Cook County Normal School records
Descriptive Summary
- Reference No.
- MSS 1896-01
- Creator
- Cook County Normal School
- Title
- Cook County Normal School records
- Span Dates
- 1867-1896
- Contents
- 4 boxes; 1.75 linear feet
- Repository
-
Chicago State University,
Chicago, IL 60128
- Summary
- Cook County Normal School was a teacher training institute designed to serve the Cook County school system. Under the leadership of Francis W. Parker it developed in the 1880s and 90s into a leading center of progressive education. The collection includes catalogs, school reports, speeches, a grade ledger, and alumni information.
- Languages
- English English
Administrative Information
Location
Bin#: 0204310A
Access
No restrictions
Preferred Citation
Cook County Normal School records, Chicago State University Archives and Special Collections.
Administrative History
Cook County Normal School was founded in 1867, largely through the initiative of John F. Eberhart, the Commissioner of Schools for Cook County. Eberhart noted that Cook County schools lagged far behind their counterparts in the city of Chicago, especially in terms of the quality and competence of instructors. He convinced the County Commissioners to hold a teacher training institute in April 1860; its success led to the widespread acceptance of the need for a permanent school to educate teachers. In March 1867 the Cook County Board of Supervisors created a Normal school at Blue Island on a two year experimental basis. Daniel S. Wentworth became the first principal.
In 1869 the school opened as a permanent institution in Englewood, then a village far beyond the outskirts of Chicago. After Wentworth died in 1883, he was replaced by Colonel Francis Wayland Parker, a towering figure in the history of American education. Parker was an educational innovator who helped design the philosophy of progressive education, which has decisively shaped American schooling over the past century. Dedicated to the proposition that the nature and interests of the child should determine curricular decisions, not vice-versa, progressive reformers from the 1890s forward tried to banish what they saw as oppressive and authoritarian standards of instruction. Parker urged teachers to grant pupils the freedom to learn from their environment, to let curiosity rather than rewards or punishments provide their motivation, and to advance American democracy by democratizing their classrooms. John Dewey wrote in The New Republic in 1930 that Parker, “more than any one person, was the father of the progressive educational movement.” Parker believed that education was the cornerstone of a democracy, and that to achieve this end rote memorization should be replaced with exploration of the environment. Parker’s Talks on Pedagogics (1894) preceded Dewey’s own School and Society by five years, and it is one of the foundational texts in the progressive movement. Parker’s methods were so novel and influential that a highly critical study of American schools conducted in 1892 and 1893 by a New York pediatrician held up Cook County Normal School as a rare example of effective pedagogy.
By the 1890s Cook County was unable to provide the requisite support for its Normal School. Since many graduates found employment in the Chicago Public School district, it was natural that the city would take over the school. In 1897 the Chicago Board of Education assumed responsibility for what was now the Chicago Normal School.
Indexed Terms
Indexed Terms
Indexed Terms
Scope and Content
The collection includes a large number of course catalogs, which then were referred to as “Announcements,” especially from the 1870s. These catalogs provide extensive detail on CCNS’s curricular offerings and philosophy. It also contains reports on the Cook County schools and reports from the Board of Supervisors, historical research materials, library accession books, alumni materials, and books by and about CCNS faculty and students.
Arrangement
The collection is divided into two series:
- I. Catalogs, alumni materials, administration
- II. Books
Collection Inventory and Description
- Title
- Catalogues of the Cook County Normal and Training School, 1870-71 [photocopy], 1871-1881
- Title
- Circular and Calendar of the Cook County Normal School, 1868-70 [includes one photocopy]
- Title
- Cook County Normal School Songs; photocopy of contents of box from Corner Stone of old Normal School building, laid September 16, 1869
- Title
- “Our Pilgrim Fathers”: program of the Illinois State Teachers’ Association conference, 1897 [includes address by John F. Eberhart]
- Title
- Proceedings of the Board of Supervisors 1867-1869
- Title
- Cook County Schools First Report (1862); Graded Course of Instruction for the Public Schools of Chicago (1872); School Laws of Illinois (1869); Illinois Normal University Catalog, 1867-68
- Title
- Course of Study of the Cook County Normal School [2 copies, bound]; Course of Study for the Schools of Cook County, n.d.
- Title
- Photocopied 1895 course of study; historical research drafts; typescripts: “The Cook County Normal School;” “Circular: Issues for the Opening of the Cook County Normal School;” “Report of the Principal of the CCNS;” ‘First Graduating Class;” Committee on Building and Grounds meeting minutes; Indenture agreement transferring control of CCNS to the Chicago Board of Education.
- Title
- John F. Eberhart, typescript, “Historical Sketch of the Cook County Normal School, Now the Chicago Normal College;”
- Title
- Historical and research notes, some compiled by Louie Deupree, c. 1930; includes typescript of Parker’s Sixth Biennial Report of the Cook County Normal School .
- Title
- Cornerstone Contents
- Title
- Alumni Reunion materials
- Title
- Library Accession book, 1890s
- Title
- Historical materials [photocopies]
- Title
- Photocopied inventory of scrapbook holdings at University of Chicago; Parker’s Course of Study in Pedagogics: The Ideal School as the Ideal Community , 1897
- Title
- C.T.C. History Record Book
- Title
- Wentworth, Daniel S., 1867-1882: contains In Memoriam: Services and Resoluions in Connection with the Death of Daniel S. Wentworth ; “Address by Superintendent W.C. Dodge at Unveiling of Portrait of D.S. Wentworth”; typescript of letter from D.S. Wentworth to Mr. Hitchcock on the origins of CCNS, n.d.; Wentworth c.v. and list of his teachers [2 copies]; “D.S. Wentworth and the Early Normal School by Colonel Parker in Report to Board of Education, 1892-4”; “Daniel S. Wentworth” by Cora E. Lewis, April 20, 1906, Dedication; “Communication of D.S. Wentworth, Principal of Normal School,” March 9, 1871.
- Title
- The Illinois Teacher, vol. XV, June 1869, number 6. [inscribed by D.S. Wentworth]
- Title
- Alumni of Cook County Normal School (Chicago: Cameron, Amberg, and Co., 1889); 1000 pp.; blank book containing information on hundreds of alumni, including addresses, occupations, marital status, travel experience, and in some cases photographs.
- Title
- Mark Twain’s Scrap Book, CCNS Class of 1884