[lit-ideas] Re: Memoirs D'Une Normalienne (Was: Diary of a Public School Girl
- From: "Mike Geary" <atlas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Sun, 14 Oct 2007 13:58:47 -0500
The University of Memphis, formerly known as Memphis State University, formerly
known as Memphis State College, formerly known as West Tennessee Teacher's
College, formerly known as West Tennessee State Normal School, is located in
what at the time of its origination was a small town just east of Memphis known
as Normal. I lived in the area known as Normal for several years even though
everyone knows I'm not normal. I always thought that the original name of the
college was in reference to the area, not the area in reference to the school.
We live and learn in this old world.
Mike Geary
a Normalist
----- Original Message -----
From: Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx
To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Sent: Sunday, October 14, 2007 12:55 PM
Subject: [lit-ideas] Memoirs D'Une Normalienne (Was: Diary of a Public School
Girl
Candle in the Wind: *Norma* Jeane Mortenson (Was: *Normal* Schooling?)
The OED reads for 'normal':
‘which serves as a model’ (1793 in école normale)
and which incidentally gives the date for the first collocation of the
expression.
école normale school for the training of teachers,
the first of which was set up by decree in 1794,
and later became dedicated to training teachers for
secondary education and thus (from 1845) called
the Ecole Normale Supérieure.
I suppose in those revolutionary days it was quite a task to 'set the model'
-- Imagine burning all the history books making an icon of Marie Antoinette and
all that. Palma was yet not born, but he gets the feeling.
It should not surprise us then that the first use was in "American" English.
There's also a quote from an Edinburgh review which only goes to show that the
Scots always felt closer to the French than to the English -- as I hope you'll
agree if you've seen, as I did yesterday, Cate Blanchet's "Elizabeth: the
golden age" -- Beautiful:
1834 Edinb. Rev. July 491 The system of Primary Schools, which the
French..have..denominated Normal.
The only English-based quotes are the tricky one about "the Normal School of
Design" which we are not told when it was found, but I'm not so interested now
guessing that the idea was that it was to be a 'model' (for other schools?):
1960 S. J. CURTIS & M. E. A. BOULTWOOD Introd. Hist. Eng. Educ. xii. 278
The Normal School of Design became the Royal College of Art in 1896.
and this one from "Holy Terror" (1939) by Wells. Wells was an acid, resented
character as he tried to make his way into the intelligentsia, so I would take
his remarks with a 'pinch of salt', as the normaliennes would say:
"An increasing number of women are taking up professions now; at
architecture, catering, various industries, normal teaching..they are
practically as good as men or better."
No, that this is a girl-thing should be clear by the fact that only "Norma"
in the feminine is a first-name, never Normo, or Normus.
Cheers,
JL
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