today, most four-year colleges offer some sort of degree in education. In past eras, entire universities were devoted to the training of teachers.

Five state universities in Illinois originated as “normal schools,” a term that is somewhat obsolete today. It is believed the phrase originated from the first normal school in the world, École Normale, founded in France in 1685.

The first normal school in the U.S. was established in Massachusetts in 1823. Seventeen years later, Bridgewater Normal School (now Bridgewater State) in Massachusetts was founded and would become one of the most influential teaching schools in the nation. Several of Illinois’ future normal schools were influenced by Bridgewater graduates.

In Illinois, as elsewhere, many of the earliest colleges were preparatory schools for the ministry, priesthood, or other Christian vocations. Some researchers believe as many as 16 private colleges were established in Illinois by 1857, including Northwestern University in 1851, though several had quickly failed.

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Still, there was a growing belief among the sparse population of teachers in Illinois and around the nation that educating the masses was necessary. Among the key events in Illinois was the gathering of a newly formed State Teachers Association in Chicago in December 1856, hoping to secure legislative sponsors for a university to train teachers.

That helped lead to the creation of Illinois State Normal University, which is today Illinois State University, on Feb. 18, 1857. There was considerable jockeying between cities for the right to host the school, particularly between Peoria and Bloomington, which won after a spirited effort to raise the necessary funds.

The driving force behind the effort to secure the university for Bloomington was Jesse Fell, an energetic local businessman who created a nearby town, dubbed “North Bloomington.” The new town was renamed Normal, for the university, in 1865.

Illinois State (which was commonly referred to as “the Normal University” in its earliest days) and the “normals” that followed had an untold impact on statewide education. Though enrollment usually numbered only a few hundred, as in most institutions, Illinois State produced dozens of the state’s teachers each year.

At the 25th anniversary celebration of the school in 1882, 968 former Illinois State students were teaching in 88 of the 102 counties of Illinois. Another 104 held teaching positions in 17 other states and territories.

By the time Illinois State Normal turned 50 in 1907, 91 graduates were either presidents or professors in other normal universities and had written or published 112 volumes, mainly texts, some of which were standards in the field.

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By then, the success of Illinois State and the growing awareness of the importance of teachers had spawned four other state normal schools, starting with Southern Illinois Normal School at Carbondale (now Southern Illinois University) in 1869. Some 143 students were enrolled at Southern Illinois Normal in that first year.

Next came Northern Illinois State Normal School, founded in DeKalb in 1895. The first president of Northern was John Cook, who had held the same position at Illinois State.

Cook was a renowned leader in Herbartianism, a German theory that gained traction across the United States as a pedagogy based on repetition and morality (or, in four steps, clarity, association, system and method).

As he arrived in DeKalb, Cook was a star in the field, and some media outlets called him “the Crown Prince of Teacher Education.”

Also in 1895, another teacher training institution, Eastern Illinois State Normal, was founded in Charleston. That was followed in 1899 by Western Illinois State Normal in Macomb.

The prestige of having a state university created heated battles between towns for the right to host a campus, particularly during the formation of Eastern Illinois, which broke down into a sort of free-for-all between more than a dozen towns. When classes were first offered at Eastern in 1899, there were 125 students and a faculty of 18.

In addition to the state-supported schools, there was also the Chicago Normal School, created by Cook County in 1867 to train teachers for the county who were comparable to those found in the city of Chicago.

By 1897, the county was struggling to pay for the school, and the Chicago Board of Education took over the administration. The institution was later separated and evolved into today’s Chicago State University and Northeastern Illinois University.

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The normal schools, however, focused mainly on the training of elementary teachers (though many graduates did teach high school at some point in their careers). Most administrators and political leaders did not consider elementary training to be as rigorous as that for high school teachers, and as a result, most normal schools nationwide did not offer a four-year degree.

Many high school teachers in Illinois were not properly trained, even though the number of high schools in the state tripled between 1870-1900, and the number of high school students doubled in the same span. Of the state’s 841 high school teachers in 1898, only 464 were graduates of either a traditional college or a normal school.

In addition, academic rivalries also simmered. The University of Illinois was founded in 1867 as an “industrial school,” a term for focus on agricultural, mechanical and industrial learning. Several of its presidents believed that the university should also take over the training of high school teachers. The debate between industrial education and normal schools also flared among academics and politicians.

David Felmley, Illinois State University president from 1900-1930, strenuously argued that “high school teachers should be trained in the same environment as elementary teachers” because “to train them in a separate school with different standards and ideals results in a serious break in spirit, in method, and in the character of the work as the child passes through to high school.”

In addition, Felmley believed that restricting normals to elementary training would also prevent more men from becoming teachers, since the majority of elementary teachers were female.

Elsewhere, a few normal schools around the nation were starting to offer four-year degrees. The state of Illinois joined them in 1907, with the authority for the normals “to grant professional degrees to students completing a four-year course of study” beyond high school. Not all of the Illinois normal presidents agreed; at Northern, John Cook was opposed to beginning a four-year curriculum.

As a result, Illinois State and Southern Illinois were the only two normals in the state to expand to four-year study in 1907. Western did not offer four-year programs until 1917, with Eastern and Northern finally joining in 1920 and 1921, respectively. With the additions, some schools changed their names; the campus in DeKalb became Northern Illinois State Teachers College in 1921.

The state of Illinois was actually at the forefront of four-year study in the normal schools. Before 1910, Illinois State was one of just eight normals in the U.S. to confer a bachelor’s degree. But 138 of the 185 normal schools nationwide in 1930 had only bestowed the first bachelor’s degrees in the 1920s.

Still, Illinois normal schools suffered from a severe lack of funding, which kept salaries low. In 1915-16, many normal school instructors, particularly at Illinois State, earned far less than both the faculty at the University of Illinois and many high school principals statewide. In 1917, the normals were further grouped into one entity when the state consolidated the boards of the five schools into a state Normal School Board.

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As educational demands continued to evolve, the normal schools began to explore a full curriculum, breaking from their original missions of sole existence for teacher training. With the granting of the authority to expand their curricula, some schools began changing their names.

In 1947, the schools in Carbondale, Charleston and Macomb became Southern Illinois University, Eastern Illinois University and Western Illinois University, respectively.

Changes were also coming in DeKalb, as that city’s campus was renamed Northern Illinois State College in 1955. The name switched again, to Northern Illinois University, in 1957.

Illinois State was much slower in embracing the expanded curriculum, and movements to change the school’s name were polarizing issues in the campus community for several years. Tradition and its past reputation were the key factors in Illinois State’s reluctance to change. In 1964, the name finally changed to Illinois State University at Normal.

Illinois State continued solely for teacher training until Oct. 5, 1965, when the state authorized academic programs that did not require teacher certification. The new academic programs became effective in September 1966, and in 1967, the name of the school was changed to Illinois State University.

The additional curriculum, coupled with the influx of college-age students during the Baby Boom generation, massively increased enrollment at many of the old normals. At Illinois State, enrollment jumped nearly sixfold in just a few years.

Though the former Illinois normals no longer restrict themselves just to teacher training, many still offer some of the best education programs in the nation.

Many area teachers are graduates of NIU, while from 2015-2020, Illinois State was not only the largest preparer of teachers in the Midwest, but also the fourth-largest producer of teachers in the United States.

• Tom Emery is a freelance writer and historical researcher from Carlinville, Ill. He may be reached at 217-710-8392 or ilcivilwar@yahoo.com.