Prussia required teaching credentials before most countries required literacy.
In 1794, the Prussian General Code, the Allgemeines Landrecht, established that teaching in state schools required a formal credential issued by the government.1 The code classified schools as institutions of the state and teachers as public servants. Before this, teaching was an informal occupation performed by clergy, tutors, or anyone a community deemed competent.
Prussia's requirement reflected a broader administrative philosophy. The state needed literate, obedient citizens and standardized workers, and it decided that producing them required standardized teachers.2
Horace Mann traveled to Prussia in 1843, studied its school system, and returned to Massachusetts with a detailed report advocating the Prussian model. Among his recommendations was the establishment of normal schools, institutions specifically designed to train and credential teachers.3
The first public normal school in the United States opened in Lexington, Massachusetts, in 1839, three years before Mann's trip. After his Prussian report, the model spread rapidly across New England and then the rest of the country.3
The word normal in normal school came from the French école normale, meaning a school that sets norms. The concept was that teachers should be trained to deliver a standardized curriculum in a standardized way, creating uniformity across classrooms.2
By the early twentieth century, normal schools across the United States had evolved into teachers' colleges, and eventually into the departments of education within universities. The credential became a degree, and the degree became a requirement for employment.
The credentialed teacher replaced the community-chosen instructor, the traveling tutor, and the clergy-led schoolroom. In most industrialized countries, a person cannot legally teach in a public school without a state-issued license, a requirement that traces to a Prussian legal code written in the eighteenth century.1