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NORMAL SCHOOL
Mount Ayr, Iowa, 1880
"X" is Cora (ANDERSON) PATRICK; Mrs. Ed HOOVER in Middle Row;
Mrs. Jeff STEPHENS of Redding in Front Row
Twice-A-Week News
Mount Ayr, Ringgold County, Iowa
1898
Ringgold County's Schools
Our county normal [school for the teachers and educators] will be held at Mt. Ayr, commencing August 3, and will continue two weeks. We hope to see every teacher present, since we expect all who do not hold state certificates to pass the examination, as two additionals studies, civics and economics, have been added to the list. We expect to have a very interesting normal, not for the purpose of cramming for the examination, but to instruct and advise with teachers how to organize, manage and control schools, and how to properly care for the health, comfort, general culture and moral elevation of their pupils. And then there are the children. What would the schools be without them! In their bright eyes and intelligent faces we can read the destiny of our country. . .
RINGGOLD COUNTY NORMAL SCHOOL
In 1872, R. F. ASKREN, county superintendent, started a one-week summer institutute for the good of the teachers with Professor
PIPER, superintendent of Manchester, Delaware County [IA] schools, as the teacher. Later a four-weeks normal, and
Professor HARKNESS of Garden Grove and Professor PARRISH of Leon were hired. Much good was done for Ringgold County
teachers and consequently to the schools while Mr. HARKNESS was teacher in the normal school, which continued until about 1910.
When Miss RIDER changed the four-weeks normal to a two-week summer school, it continued until the state established
extension schools in different cities over Iowa, in about 1915. Since that time, the county superintendents have held
a two-day institute in the fall soon after school begins in September. The early normals took about all the money
the poor school teachers could lay up from their year's teaching, and it seemed we always had to have it in the hottest
part of the year, from the next week after the Fourth of July, for four long weeks, with examinations at the end.
SOURCE:
LESAN, Mrs. B. M. Early History of Ringgold County: 1844 - 1937 p. 79. Blair Pub. House. Lamoni IA. 1937.
Transcriptions by Sharon R. Becker, May & June of 2010
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