THANK FRANCE; the phrase is derived from “école normale,” which was used for institutions designed to instill standards of pedagogy and curriculum in teachers-to-be, says Debbie Schaefer-Jacobs, associate curator in the Division of Cultural and Community Life at the National Museum of American History. America’s first state-sponsored normal school opened in Massachusetts in 1839, at the urging of public-education champion Horace Mann; it is now Framingham State University. More arose through the mid-19th century, in parallel with the development of public schools, then called “common schools.” By the 1930s, however, most normal schools were calling themselves “teachers colleges.”
Smithsonian Magazine, January-February, 2019, p. 124.