In the Workshops and the Classroom
Location: Entrance of building facing quad
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Normal School Principal John Thompson and Fitchburg Superintendent Joseph Edgerly thought school should prepare students for a life without high school or college, especially since school attendance in Massachusetts was only compulsory until the age of fourteen. To do so, Fitchburg needed more instructors and facilities for practical arts instruction.
According to the 1880 Federal Census there was about a 70:1 student to teacher ratio in Fitchburg with nearly 53% of school aged children not attending school. Fitchburg required practically educated workers to support its increasingly industrialized economy, so in 1908 Edgerly lobbied the state to fund the construction of one of the first middle schools in America: the Practical Arts Building, now Percival Hall. There Thompson fostered practical and industrial education for middle school students to ease the transition into the workplace.
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Middle school students would learn basic practical arts skills in seventh and eighth grade and then apply those skills in a two-month trial period of shop work at a local business. If the student liked the work, and the shop liked the student, then the shop could agree to a co-op program with Fitchburg High, which would give the students work experience, and possibly secure future employment.
This program became known as the “Fitchburg Plan of Cooperative Industrial Education.” The first year would consist solely of classroom learning and the following three years would alternate weeks of learning in the classroom and then in the workshop. After five short years, the program rose to national acclaim.
What made Fitchburg Normal School different from other schools was the practical nature of its programs. In 1910, it was the first school in America to develop and implement a program to train practical arts teachers. This put Fitchburg on the map and expanded the Normal School campus.
