Arguments Against The Merger Of The Teaching
Training School With The State Normal
School At Towson,
The Baltimore Teachers Training School was established by aat of the
Board of School Commissioners in 1900. It is therefore, almost a quarter
of a century old. It was established for the purpose of preparing teachers
for the white elementary schools. Heretofore the teachers had been secured
from the Normal School and the City high schools by examination. At that
time the Normal School had no higher standing then the City high schools.
The Teachers Training School has developed from a school with a small numb¬
er of students, a faculty of only a few members, and with only one undiffer¬
entiated course to an institution of over 500 students, with a faculty of
nearly 60 members, and with courses preparing for all the grades from the
kindergarden to the Junior High Schools. Its organization is being adopt¬
ed in many other teacher training schools throughout the country, and its
graduates are given full two years credit in the leading universities of
the country, including our own Johns Hopkins University, University of Wis¬
consin, Columbia University, University of Michigan, etc. The members of
the theory faculty of the school are recognized authorities in their
specific fields, and come from various universities of the country. It is
evident that such a specialized organization as this faculty is should
not be lost as a unit to the city's public school system.
The teacher training institution of a city is the most important
asset for its public schools. No city in Amercia would turn this branch
of its public educatijn service over to an outside agency and lose con¬
trol of its curriculum, its faculty, and its supervision. This merger
would mean that the superintendent and the Board of School Commission¬
ers would have no other power except a suggestive one over these import-
ent matters. The Superintendent has emphasized the beautiful grounds and
buildings at Towson. It is not the building and grounds that train teach¬
ers . It is the faculty with the proper curricula that v/ill fit the needs
of our City schools and not of country schools that make for the best
teacher training.
A survey of the Baltimore Public Schools was made be a number of teach¬
ers from Teachers College in 1920 and 1921. This survey recommended con-
cering the Teachers Training School three possible plans, as follows:
First, that the City erect a building and change the Teachers Training
School into a City Teachers College; second, that a co-operative plan be¬
tween Teachers Training School on the one hand and Goucher College and
the Johns Hopkins University be worked out for the training of teachers,
the control to be in the hands of the Board of School Commissioners; and
third, that the Teachers Training School be merged with the State Normal
School and all the City teachers be trained at Towson, On August 24, 1923,
the Board of Superintendents of Baltimore recommended that of these three
plans the most desirable from the point of view of the welfare of the City
Public Schools was the establishment of the City Teachers College, '.’heir
sole objection to this plan was that it would necessitate the erection of
a new building which with equipment would cost the city about $500,000. Is
not a large city like Baltimore justified in spending this money for its
teachers training work, when it is planing to spend 552,000,000 for a high
school to be built, and probably as much more for another high school at
no distent date?
