The mystery of the wall

So I am alone in having wondered why it was that City View Elementary was enclosed by what was clearly an old, well-constructed, stone wall?
I asked Mr. Ganem, the principal, about this when I visited today, and he solved the mystery. City View is built on what was the Worcester Normal School, aka Worcester State College/University, which was, as you can see here, a lovely Victorian building:
(h/t to WorcesterMass.com for the photos above)
The Worcester Normal* School moved to Chandler Street in 1932, the same year it became the Worcester State Teachers College.
The stone wall has stood the test of time:



And this also, of course, explains the name of the street that runs along the bottom of St. Ann's hill:




*there's some disagreement about the term. It might be from the "norms" that they were setting for teachers. There's also the French École Normale which means something like "model school" as the student teachers would have an actual school in which to practice teaching.