Teacher Institutes

Henry Barnard is generally credited with originating teacher institutes when he assembled 26 young men and taught them for a period of 6 weeks in the late 1830s in Hartford, Connecticut. The curriculum consisted of extending their knowledge of the subjects taught in schools and the best methods of school arrangements, instruction, and government. Observational visits to Hartford schools were part of Barnard's program.

Institutes were especially helpful in their early days in the preparation and improvement of teachers in rural areas. Lessons consisted of lectures and discussions, often including general lectures by leading figures in the evenings that were open to the general public.

Horace Mann supported the creation of institutes in Massachusetts in the mid-1840s, in addition to preferring normal schools for teacher preparation. In 1845 Mann reported the existence of teacher institutes in one half of the counties of New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, and Rhode Island, as well as his own Massachusetts. By 1847 teacher institutes existed in Connecticut, Massachusetts, New York, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, Pennsylvania, Michigan, Ohio, and Illinois. They existed alongside normal schools, being most prevalent in rural areas where there were no normal schools.

Although regarded as inferior to normal schools in the preparation of teachers, the curriculum of teacher institutes was very similar; namely, content knowledge and pedagogical skills. Like normal schools, the institutes were public, not private; were controlled by the state or district; and were not operated by teachers. Institutes went on record favoring supervision, the creation of state normal schools, higher salaries for teachers, and state aid for public education. On occasion their students—teachers—were active on behalf of schools, approaching state legislatures in an organized way. Unlike normal schools, institutes often functioned on behalf of individuals who were teaching, emphasizing improvement for the individuals. Often conducted by teachers of acknowledged reputation, they were held at various times and for various lengths, and were ultimately replaced by summer schools. Enrollees often had to pay for their instruction, although in 1846 the Massachusetts legislature earmarked $2,500 for institutes in that state.

Moral character occupied a primary role in teacher institutes' conduct, as it did in the textbooks used and in normal school preparation. Protestant clergy played a critical role in their operation, as they did in public schools' leadership positions. Often the sessions opened with a devotional exercise, and harmony was expected between the institutes' focus on moral character, or “awakening” for the students, and the Protestant faith. Indeed, the institutes often took on the nature of a religious revival, and were frequently conducted in churches. Women attended, but did not take part in these activities.

Barnard, while superintendent of schools in Rhode Island described to the county superintendents what the institutes should include in their operation in that state: (a) a review of studies taught in the public schools with examples of the best methods to teach them; (b) lectures and discussions among members on the organization of schools, classification of pupils, and the theory and practice of teaching; and (c) public lectures and discussions in the evenings on topics calculated to interest parents and the community on the subject of education and the organization, administration, and improvement of public schools. This remained, James Fraser asserts, the basic curriculum of teacher institutes for 80 years.

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