“All play and no work make Jack a numbskull and a parasite”: William Mayo’s East Texas Normal School

The following selections are taken from David Gold’s book Rhetoric at the Margins, specifically the chapter titled “Challenging Orthodoxies.” Since I am attending Texas A&M-Commerce the most current incarnation of East Texas Normal College I was really interested in the pedagogical values that were being taught by Mayo and his colleagues. Below are some of the highlights for me from this chapter.

Normal schools defined: “Normal schools or teachers training colleges” (115).

Mayo’s Motto: : “Ceasless industry, fearless investigation, unfettered thought” (114).

“Mayo geared his curriculum toward his student’s interests and needs, paying particular attention to how the school fit into the surrounding community” (115).

Four Key Features of Mayo’s Teaching:

1. “his attention to local community needs” (116).
2. “his emphasis on oral production in the training of future teachers” (116).
3. “his insistence on “learning by doing”” (116).
4. “his almost obsessive focus on prescriptive grammar” (116).

Mayo’s catalogue quote on page 121.

“The more texts investigated by a class, on a subject, the more interesting and profitable is its discussion” (123).

“The use of language is learned by using it, the rules of grammar by their applications, composition by the expression of thought, and elocution by reading and speaking. Thus the student becomes a master of himself and can use his knowledge” (125).

“Normal Methods…do not make “the student a mere passive recipient for the learning of others, but [put] him to thinking and telling his thought for himself” (128).

“Education does not consist in the mere accumulation of facts” (125).

Reciprocity: page 129-130, Mayo made the effort to connect the school with the community.

On the basics like arithmetic, algebra, geography: “Every person, whatever his vocation in life, ought to posses s this amount of knowledge in order that he may perform intelligently his part as an active American citizen” (131).

“Under Mayo’s direction, students at east Texas participated in a rich rhetorical environment, in which literature, drama, oratory, debate, and writing were woven into the daily fabric of campus life” (133).

Mayo on public performance for Teachers: “The ability to speak well in public was critical not only to their future professional lives but their professional development” (135).