Statement "oncernr'.ng the Merger
of the Teachers Training School with the
State Normal School at Tows on
The merger of the Baltimore Teachers Training School and the
State Normal School at Towson, which was officially consummated at the
meeting of the Board of School Commissioners on Friday, June 6, 1924, is
a matter that was fully communicated to the public as a definite proposal
as long ago as August 1923, and it has been repeatedly discussed since
that date. No one connected with the Training School as teacher, student,
or parent can help but know that for dt least nine months both the Balti¬
more School Board and the State Board' of Education have had the matter
under serious consideration, and that the finance authorities of the city 1
favored the merger, Since the Board meeting of August 24. 1923, when
a special report on the Training School was presented and published, and 1
since the meeting of September 7, .923, when a resolution in favor of the
merger was adopted and published, any one at all Interested in the matter |
has had full opportunity to knew hat the one thing left under discussion
was the ways and means, administrative and financial, best adapted to make
the merger most successful, The very length of time that has been allowed
to elapse since full publicity war. given to the matter last fall has served
to afford every one full opportunity both to knew about the proposed move
and to submit for the consideration of the school authorities whatever
objections might be advanced against the merger.
Seme of the considerations that had -weight with the Board of School
Commissioners in brftAnJng them to their final decision to go on with the
merger were the following :
The old building now housing the Teachers Training School on Lafay¬
ette Sq uare has become utterly inadeq uate for the present enrollment
of students. It was abandoned by the State authorities as unsuitable
for teacher training purposes when the State Normal School was moved out
of it in 1910] and with
о
he recent very greatly increased enrollment of
city students in training to become teachers the conditions in the building
have rapidly become more and more unsatisfactory* On the other hand,
the great demand upon the school loan funds for increased accommodations
for elementary pupils and for senior ar.d junior high school pupils, and
the condition of the city finances in other respects, make it impossible 4
to move the Training School students at once or in the near future into
better quffTters except by the plan of merging the school with the State l
Normal School at Towson,
The splendid buildings and the spacious and beautiful grounds
of the State Normal School at Towson moke that institution one df the
finest normal training plants in the United States* Since the establish¬
ment of this school in its new home it has been energetically developed
in equipment , in curriculum, and in faculty, until nw it ranks with the
best normal schools in the country, admitting only full graduates of
accredited high schools and giving a full two-year tra ning course on the
collegiate level,
The State Normal School, situated as it is directly on the York
Road south of Towson, is really only a short distance north of the Balti¬
more City boundary line. The regular running time of the street rail¬
way cars from the Baltimore City Hall to the State Normd School is cnly
thirty-five to forty minutes, ".'ithout doubt extra cars will be made avail¬
able in the morning and in the afternoon for the convenience of the city
students attending the school, and if possible a special flare rate will
be secured for Baltimore City ptudents, The fact that the uoucher college
authorities, after a great deal of study, selected a Towson site for the
new and greater Goucher, a site located aL so on the farther side of Towson,
indicates their conviction that Towson is by no means at a prohibitive
distance for the large number of Baltimore girls who will continue to form
Goucher ’s body of day students.
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