The new administration building of the colored State Normal School will be completed by Saturday, March 24, according to F.R. Hufty, State supervisor of the building.
New fixtures for the building which are furnished by the General Education Board of New York are arriving daily and the new building will be ready for use as soon as these fixtures can be installed.
Not including the cost of fixtures the new administration building has cost the State $129,665. The cost of the fixtures is estimate at $5,000. The private sewerage will cost $7,500 and the individual water system, including two wells and a 90-foot water tank of 55,000 gallons capacity, will cost $17,500.
The new administration building has 14 rooms in addition to an auditorium that will seat 1,200 to 1,400 people. Stretching across the entire width of the auditorium the stage is probably the largest in the city.
The old administration building is to be remodeled and converted into a girls’ dormitory. Including the installation of water and sewerage it is estimated that this work will cost $50,000 to $60,000. This will relieve the congestion in the present girls’ dormitory, it having been necessary during the current year to turn down applications of girls for entrance on account of the lack of room. It is thought that this work will begin about June 1, and that it will not be completed by the fall term.
A new dining room and kitchen will be built adjoining the old administration building. A new dormitory for the boys and one or two cottages for the faculty will probably be under construction before July. These buildings are made possible by the recent appropriations made by the General Assembly to the State Normal School here. The boys’ dormitory will cost $40,000, and the dining room and kitchen will cost about half that amount.
P.W. Moore, principal of the State Normal School here, looks forward to the time when there are sufficient funds on hand for the construction of a $15,000 industrial building for boys, of an industrial building for girls, and of stables for stock that would be used in teaching the male students how to farm and at the same time raise food crops that could be sold or used in the school kitchen. The last appropriation provided $173,000 “for maintenance and permanent buildings,” all of the new fixtures now being received for both the dormitory and the new building are a gift from the General Education Board of New York City.
Enrollment for the present term is 470, with five states besides North Carolina represented and with about 30 per cent of the attendance coming from Elizabeth City. The work of the school includes teaching of elementary grades for practice work for students intending to teach; a high school course practically the same as that used in the white schools of the State; and a standard two-year normal course planned by the State Department of Education. When funds are available the normal course will be increased to four years and the Elizabeth City State School will become a State College as the Slater Normal College at Winston-Salem.
With an appropriation of $900 in 1892 from the North Carolina Assembly, P.W. Moore began the State Normal School on a one teacher basis. Sixty-four pupils were enrolled the first year, representing nine counties. The local board of managers, with P.W. Moore, rented a small wooden building that is still used by the Roanoke Institute. Three years later with another small appropriation from the General Assembly and with a small gift form the Slater fund, the board of managers moved the school to Shannon street, where they repaired and put into fair shape an old dilapidated building. Here the school remained until the fall of 1912 when it was moved to the present site.
Among those on the first Board of Managers were S.L. Sheep, F.F. Cohoon, W.W. Griffin, M.B. Culpepper, Editor Paleman John, and Frank Vaughn. A man by the name of Preyor is said to have given five acres of the present State Normal site to a group of colored people with the understanding that the land would revert back to him if the colored people failed to run a school less than four months in the year. A fire destroyed the old school building and the negroes could not rebuild. Mr. Preyor then gave his land to the State Board of Education. The State has added to this property from time to time, and now the entire lot covers an area of 41 acres.
From the front page of The Daily Advance, Elizabeth City, N.C., March 21, 1923. The General Board of Education in New York City was a private group begun with a $1 million donation in 1902 by John D. Rockefeller. It supported higher education, helped rural white and black schools in the south, helped found public libraries, supported the county agent system. The Rockefeller family would eventually give over $180 million to fund the General Education Board, which had spent nearly all of its money by 1950 and closed in 1964. One million dollars in 1902 would be the equivalent of $349.8 million today.
No comments:
Post a Comment