State Normal Training School

The State Normal Training School, a late Victorian masonry structure, (1899/1900. Gardner, Pyne and Gardner architects), is situated on a. level lot, set back about forty feet from Washington Street in Westfield and roughly centered between the two other side streets. Landscaping consists of a lawn with some trees and shrubs on Washington Street; the remainder of the lot is paved. There are no outbuildings associated with the school structure. A mixture of residential and commercial business buildings dating from the last three-quarters of the 19th century characterizes the surrounding neighborhood. Rectangular in plan, the State Normal Training School rises 2½ stories from a full basement (granite at grade, back below grade) with a large attic due to its double hip roof.

Greyish slate shingles sheath the lower pitch. The shallow upperpitch with skylight is not visible from the street. Pairs of decorative book chimneys pierce both the east and west roof slopes. Red brick, probably produced by the Westfield Brick company, is the predominant building material, trimmed with cut brownstone. The 1900 Board of Education Annual Report states that the bricks were "Culled", undoubtably to keep construction costs down! The building's four symmetrical elevations are basically similar with a central bay surmounted by a projecting roof gable and flanking bays containing four windows on each story (rectangular on the first and segmentally arched on the second) and four small windows at basement grade level.

Ornamentation overall is fairly simple consisting of plain brownstone window lintels and watercourse, dog tooth brickwork between the upper story and eaves and exposed decorative rafter feet under the eaves. Architectural interest is focussed on the central bays in which vertical emphasis plays against the strong horizontality of the total structure.

/Architect Gardner, Pyne & Gardner, architects Statement of Significance (in one paragraph) The State Normal Training School possessed integrity of location, design, materials, workmanship, feeling and association. It is an outstanding local example of late Victorian institutional architecture designed by the prominent area firm of Gardner, Pyne and Gardner, additionally it served as the home of the second oldest public teacher training school in the nation, thus chronicling a turning point in late 19th century educational reform. The State Normal Training School meets criteria A, B, and C of the National Register of Historic Places.

The Training School is one of two surviving structures of: 19th century date associated with the Westfield State Normal School, the other is the Westfield State Normal Building (NR-1978). Both buildings represent a dramatic shift in attitudes towards education at the end of the 19th century which emphasized the professionalization of teaching. The normal school instructed aspiring teachers while the training school functioned as a facility for practice teaching and served as a regular school for the community. Present day state colleges are an outgrowth of this system. The only other major example of a normal school established in the mid-19th century in Massachusetts 15 in Bridgewater, however, the innovative teachers training school concept 1s unique to westtiela in this period.

As early as 1896, there was the need for a State run school for the training of future teachers at the Westfield Normal School; due to the erection of the new. Normal School; in 1892, the student population had increased to a point where there were inadequate provisions for the future teachers to observe well trained teachers or practice teach.