The History of our Public Schools
Wyandotte County, Kansas

Transcribed from volume II of Kansas: a cyclopedia of state history, embracing events, institutions, industries, counties, cities, towns, prominent persons, etc. ... / with a supplementary volume devoted to selected personal history and reminiscence. Standard Pub. Co. Chicago : 1912. 3 v. in 4. : front., ill., ports.; 28 cm. Vols. I-II edited by Frank W. Blackmar. Transcribed July 2002 by Carolyn Ward.

State Normal School.—The State Normal School was established in March, 1863, by an act of the legislature which provided: "That there be and is hereby established and permanently located at the town of Emporia, in Lyon county, a State Normal School, the exclusive purpose of which shall be the instruction of persons, both male and female, in the art of teaching, and in all of the various branches that pertain to a good common school education, and in the mechanic arts, and in the arts of husbandry and agricultural chemistry, and in the fundamental laws of the United States, and in what regards the rights and duties of citizens: Provided, that a tract of land, not less than 20 acres, adjacent to said town of Emporia, be donated and secured to the state, in fee simple, as a site for said normal school within twelve months from the taking effect of this act."

Section 2 of the same act empowered the governor to appoint three commissioners to attend to the details of procuring the site, and section 3 provided "That all lands granted to the State of Kansas and selected by said state adjoining or as contiguous as may be to each and all of the salt springs belonging to said state and granted by the 4th subdivision of the 3d section of an act of Congress entitled "An act for the admission of Kansas into the Union," approved Jan. 29, 1861, "save and except the salt springs, and the section of land upon which each of said salt springs are located, and one additional section, are hereby set apart and reserved as a perpetual endowment for the support and maintenance of the Normal School established and located by this act."