RICHMOND —
Tight budgets for higher education in Kentucky have been in the headlines lately. During the 19th century Kentucky politicians were either indifferent or hostile to the idea of special training for the school teachers in our state.
Back in 1838-1839, the Rev. Joseph J. Bullock, Kentucky’s first Superintendent of Public Instruction, was rebuffed by the General Assembly when he recommended the founding of a Normal School to train Kentucky teachers.
For 68 years, no fewer than 15 superintendents appeared before 30 legislative sessions, only to have special teacher training schools rejected. Meanwhile, in two other states, normal schools were introduced in 1838.
(Teacher-training schools were called “normal schools” because the first such institution in France was called the Ecole Normale.)
In 1850 state Superintendent Robert J. Breckinridge recommended that Transylvania University, established in 1799, become the state school for teacher training. Six years later, with Transylvania on the verge of collapse, the state took it over, and Kentucky opened the first state supported training school for teachers. Its popularity was shown by the fact that teachers flocked to it from the beginning.
The President was Dr. Lewis W. Green. Despite its success, politics entered the picture. Opposition arose immediately, and the charge of unconstitutionality was raised. After only two years the school shut down.
Two years later, permission was given for the state Board of Education to offer teacher training for 10 weeks in the summer of 1878-1879 at Kentucky Military Institute.
Upon completion of required work, a certificate was issued. It was recognized by the state and was given for five years. After two years, the state withdrew its support and the program closed.
In 1880, the Kentucky A&M College (Agricultural and Mechanical) became independent of a relationship with another Kentucky University. The reorganization provided that a normal department be part of the school, but the other A&M departments looked down on the teacher-training department, its faculty and its students.
In 1907 the Normal Department was replaced by a Department of Education, which was housed in the College of Arts and Sciences.
In 1886, the state funded a training school for African Americans teachers, the Kentucky Normal & Industrial Institute in Frankfort. It later became Kentucky State University.
Private colleges gave classes preparing the student to pass the state exam and receive a teaching certificate. The best example of this was Southern Normal School in Bowling Green. Another was the Normal School at Catlettsburg, led by Miss Neptha Savage. A church school operated as Morehead Normal School. Richmond’s Central University offered normal courses as did Berea College.
In 1870, county institutes came into being to train teachers. They varied in content and success.
This then was the condition of teacher training in Kentucky before the 1906 establishment of Eastern and Western Normal Schools.
(More about early teacher training in Kentucky can be found in “A History of Education in Kentucky” written by Dr. William E. Ellis, EKU history professor emeritis, and published in 2011 by the University Press of Kentucky.)
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