Belmont chronicle. [volume] (St. Clairsville, Ohio) 1855-1973, 1888-06-14
HopEpALE NORMAL COLLEGE.

HOPEDALE NORMAL COLLEGE.
JANE d. McNEELY, MARY DONALDSON, ELIZA
HOGG.
There shall this woman hath done be told for a
memorial OF her. r."-MATT. 26 :13.
Some forty years since, the women,
whose names are in the caption to this
article-two of whom lived in Green
township, Harrison county, Ohio, and
one in the town of CadiZ-cultivated the
thought that they could do something
for the improvement of the public school
system of the State; especially for the
country district schools. They were suf-
ficiently obseryant of the progress of the
cause of popular education to note the
fact, even at that early period, that the
town and city schools were far in ad-
vance of the rural district schools, in
point of efficiency. To inaugurate some
cation of this difference became eventu-
ally the burthen of their discussions and
their wishes. The cultivation of this
thought is what led to the founding of
Hopedale Normal College.
Their plan was to begin in district
entirely rural. Hopedale then had no
existence. Their motives may not, at
the beginning, have been exactly the
same; and they may not all have been
equally interested, or disinterested in the
progress of the work. They were unit,
however, in their desire to promote the
Improvement of the country district
schools.
They had buried all of their own chill
dren, and were thus left without the Or
binary objects of life, and in the posses
sion of some means with which they de-
sired to be doing something for the good
of others.
They were unit also in their dislike
of fashionable boarding schools, and Of
denominatiOnal partisan colleges. The
agents of those institutions were always
repelled and resisted.
Their plea for cultivating this antag
onism was that all of the interest, edu-
cational enterprise, money, and even the
sprightly and active children, that were
absorbed by the fifty, more or less, rival
partisan colleges of Ohio, was the alb
straction of so much of the vitality, the
life blood, that should flow into the pub
lie schools, where nine-tenths of the
whole population must always be edu-
Gated, in spite of the multiplicity OF de-
nominational colleges.
After many long preliminary discus
sions about purposes and plans, they
finally began work with district number
three, in Green Township.
They selected beautiful locality about
the center of the North east quarter of
the township, and began to improve and
prepare ten acre lot for their expert
ment. This lot is now in the center of
the village of Hopedale, surrounded by
four OF the principal streets, and is one
of the finest school sites in the State.
They expect to be able to gather one
hundred children of all ages, and organ
ize them into a perfect, ungraded cOun-
try district school, such as would be a
model for the imitation of any other dis
trict that might be emulated and stimu-
lated to follow the example.
'Tis not the purpose of this sketch to
to give the history of the work in detail
to tell of their trials and enjoyments,
their success and their failures. TIE
above is stated simply to afford a glimrss
into the causes which led to the exist
ence of Hopedale Normal School, Ire
first in Ohio, either public or private.
All of this preliminary discussion and
work occurred between the years lS4S
and 1858; since which time there has
not been the interruption of a single
week in the regular work of the school.
Some seven thousand pupils in the ag
gregate have received more or less of
their training at Hopedale, under the
very best class of teachers, both for
academic and professional work, that
could be secured.