Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/69

 NEW HAMPSHIRE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL. 53

��NEW HAMPSHIRE STATE NORMAL SCHOOL.

��BY. PROF. H. P. WARREN.

AT the session of the Legislature of 1870 a bill was drawn and submitted by the Committee on Education, establishing a State Normal School. The substance of the bill was as follows : a board of trustees was appointed which was authorized, first, to secure proposals from towns, corporations, and individuals to furnish lands, buildings, or funds, and select a location for the school ; second, to establish two courses of study, the first, of one year, to include all branches usually taught in the common schools, — the other, of two years, to include the studies of the first course and the higher branches : the graduates of the first course to have license to teach three years in the State, those of the second course five years ; third, to choose a princi'pal, who was to select his assistants with the advice and consent of the trustees. The board at once advertised for proposals for location of the school, with the following result : —

The trustees of the McCollorn Institute offered :

Cash and notes, $16,650

Buildings and apparatus, 16,400

��Total, $33>o5o

The citizens of \ValpoIe offered :

Cash and notes, $41,000

Land, 3,000

��Total, $44,000

Trustees of Penacook Academy and others offered :.

Buildings and lands, $20,000

Cash, 1,050

��Total, $21,050

The town of Plymouth, School District No. 2, the Boston, Concord and Montreal R. R., and citizens, offered :

Buildings and land, $22,100

The location was fixed by the following vote of the trustees : Plymouth five, Walpole two. The buildings furnished by the town of Plymouth, were the academic and boarding halls and land connected with the defunct Plymouth Holmes Academy. The State spent sixteen thousand dollars in enlarging and fitting these buildings for occupancy, inaking the entire cost of the school property thirty-eight thousand one hundred dollars. Contracts were then entered into be- tween the State, Town, and School District No. 2, in substance as follows : The children of School District No. 2, were to be taught in the model or practice school connected with the Normal Scliool, and the State was to receive, in return, the school money of the district ; it was also agreed that the State, Town, and School District should each own an equity in the school property proportionate to their contributions to its cost. For the last two years the district has raised and paid to the State fifty per cent, more than obliged by law.

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