Why "Normal"??

[sneakymonkey]

I've been wondering this for a while now...why do so many universities in China have the word "Normal" in their titles? I'm sure someone here can answer this.

[woliveri]

I believe it's because it's a teachers college. The word "Normal" indicating that it's a school that would be teachers attend to go into the teaching world.

I think but could be wrong.

[ala]

Yeah the above is right.

A normal school is an institution that trains teachers. The usage is now archaic in American English, because such institutions do not exist anymore in the US. It translates into 师范 (shifan) in Chinese. For example in Shanghai: 华东师范大学 (East China Normal University).

[gato]

The real answer is that they teach you how to be normal so that you can teach other people to be normal.

Or maybe it's related to the word "norm" which means rule or standard.

Another theory is that the it's translated from the French "ecole normale."

"http://www.lib.virginia.edu/fine-arts/guides/brown-normal.html

[liuzhou]

Another theory is that the it's translated from the French "ecole normale."

But why did the French call them écoles normales?

[Claw]

But why did the French call them écoles normales?

From Merriam-Webster:

Etymology: translation of French école normale; from the fact that the first French school so named was intended to serve as a model

[Chappie]

I thought Normal Uni. is just an ordinary Uni. Not like Oxford, Stanford (any ford?) or those (freaky) well known uni.

Its just more expensive on a well known uni.

[davesgonechina]

The fact that they use "normal" and it appears to be derived from archaic English reminds me of another thing I saw here. One private school called 众志私立公学, which basically translates to Zhongzhi (as in "united we stand", basically) Privately-Owned Public School. They were in actuality a private school, and as an American I was confused so I asked about it. The only people who understood were the people at the school itself, who said "well, Eaton Public School in England, the famous one, it's called public". Ironically, all their foreign teachers were American, Australian and Canadian - none of them knew this usage. The use of the word "public" school for Eaton is an anachronism in England now - they called them public because the only people who could go to schools then were rich, and previously the wealthy just hired private tutors. It was interesting to see how the school was modeling themselves on an outdated and elitist foreign idea.

[djwebb2004]

It's Eton, not Eaton, and they're still called public schools in England. The usage "public school" is not outdated, not in England anyway.

EDIT: No need to quote an entire reply to point out one spelling mistake. Roddy