Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 14.djvu/703

* NORMA. 603 NORMAL SCHOOL. by Remain was based on Saumet's tragedy .o)»i«, which appeared in 1831. Norma, a high priestess of the Druids, secretly married PoUio, the Roman geneiial. He. faitliless to her, urges the virgin Adclgiza to lly with him. She confesses to Norma, who in fury calls the Druids, and Pollio is condemned. Norma, confessing lier broken vuws, dies with him. NOB'MAL. A town in McLean County, 111., Gl miles northeast of Springfield; on the Illinois Central and the Chicago and Alton railroads (Map: Illinois, C 3). It is the seat of the Illi- nois State Normal University, and of the State Soldiers' Orphans' Home. Nursery stock, fruit, and vegetables are e.lensively cultivated in this vicinity; and Normal is also an important liorse market. There are municipal water-works. Pop- ulation, in IS90, 3459; in 1900, 3795. NORMAL (Lat. normaUs, according to rule, from itonna, rule, carpenter's square). In mathe- matics, a straight line perpendicular to a tangent at the point of its contact with the given curved line or surface. The evolute (q.v. ) of a curve may be considered as the envelope of the nor- mals to the given curve. This relation is evi- dent since the centres of curvature of which the evolute is the locus are the intersections of normals at adjacent points of the curve: e.g. the semicubical parabola, an evolute of the common parabola, is an envelope of the normals to this curve. See P.^rabola. The suhiiormal corresponding to any curve is the segment of the axis intercepted by the nor- mal and the ordinate of the point of contact. NORMAL COLLEGE. An institution for the training of teachers, in New York City, found- ed in 1S69 and having its inception in the grow- ing demand for professionally trained teachers in the public schools of New York. Previous to its foundation the secondary education of women in New York was sup]ilicd by private schools and the supplementary classes of the public grammar schools. The inadequacy of this inethod was, however, soon felt, and as early as 1847 the State Legislature contemplated an institution similar to the City College. (See New York, College OP THE City of.) In 185(5 a Daily Normal School was actually established, but it ceased to exist after a precarious career of about three years. The Saturday Normal School was then organized for the training of teachers. While these make- shifts were being resorted to in New Y'ork, the State at large was rapidly increasing its number of normal schools, and otherwise multiplying the facilities for the training of teachers. This educational awakening throughout the State had the effect of hastening the establishment of a normal institution in New York City. In IS69 the Board of Education was empowered to estab- lish a female institution similar to the City Col- lege, and the same year the Normal and High School was established. The name was changed in the following year to Normal College. The pupils of the various supplementary classes were admitted to advanced standing and a three years' course was organized. The task of arranging the work of the new institution fell to Dr. Thomas Hunter, the president since its inception. Under his vigorous administration the college grew rapidly. A buildin;; erected on the block bounded by Lexington and Park Avenues and Sixty-eicbth and Sixty-ninth streets, at a cost of over $350,- VOL. XIV.— 39. 000, was opened in 1873. A model primary school was opened for practice te,aching ;it an additional cost of $80,000, and the first free public kindergarten in the United States was established at the Normal College in 1871. The Board of Education and the president of the col- lege have since its organization constituted an e.x officio board of trustees. The attendance, which in 1870 numbered 909, with a graduating class of 97, increased by 1902 to 2844. In the same year the staff of instructors, including those in the training department, numbered 101. The total number of graduates since the foundation of the college was, in 1902, over 9000. There has been a constant tendency to raise the require- ments for graduation ; the course was extended to four years in 1879, to five, for students taking a degree, in 1888, and in 1902 a professional course of six and a collegiate course of seven years were organized, the institution thus being raised to the standard required by the University of the State of New York for degree-conferring insti- tutions. The college includes five fully equipped laboratories and the Alumna' library. High school graduates are admitted to advanced stand- ing. NORMAL SCHOOL. In general, any insti- tution for the professional training of teachers. In a special sense, the terra is used to designate a school for the training of elementary school teachers, carried on usually by the State, some- times by private enterprise, which receives stu- dents who have had more or less high school training, and give.s them academic and profes- sional courses. Normal schools in some form are now found throughout the civilized world, usual- ly as integral parts of the systems of public education in the several countries or States. The earliest successful normal school appears to have been that established by La. Salle in 1085 at Rheims, France. Not until early in the nine- teenth century, however, were public normal schools established in France. In Germany the first attempt to provide professional training for teachers is attributed to August Hermann Francke, who in 1704 founded the normal school at Halle, which still bears his name. Duriig the reign of Freileriek the Great, and especially during the period after the French Revolution, many normal schools (or teachers' seminaries, as they are called) were founded, especially in Prussia. There are to-day in Prussia alone no fewer than 116 normal schools. In Great Brit- ain there is a well-developed system of public normal schools (called also teachers' training colleges), the gi'owth chiefly of the last fifty years. The British system has been successfully extended to Canada, Australia, and South Africa. In America the first normal schools were founded in Massachusetts in 1839 and 1840 at Lexington, Barre, and Bridgcwatcr. They were the result, in particular, of the combinc<l efforts of the fol- lowing men toward securing higher qualifications among teachers: Charles Brooks, who visited Prussian norma! schools in 1834. and dissemi- nated the ideas he had gained during the follow- ing two years; of Henry Barnard, the distin- guished pioneer in educational journalism and educational progress: of Edmund Dwight, who offered the Legislature $10,000 on condition that it should appropriate an equal amount to pro- mote the preparation of teachers for the com-