January 6, 1870 - First group of students begin studies at the Indiana State Normal School

Indiana State Normal School, later Indiana State Teacher’s College and then Indiana State University, received its first students on January 6, 1870. It was founded with the intent that those in attendance could “fit themselves for the teacher’s profession.” There were 135 students enrolled in the school. The timing of the institution’s founding was very fortunate for if it had “been founded sooner its progress would have been painfully slow…” and if later, “it would have missed the chance to pass its initial stage during the years when the free, public school system of the state was coming into being with miraculous rapidity.”