Normal Schools.

For the greater part of the decade, the so-called normal school continued to be the chief institution for training teachers for America's elementary schools. In some states the normal schools also furnished high-school teachers for rural schools, but most states required high-school teachers to have a college degree and to acquire certification to teach. Normal schools offered a two-year course to young students who usually had little more than an elementary education or two years of high school; the course included academic studies, a review of the material an elementary-school teacher would be expected to teach, and observation and practice teaching in a training school under the supervision of experienced teachers. Critics of normal schools charged that the academic work was weak and too much time was devoted to techniques and methods of instruction instead of content. In part to...