Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. Public Buildings. TO the visitor interested in educational matters, the schools of Salem will prove worthy of attention. The State Normal School for girls is at the corner of Summer and Broad streets, but a new building is in process of construction at the junction of Lafayette street and Loring avenue. The present building is of brick with freestone trimmings. It was dedicated Sept. 14. 1834. It is supplied with a fine set of scientific and chemic1l apparatus, including a telescope of fair power. Its library cont1ins upwards of 9000 volumes Tuition is free to those who agree to become teachers in the public schools. For the assistance of those who find even the moderate expense burdensome, the state makes an annu1l appropriation, one-half of which is distributed at the close of each term among the pupils from within the Commonwealth who merit and need aid. Permission to attend any of the exercises of the school cm only ba obtained by applying to the principal. The new Normal School Building was begun November 24, 1893. It covers aground area of eleven thousand square feet; one of the great buildings of the state. It stands high and is so large that it fairly dominates the southern section, which is the growing section, of Salem. J. Philip Rinn is the architect. Its materials are straw colored brick, Indiana limestone, terra cotta and granite. Its cost is $200,000. Some of its unique features are a gymnasium in the basement measuring 35 by 80 feet,—a ground floor devoted wholly to the"practice" or "model" schools, viz : Four kindergarten rooms, four primary rooms, a grammar school and six recitations rooms, with rooms for teachers,—providing in all for nearly five hundred pupils. In the second story is a hall 60 by 80 feet, the principal's room, reception ro...