The first Normal Institute for Tennessee teachers was held at UT in 1880. It was a free six-week summer program in which UT faculty donated their time and the local school superintendent and experienced teachers also assisted. Approximately one hundred teachers attended. In summer 1882, with Peabody Foundation funding, the first State Normal School (or Institute) was held on campus for four weeks, with an attendance of over two hundred teachers. State Normal Institutes were discontinued in 1885 but were the forerunners of UT’s Summer School of the South.