George Washington Minns (October 6, 1813 in Boston, Massachusetts – January 14, 1895 in

Brookline, Massachusetts Brookline is a town in Norfolk County, Massachusetts, Norfolk County, Massachusetts, in the United States, and part of the Greater Boston, Boston metropolitan area. Brookline borders six of Boston's neighborhoods: Brighton, Boston, Brighton, A ...

) graduated from Harvard College with the class of 1836 and received a law degree from the Howard Dane Law School of Harvard. He practiced law in Massachusetts for several years before moving to California. After the Gold Rush caused the collapse of his law practice and Minns lost all of his savings, he became a teacher at the Union Grammar School, the first California high school, and became principal of the Normal School the following year. He was an American teacher, notable for running the Minns Evening Normal School, which was established in San Francisco, California, in 1857 in order to train teachers for the city's public school system. His

normal school A normal school or normal college is an institution created to Teacher education, train teachers by educating them in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum. In the 19th century in the United States, instruction in normal schools was at the high s ...

, named the

California State Normal School The California State Normal School was a teaching college system founded on May 2, 1862, eventually evolving into San José State University in San Jose and the University of California, Los Angeles in Los Angeles. History The school was creat ...

, was the first publicly funded institution of higher learning in the state. George Minns was principal of the school from 1857-1862 and 1865-1866. The California State Normal School was transferred to the

State of California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

in 1862, and is now known as

San José State University San José State University (San Jose State or SJSU) is a public university in San Jose, California. Established in 1857, SJSU is the oldest public university on the West Coast and the founding campus of the California State University (CSU) sys ...

Business

*1841 - Admitted to the Suffolk County bar. *1854 - Arrived in California after sailing around

Cape Horn Cape Horn ( es, Cabo de Hornos, ) is the southernmost headland of the Tierra del Fuego archipelago of southern Chile, and is located on the small Hornos Island. Although not the most southerly point of South America (which are the Diego Ramírez ...

aboard the

clipper ship A clipper was a type of mid-19th-century Merchant ship, merchant Sailing ship, sailing vessel, designed for speed. Clippers were generally narrow for their length, small by later 19th century standards, could carry limited bulk freight, and had ...

'' Winged Arrow''. *1855 - Practiced law in San Francisco, California. *1857-1862 - Principal of Minns Evening Normal School, the predecessor of the

, which, in turn, became

, a campus of the

California State University The California State University (Cal State or CSU) is a public university system in California. With 23 campuses and eight off-campus centers enrolling 485,550 students with 55,909 faculty and staff, CSU is the largest four-year public univers ...

system. *June, 1865-June, 1866 - Returns to principal of the California State Normal School.

Education

*1836 -

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

*1838(?) -

Bachelor of Laws Bachelor of Laws ( la, Legum Baccalaureus; LL.B.) is an undergraduate law degree in the United Kingdom and most common law jurisdictions. Bachelor of Laws is also the name of the law degree awarded by universities in the People's Republic of Chi ...

Howard Dane Law School Howard is an English-language given name originating from Old French Huard (or Houard) from a Germanic source similar to Old High German ''*Hugihard'' "heart-brave", or ''*Hoh-ward'', literally "high defender; chief guardian". It is also probabl ...

References

External links

A short biographical sketch of George W. Minns.
1813 births 1895 deaths Harvard University alumni Schoolteachers from California Lawyers from Boston San Jose State University 19th-century American lawyers 19th-century American educators {{US-academic-administrator-stub