Page:Oregon Historical Quarterly volume 21.djvu/149

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OREGON NORMAL SCHOOLS 139

attention to the fact that 25 students had failed to pay their full tuition fees, and the records of the school do not show that the collections were made. On the recommendation of E. B. McElroy, state superintendent, a law was passed granting free scholarships to teachers with second grade certificates.

The costs of board and room were so low as to cause us to look backward with regret. The dining hall at Monmouth provided board at $1.50 a week if paid in advance, and at $1.75 a week if payments were deferred. A room might be had at from fifty cents to one dollar a week. In 1899, the estimated expenses for a year were from $110 to $200 a year.

The cost to the state of giving instruction in the normals is equally interesting. In a study 42 of the state normal school systems of the United States made in 1905 by Dr. H. D. Sheldon, dean of the school of education, University of Ore- gon, a comparison is made of the costs of education in the small normals with the costs in the large central schools. Oregon with a population of 437,302 is shown to appropriate $56,458 a year for its four normal schools, or an average of $14,114 each. The total enrollment is given at 409. There- fore the cost of educating a student in one of the Oregon normals was $129 a year for each thousand inhabitants. The annual cost of training a single student was placed at $138. Contrasted with expenditure in Oregon are the costs in the following states:

Cost per 1,000 Cost of Training

Inhabitants One Student

Oregon $129 $138

Colorado 272 248

Oklahoma 181 141

Rhode Island 140 294

Washington 225 189

California 121 118

South Dakota 75 65

The average cost of graduating trained teachers from the

42 State Normal School Systems of the U. S. f H. D. Sheldon, 1912.