On March 13, 1855, Charlotte, then seventeen years old, passed an entrance examination and enrolled in the second class of Salem Normal School, founded only six months earlier as the fourth such institution in Massachusetts and the eighth in the nation. The first black to enroll, Charlotte, though apprehensive, determined to acquire skills to help herself and her race. The atmosphere of both the school and the city soon tested her determination as well as strengthened her for her role as teacher of both blacks and whites.

On March 14, 1855, when Charlotte Forten joined forty other newly admitted students for their first classes at Salem Normal School, she lacked her father's approval. Although she wrote to him in Canada for permission, she received no response until he directed her to return to Philadelphia immediately. The principal, Richard Edwards, urged her to write requesting reconsideration, and Mary Shepard offered to pay or loan the girl money to continue her education. Reluctantly, Robert Forten agreed to allow Charlotte to remain temporarily, though he apparently made no effort to provide for her expenses.

She found teaching to be
"so thorough and earnest that it
increases the love of knowledge
and the desire to acquire it."

In various journal entries Charlotte recorded her pleasure as a Salem Normal School student. She found the teaching to be "so thorough and earnest that it increases the love of knowledge and the desire to acquire it." She found the work intellectually stimulating. In fact, Edwards and several of his teachers took a special interest in her, providing invitations to their homes. Several entries note Charlotte's eagerness to return to classes at the end of each vacation. She developed some friendships, her closest companion being Elizabeth, or Lizzie, Church. Their friendship persisted beyond student days.

Other classmates, however, failed to show similar kindness. After two months, Charlotte noted that but few students had made her acquaintance, not one of whom extended "full and entire sympathy." Later she allowed "I have met girls in the schoolroom - they have been thoroughly kind and cordial to me - perhaps the next day met them in the street - they feared to recognize me." Others, she added, "give me the most distant recognition possible." In return for these slights, "I of course acknowledge no such recognition, and they cease entirely." Surely, Charlotte's obsession with the anti-slavery cause, reinforced by the activities she shared with the Remonds, made her particularly sensitive to such manifestations of discrimination. But not all of her classmates were so insensitive. Sarah Brown, Charlotte soon discovered, seems "the only one who heartily appreciates anti-slavery."

In spite of the lack of warmth Charlotte often experienced from her classmates, she wrote that "more and more pleasant becomes my Normal School life," her love of learning undaunted. The rigorous curriculum allowed little leisure time, although extracurricular activities included occasional filed trips, a rare picnic or day at the beach, or family-centered activities. The school's first register indicates Charlotte's near perfect attendance: one late arrival and four absences in three terms. This record seems to belie later claims that she often fell ill and illustrates that studies held her highest priority.

HARLOTTE COMMENCED her last term on March 12, 1856. A few weeks later Edwards began to urge her to consider extending her stay and enrolling in the new Advanced Program. But Charlotte's financial problems and the absence of letters of support from her father in Canada distressed her. In the early spring, she applied for a job as governess with a family in Rhode Island, apparently apprehensive of the willingness of school systems to hire a person of color. In mid-June, a month before final examinations, Edwards summoned Charlotte to his office, announcing her appointment to teach in the coeducational Epes Grammar School in Salem, with her services to commence the following day. Special accommodation allowed her to attend occasional normal school classes. In mid-July she participated in the public examinations, especially nervous since her classmates selected her to compose the parting hymn for the graduation exercises to follow. The day she received her diploma Charlotte recorded that her time in Salem stood "among the happiest of my life," with "the best and kindest teachers and the few friends I have made [that are] warm and true." Charlotte's ties to the normal school continued to be close. Some days, after completing her teaching duties, she visited her "dear school" and kept up her friendships.