Dr. Grady Early, Distinguished Professor Emeritus, taught math and computer science at Texas State University for 29 years, serving briefly as interim chair of the newly-formed Computer Science department. After retirement, Early began researching his family history and gained some familiarity with various research tools: ancestry, familysearch, newspapers, San Marcos Record archives, findagrave and many more. This made it easy for him to segue into the histories of non-family members, which is how he began to write a story about Southwest Texas State Normal School in San Marcos, also known as San Marcos Normal, which is now Texas State University. This series will highlight the first staff at San Marcos Texas State Normal School, starting with some background information about the school in its early days.
Some background is in order.
In 1870, Texas legislators were increasingly concerned about the state of public education. The decennial census had been released, and it didn’t paint a pretty picture. The Texas population stood at about 820,000 including about 190,000, age 10 or older, who could not read, and about 222,000 who could not write.
Those figures should be viewed with care. In 1870, Hispanics, for census purposes, were viewed as White. Some census enumerators took an English-centric view of the literacy questions and marked the “cannot read” and “cannot write” boxes if the respondent could not read and/or write English even though they may have been quite literate in their native language. Nevertheless, the figures were alarming.
Land records of the time reveal a lot of deeds where the grantor or grantee “made their mark,” the actual name having been written by someone else.
Part of the problem was a lack of competent teachers. Imagine a county in the back of beyond, and imagine the Five of Clubs superimposed on it. The center pip represents the county seat where there was a school for the town kids. The country kids, in an era of poor roads, could rarely attend. Perhaps our imaginary county had progressive leaders who established country schools in the four corners of the county; the other four pips on the Five of Clubs. The schools had one room, a path and one teacher. It would have six grades, maybe. If one of those schools lacked a teacher, then those kids stayed home and, if lucky, were home-schooled by mom.
Teaching has long been regarded as a good thing and teacher training, as well. Enter the Normal School, the first of which is generally considered to be the Ecole Normale in France. 1685 “Normale,” in this context, refers to the goal of instilling and reinforcing particular norms — behavioral and societal values, ideologies and dominant national narratives. The 3 Rs (reading, ‘riting, ‘rithmetic) were there, to be sure, but add a B — brainwashing. That is, homogenizing the beliefs and behavior of the teachers who would spread the word to their students.
The idea of the normal school spread. In the U.S., the first was in Concord, VT, 1823. The first state-supported normal school was in Lexington, MA. Est. in 1839, it is now Framingham State University. Following the model, Texas established seven Normals: Sam Houston Normal Institute, Huntsville, 1879; North Texas Normal School, Denton, 1893; Southwest Texas State Normal School, San Marcos, 1899; West Texas Normal School, Canyon City, 1910; East Texas Normal School, Commerce, 1917; Sul Ross Normal School, Alpine, 1917; Stephen F. Austin Normal, Nacogdoches, 1923, completes the list.
Authorized?
In 1899, the only hint of Southwest Texas Normal School’s existence was Gov. Joseph D. Sayers’ signature, May 10, 1899, on the enabling legislation. There was not yet faculty, and no building to house them. There was no land for the building. Nevertheless, May 10, 1899 serves as the birth date in our own founding narrative.
Those other things came fairly quickly. In October 1899, the San Marcos City Council voted to donate the land, which the State accepted in 1901. The cornerstone for Old Main was laid in 1902, and the faculty, 17 of them, were hired in Spring of 1903 and were ready to meet classes in Fall 1903. They weren’t just teachers; Several doubled as treasurers, deans, secretaries, chaperones and librarians. Practically every teacher taught Sunday school.
In 17 future articles, Grady will explore the lives of those 17 faculty members. Stay tuned.
