isa-normaladvance-1903-00112

Description:	112THE NORMAL ADVANCE.ing of the president and secretary of the boardand President Parsons is already taking optionson sites for the park. It is the intention to buythis immediately and make the necessary improvements so that the students can have the use of itduring the coming season. A tract of about fiveacres will be purchased, a high board fence willbe put around it, a deep driven well will be sunk,a suitable amphitheater will be constructed andthe grounds put in proper order for base ball, tennis, etc. It will also have a running track of themost approved construction.The Legislature was also asked to increase theStates maintenance. This was done by increasing the annual tax for the support of the NormalSchool from one-twentieth of a mill to three-fortieths. This will give the school hereafter at least$100,000.00 for its work as against $67,000.00heretofore received. It is the intention to extendthe courses in Mathematics, History, Literature,Biology, Latin, German^ Physics, Chemistry andother subjects, so that from three to four years willbe offered in each of these subjects. This willprepare the Normal School students for the besthigh school positions in the state. Eight or tennew professors will be employed in order to carryon this work and meet more fully the needs ofthe schools of the state. The whole work of theschool will be placed Upon a higher and more satisfactory plane by reason of the increased supportgiven by the last General Assembly.The conditions for entering the Indiana StateNormal School are hardly fair to the non-commissioned high school graduates. They enter onthe same terms that those do who have never hadany high school work at all i. e. those who holdone or two years license. They receive no creditfor three and sometimes four good years of highschool work, while commissioned high school graduates get fourteen credits without a question.Often those who are graduated from non-commis-ioned high schools have had only a two-yearscourse and that in a school where the term is shortand the teachers incompetent but when a student has had three years of high school work Underefficient teachers who are graduated from the StateNormal School and who teach as they were taughtin that institution, it seems reasonable that thegraduates from such a school should be given atleast one-half as many credits as those who, although they have had four years in a commissionedhigh school, have not done twice as much work asthose who have taken the three years course. Thenon-commissioned high school usually has fewerstudents, consequently the classes are smaller thanthose of a commissioned high school. A smallclass consisting of four or six students alwaysdoes better and more work than a class of twentyor thirty. A class of six earnest students in Latinor Algebra, if the work is done thoroughly, cando as much in two years as a class of thirty can doin three. Students from smaller schools whichhave fewer advantages than a city high schoolfurnishes, are as a rule more deeply interested andstronger in their work than the students from thecity high school. If the non-commissioned highschool graduates have not had as much work asthe commissioned high school students have, theyhave as great a capacity to do it. If studentsfrom commissioned high schools were required topass examinations in the work they have had before they received their fourteen credits, it is veryprobable that some of them would not receiveseven. Although the commissioned high schoolgraduate has advantages over the non-commissioned high school graduate, the distinction madein the Normal between their abilities is too great.It is not that the former should be rater lower, butthat the latter should be rated higher.
Source:	http://indstate.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/ref/collection/isuarchive/id/33877
Collection:	Indiana State University Archives

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