What is "normal school"

School \School\, n. [OE. scole, AS. sc?lu, L. schola, Gr. ? leisure, that in which leisure is employed, disputation, lecture, a school, probably from the same root as ?, the original sense being perhaps, a stopping, a resting. See Scheme.]

1. A place for learned intercourse and instruction; an institution for learning; an educational establishment; a place for acquiring knowledge and mental training; as, the school of the prophets.

   Disputing daily in the school of one Tyrannus.
   --Acts xix. 9.

2. A place of primary instruction; an establishment for the instruction of children; as, a primary school; a common school; a grammar school.

   As he sat in the school at his primer.
   --Chaucer.

3. A session of an institution of instruction.

   How now, Sir Hugh! No school to-day?
   --Shak.

4. One of the seminaries for teaching logic, metaphysics, and theology, which were formed in the Middle Ages, and which were characterized by academical disputations and subtilties of reasoning.

   At Cambridge the philosophy of Descartes was still dominant in the schools.
   --Macaulay.

5. The room or hall in English universities where the examinations for degrees and honors are held.

6. An assemblage of scholars; those who attend upon instruction in a school of any kind; a body of pupils.

   What is the great community of Christians, but one of the innumerable schools in the vast plan which God has instituted for the education of various intelligences?
   --Buckminster.

7. The disciples or followers of a teacher; those who hold a common doctrine, or accept the same teachings; a sect or denomination in philosophy, theology, science, medicine, politics, etc.

   Let no man be less confident in his faith . . . by reason of any difference in the several schools of Christians.
   --Jer. Taylor.

8. The canons, precepts, or body of opinion or practice, sanctioned by the authority of a particular class or age; as, he was a gentleman of the old school.

   His face pale but striking, though not handsome after the schools.
   --A. S. Hardy.

9. Figuratively, any means of knowledge or discipline; as, the school of experience.

   Boarding school, Common school, District school, Normal school, etc. See under Boarding, Common, District, etc.

   High school, a free public school nearest the rank of a college. [U. S.]

   School board, a corporation established by law in every borough or parish in England, and elected by the burgesses or ratepayers, with the duty of providing public school accommodation for all children in their district.

   School committee, School board, an elected committee of citizens having charge and care of the public schools in any district, town, or city, and responsible for control of the money appropriated for school purposes. [U. S.]

   School days, the period in which youth are sent to school.

   School district, a division of a town or city for establishing and conducting schools. [U.S.]

   Sunday school, or Sabbath school, a school held on Sunday for study of the Bible and for religious instruction; the pupils, or the teachers and pupils, of such a school, collectively.

Normal \Nor"mal\ (n[^o]r"mal), a. [L. normalis, fr. norma rule, pattern, carpenter's square; prob. akin to noscere to know; cf. Gr. gnw`rimos well known, gnw`mwn gnomon, also, carpenter's square: cf. F. normal. See Known, and cf. Abnormal, Enormous.]

1. According to an established norm, rule, or principle; conformed to a type, standard, or regular form; performing the proper functions; not abnormal; regular; natural; analogical.

   Deviations from the normal type.
   --Hallam.

2. (Geom.) According to a square or rule; perpendicular; forming a right angle; as, a line normal to the base. Specifically: Of or pertaining to a normal.

3. (Chem.) Standard; original; exact; typical. Specifically:

   1. (Quantitative Analysis) Denoting a solution of such strength that every cubic centimeter contains the same number of milligrams of the element in question as the number of its molecular weight.

   2. (Chem.) Denoting certain hypothetical compounds, as acids from which the real acids are obtained by dehydration; thus, normal sulphuric acid and normal nitric acid are respectively S(OH)6, and N(OH)5.

   3. (Organ. Chem.) Denoting that series of hydrocarbons in which no carbon atom is bound to more than two other carbon atoms; as, normal pentane, hexane, etc. Cf. Iso-.

      Normal equations (Method of Least Squares), a set of equations of the first degree equal in number to the number of unknown quantities, and derived from the observations by a specified process. The solution of the normal equations gives the most probable values of the unknown quantities.

      Normal group (Geol.), a group of rocks taken as a standard.
      --Lyell.

      Normal place (of a planet or comet) (Astron.), the apparent place in the heavens of a planet or comet at a specified time, the place having been determined by a considerable number of observations, extending perhaps over many days, and so combined that the accidental errors of observation have largely balanced each other.

      Normal school, a school whose methods of instruction are to serve as a model for imitation; an institution for the training of teachers.

      Syn: Normal, Regular, Ordinary.

      Usage: Regular and ordinary are popular terms of well-known signification; normal has now a more specific sense, arising out of its use in science. A thing is normal, or in its normal state, when strictly conformed to those principles of its constitution which mark its species or to the standard of a healthy and natural condition. It is abnormal when it departs from those principles.

n. (context now historical English) A school for training teachers, especially in mainland Europe and North America.

n. a two-year school for training elementary teachers [syn: teachers college]

A normal school is a school created to train high school graduates to be teachers. Its purpose is to establish teaching standards or norms, hence its name. Most such schools are now called teachers' colleges.

In 1685, Jean-Baptiste de La Salle, founder of the Institute of the Brothers of the Christian Schools, founded what is generally considered the first normal school, the École Normale, in Reims. According to the Oxford English Dictionary, normal schools in the United States and Canada trained primary school teachers, while in Europe normal schools educated primary, secondary and tertiary-level teachers.

In 1834, the first teacher training college was established in Jamaica by Sir Thomas Fowell Buxton under terms set out by Lady Mico's Charity "to afford the benefit of education and training to the black and coloured population."

The first public normal school in the United States was founded in Concord, Vermont, by Samuel Read Hall in 1823, which was dedicated to training teachers. In 1839, another Normal School was established in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It operates today as Framingham State University. In the United States teacher colleges or normal schools began to evolve past their initial mission of training teachers. These institutions formed programs in the sciences, engineering, technology, health and business. They began to become formal universities beginning in the 1940s. For instance, Southern Illinois University was formerly known as Southern Illinois Normal College. The university, now a system with two campuses that enroll more than 34,000 students, has its own university press but still issues most of its bachelor's degrees in education. Similarly, the town of Normal, Illinois, takes its name from the former name of Illinois State University.

Many famous state universities—such as the University of California, Los Angeles—were founded as normal schools. Such a list should also include Emporia State University in Emporia, Kansas which was established as Kansas State Normal School in 1863, and which by 1889 had become the largest normal school in the country. In Canada, such institutions were typically assimilated by a university as their Faculty of Education, offering a one- or two-year Bachelor of Education program. It requires at least three (usually four) years of prior undergraduate studies.