This article examines the ways in which the very idea of teacher education in the United States was transplanted from foreign lands. Teacher education, particularly normal school training, was based on a model imported from despotic Prussia, a model that was popularised by French and American visitors to the northeastern German land. Although normal schooling naturally was altered in the American context, the subsequent forms of teacher training, particularly in the emerging universities, owed a great debt to international models as well. This article also explores the ideology of the common school movement, which sought social cohesion, because that ideology helps explain why the Prussian model of teacher training became so attractive to conservative educational reformers in a democratic society.