legislation is necessary to our common school system, unless it be expedient to provide for the establishment of normal schools for the education and qualification of teachers. Such institutions, when properly conducted, have been productive of great good, and no doubt is entertained but that such would be the result of their introduction into this State."
Bills were introduced into the Legislature in 1848 for establishing a separate department of the University for the instruction of teachers, and also for the establishment of temporary normal schools or teachers’ Institutes. The Senate passed a bill providing that one of the branches of the University should be organized as a normal school. However, no one of these bills became a law. Public sentiment was improving, but had not yet ripened sufficiently to take form in a definite and positive legislative enactment. The State Superintendent, in his report for 1848, said, "I would not, however, with our age as a State, and the advancement we have made in the department of public instruction, recommend the establishment of a single normal school, and especially when we consider our present necessities." He believed that more could be done for the preparation of teachers, at that time, through Institutes, and through the newly opened union schools than by the establishment of a normal school.
Francis W. Shearman became Superintendent of Public Instruction in January, 1849, and Mr. Comstock, who had previously been Superintendent, was made chairman of the committee on Education in the House of Representatives. Early in the sesson of the Legislature a bill was reported from this committee for establishing a normal school. This bill was zealously urged forward by Mr. Comstock, and others and finally became a law on the 28th of March. A supplementary act was passed which was approved on the 31st of March. At the next session of the Legislature these two acts were consolidated and amended by a new act, approved by the Governor March 25th, 1850, The normal school was organized and opened under the provision of this last act.
