page_title: Bridgewater State University
section_title: Foundation
hierarchical_section_title: Bridgewater State University / History / Foundation
caption_attribution_description: English: Title: Nicholas Tillinghast Description: Nicholas Tillinghast, the founding principal of the State Normal School at Bridgewater, Massachusetts. Date: [ca. 1840–1850] Format: Prints Genre: Lithographs Location: Bridgewater State University, Maxwell Library Archives &amp; Special Collections Collection (local): Bridgewater State University Historical Photographs (Oversize) Subjects: Tillinghast, Nicholas (1804-1856) Extent: 1 lithograph&#160;; 28 x 22 in. Permalink: https://ark.digitalcommonwealth.org/ark:/50959/pv63g354s
context_page_description: Bridgewater State University is the largest of nine state universities in Massachusetts. Including its off-campus sites in New Bedford, Attleboro, and Cape Cod, BSU has the fourth largest campus of the 29 institutions in the Massachusetts Public Higher Education System. BSU's sports teams are called the Bears. School colors are crimson, white and black.
context_section_description: Bridgewater State University was founded by Horace Mann as a normal school styled Bridgewater Normal School. It opened on September 9, 1840, making it the oldest permanently located institution of public higher education in Massachusetts. As one of the first normal schools in the nation, its initial mission was to train school teachers. Today Bridgewater, which is regarded as the "home of teacher education in America", has the largest enrollment of teacher education students in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Since the 1960s, the school has also expanded its program to include liberal arts, business, and aviation science. It became a university and took on its present name in 2010. During its history, it has also been known as Bridgewater State College, Bridgewater Teachers College, Bridgewater State Teachers College, and State Teachers College at Bridgewater.
  The normal school opened in the basement of the Old Bridgewater Town Hall, in a 40-foot by 50-foot space, divided into three rooms: an ante-room for students, an apparatus room, and a classroom. The first class consisted of 21 women and seven men. Nicholas Tillinghast, the first principal (1840–53) was initially the only instructor. The school year consisted of two 14-week terms. Students were not required to attend consecutively.
  In 1845, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts finally agreed to construct a building for Bridgewater State Normal School, the first building ever erected in America for the preparation of teachers. This two-story wooden building, 64 feet by 42 feet, accommodating 84 students, was to be the institution's educational plant for almost half a century. There were small and large classrooms, with blackboards in each. Since changes were made to the school, the board of education required people to attend three terms for fourteen consecutive weeks, establishing a year's course. The building was dedicated on August 19, 1846, with Horace Mann saying on the occasion: "Among all the lights and shadows that ever crossed my path, this day’s radiance is the brightest...I consider this event as marking an era in the progress of education—which as we all know is the progress of civilization-on this western continent, and throughout the world.  It is the completion of the first normal schoolhouse ever erected in Massachusetts,—in the Union,—in this hemisphere. It belongs to that class of events which may happen once, but are not capable of being repeated. Coiled up in this institution, as in a spring, there is a vigor whose uncoiling may wheel the spheres." This first normal school established a professional standard for the preparation of teachers, breaking away from traditional academics for attendance. It was the next step toward establishing educational institutions for specific purposes.
  Bridgewater Normal School trained its students in elementary-school subjects; expansion subjects above the elementary level including mathematics, philosophy, and literature; and pedagogy, including philosophy of teaching and discipline based on child psychology, and as much practical experience under constant supervision as possible at the model school.
caption: Nicholas Tillinghast
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