Letter from Abraham Owen Smoot and Wilson Howard Dusenbury, 29 October 1891
Provo City, Utah, .
To the General Board of Education,
Wilford Woodruff, Chairman;
Dear Brethern;
Permit us to lay before you for your consideration some points connected
with the Normal work of our Church Schools.
The necessity of establishing a Free Normal training School has been suggested
to us, based on the following reasons:
1. We have no Church Normal Traning School at present in our school system.
Normal classes are organized in several Academies where theoretical in-
structions are given, but no where is adequate practical work offered.
2. Normal Traning Schools are necessary to thorough preparation for school
and class work. The world through long experience has discovered this,
and hence the establishment of these schools in all European countries
and in every state in the Union.
G Graduates from these schools, everything else being equal, are far
superior to others for the duties of teaching.
3. It is desirable that as far as possible, we supply the district
schools with teachers of our own training, and thus keep the instruction
of our children in our own hands. We cannot supply this demand wit^h^ the
present system of normal instructions and high tuition, for, in the
first place, not a sufficient number of young people can attend school,
and then, secondly, our graduates cannot compete with those more
thoroughly trained from other colleges.
4. If a well equiped Normal Training School with free tuition should
be established in our Church Schools, not only the number of teachers
