Page:A history of the Michigan state normal school (now Normal college) at Ypsilanti, Michigan, 1849-1899 (IA historyofmichiga00putniala).pdf/50



CHAPTER III.

Development of Courses of Study and Instruction.

Nearly everything peculiar to a normal school belongs under this head. It will be allowable, therefore, to give the discussion of this topic a pretty wide range, and to enter into some minuteness of detail. The progress and character of development can be fairly estimated only by ascertaining, as far as possible, the purpose in view, the ultimate object to be attained. ‘The development, if legitimate, should be towards the accomplishment of this object. Did the early advocates of normal schools in this country have any tolerably well defined notions of an ideal institution for the instruction and training of teachers? and were their efforts directed to the establishment of such a school? If they had an ideal of this sort and have left a description of it, we can readily determine the direction which development should take, and can estimate the progress which has been made up to the present.

A short time before the opening of the first normal school in the United States, Dr. C. E. Stowe, after visiting Europe and examining with much carefulness the teachers’ seminaries recently established there, published the results of his investigations, and set forth with considerable minuteness of detail the plan of an ideal normal school, without, as he himself acknowledged, expecting that the plan could be carried into immediate effect. His paper has great historical interest, as indicating the lines along which he and other men of his time believed the professional education and training of teachers would be developed.

The sum of what he proposed was embodied in a series of