Harvard University

GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATION
BUREAU OF VOCATIONAL GUIDANCE

JOHN M. BREWER, Director
FREDERICK J. ALLEN, Research Associate
MILDRED G. SEARS, Secretary

1 LAWRENCE HALL
CAMBRIDGE 38, MASS.

July 16, 1933.

Mrs. W. Murray Crane,
Chote Cottage,
Woods Hole, Mass.

My dear Mrs. Crane:

You will share my satisfaction in knowing of the great success of Miss Parkhurst's visit. I feel that she has come into a busy summer school and has given a real message which could not be obtained in any other way and has gotten this message into the hearts and minds of people to such extent that the Dalton Laboratory Plan has been discussed in many of our classes. She has given of herself beyond all that any one could ask or expect and we are very grateful for her willingness and helpfulness. It is a personal satisfaction to me to have Harvard University faced with the necessity of considering this plan.

With best wishes,

(COPY)

Ushigeto ku
Seijo School, Tokyo, Japan.

July 6, 1923

Miss Helen Parikhurst
Childrens University, New York

Dear Miss Parikhurst:

Your system of education, as presented through your book, "The Dalton Laboratory Plan," has been received with keen interest by many leading educators of Japan. It is now their earnest desire to make fully understand your splendid work and thus thru the united efforts of the Seijo School and the Osaka Mainichi, you are invited to visit Japan to present your new system of education in person.

You are asked to speak before audiences composed of the leaders in progressive educational affairs in five or six of the largest cities of our country.

The Seijo School stands foremost as an educational center where large bodies of teachers gather to exchange views and promote better systems for education of children of Japan. It is the foremost experimental school in Japan. Its head, Dr. Sawayanagi is Honorable President of the Imperial Educational Association of Japan and a member of The House of Peers. He is now attending the Convention of the National Educational Association of America.

The Osaka Mainichi is one of the greatest news organizations in Japan.

During your free time, while in Japan, you will be guided to our places of special historical interest and landscape scenery.

The Cherry Blossom Season in April and Maple Time of October are our most delightful months. You are asked to choose one of these seasons to make your visit to us.

All your expenses during that month will be paid by those who urge your coming. Seijo School and Osaka Mainichi and they will delight in making your stay in Japan as enjoyable as is in their power. In addition to the payment of expenses while in this country we will send one thousand dollars to you upon receipt of your acceptance and ask you to send this by cable in order that we may make plans immediately for your work in Japan.

Upon your departure one thousand dollars will be presented to you. May you find it possible to favor us with your presence in our land.

Por J. Akira,
Acting Head Teacher.

(COPY)

THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN
MADISON

July 26, 1923

Dear Miss Parkhurst:

I wish to express the hope that you will be able to
carry through to complete fruition the Dalton School Plan in Education
which you have originated and the superiority of which you have so
effectively proven. American educators are expecting a great deal from
the Dalton School Plan because it fulfills the aim of American education
better than any other plan that has been proposed at any time. The
whole-hearted way in which those who are familiar with the plan have
accepted and endorsed it is the best indication of its fundamental
soundness and practical usefulness. Critical and competent students of
education who have listened to your exposition of the Dalton School Plan
and who have visited your school have commended it highly, and many of
them are planning to put the plan into operation in their own school
systems.

In order that the plan may be most successful it must
be worked out in great detail under your direction. There must be
facilities to make careful scientific measurements constantly in order
to test the results of the various aspects of the plan. You should have
in your staff of teachers well-trained men and women who can comprehend
the plan, who are in sympathy with it, who will assist in making it
effective not only in your school but throughout the country, and not
only our own country but all progressive countries. The fact that a
great many school in England and numerous schools in other countries
have already become organized on the Dalton Plan is evidence that the
world is waiting for the kind of education that is supplied in the
Dalton Plan. America probably owes it to the world to show how this
plan can be practically applied in every phase of our educational system.

Educational people everywhere, and citizens who are
familiar with the plan, are praying that you may receive financial support
adequate to your needs. There will be no doubt at all that you will
receive moral and professional support to make the working out of the
plan successful, provided that adequate financial resources are provided.

C O P Y .

Charkoff. 25.7.24.

Dear Colleague!

You will certainly be astonished at receiving

this letter coming from so distant a geographical point, but I
hope You will kindly excuse my darenness ( and my English to)
as mere professional interest and sympathy moved me to address
You the demand that follows. About six months ago the interest
for the Dalton plan has taken place among the most active teach-
ers in the Ukraine. A Dalton bureau has been organised here
in Charkoff and several experiments have been produced in
teaching Mathematics and History on the Dalton Plan. At
present all the military schools in the Ukraine are working on
the Dalton Plan as well as some Commercial and technical schools.
If I should be quite sure that this letter will arrive, I had
sent you some materials, but I think it better to wait for Your
answer.

Now as I have already mentioned the teaching of mathematics and
history is the principal object of interest for my colleagues,
the teaching of languages, (natal and foreign) is quite neglected.
I am a teacher of modern languages (German and French) and there-
fore I resolved to ask You for some information about that subject,
as here in the Ukraine and Russia there are no materials as to
the teaching modern languages on the Dalton Plan. You would
oblige me very much if You could send me some programs, schemes
articles etc. concerning not only the teaching of foreign lan-
guages but also of natal (English) Mutatis Mut ndis I could
apply them for my purpose.

I am in a great trouble as to the way of paying You the cost of
postage as English postage stamps cannot be bought here, but I
think You will nevertheless not refuse my demand and oblige

P.S. My address.
Ukraine. Charkoff.
Show-rawlewskaia 44. Ralf Witte.

C O P Y .

Sgr Instr. S.F. Corder. A.E.C.
att. 2nd Brigade. R.F.A.

Meerut.
India.

24.7.1924.

Dear Miss Rennie,

I don't blame the postman if he did think
the sun had found another victim when I recognised the parcel
of books and gave a whelp of joy! Nor did I waste any time
in reading them. Dr Ballard's book was a revelation of the
ideal method of testing the attainments of the pupil, and
"English for the English" appealed to both heart and mind.
The "Individual Arithmetics" I have found invaluable as a
guide to compiling my own assignments in the subject. Has
the experiment been made, Miss Rennie, similar to the one I
carried out at Beverley, of testing the Intelligence Quotient
and attainments of the pupils of different schools, comparing
those that work under the Dalton Plan with those that do not?
I am sure such an investigation would add still further proof
if at all needed, of the greater intellectual development and
surer grasp of the curriculum afforded by those schools that
do work under the Dalton Plan. As you may remember my pupils
at Beverley gained from 6 months to 18 months in mental age
in the 4 months they were at that Depot Army school as compared w
with the maximum of 4 months increase obtained by other schools.
To thank you adequately for those books is impossible, I can at
least further the great Plan we both have at heart, and ensure
that your great help is not wasted but aids the development of
Army educational training into an enlightened leading of the man
to a realisation of his true self.
Again many thanks, Miss Rennie.

["No. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

C O P Y

Head Quarters.
Presidancy & Assam District.
India.
8th July 1924.

Dear Madam,

I wish to thank you very much for the very interesting details you sent me on the working of the "Dalton" plan. We are applying it to all forms of individual training for British Soldiers in this District as an experiment in the many subjects that you will see on the card enclosed.

Again thanking you very much for the assistance.
I will certainly take the liberty of writing to tell you of the result of its working.

Miss B.Rennie.
Hon. Sec. Dalton Association
35 Cornwall Gardens,
Kensington S.W. 7.

CHILDRENS UNIVERSITY SCHOOL

10 WEST 72ND STREET
NEW YORK

TELEPHONE: ENDICOTT 2515

EDUCATIONAL DIRECTOR
HELEN PARKHURST

August 26th, 1924.

My dear Mrs. Crane:

I have just returned and in going through
the papers found some interesting correspondence from Miss Rennie
which will explain itself.

She certainly is a geasaless worker. They
have some new stationery and I see that they have made me president
of the Dalton Association. I appreciate Miss Rennie's consideration
and unselfish interest but I do not want to be president nor do
I think it a good thing. She may have had an idea that my being
president might assure people in England that I was behind what she
did but I do not believe that she considered other sides of the
matter sufficiently.

I think it would be an excellent thing for
you to be president and in every way appropriate. Why not? Think
about it.

Mrs. W. Murray Crane,
Seafield,
Woodshole, Mass.

TIMES EDUCATIONAL SUPPLEMENT.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR.

THE DALTON PLAN.

Sir,

I shall be most grateful if you will afford me the hospitality of your columns in order to correct a very erroneous impression which may have been spread abroad by an address given by Sir Robert Blair to the Imperial Conference on Education, in which he referred to the Dalton Plan as being in an experimental stage, and warned teachers against experiments to the detriment of the educational advancement of their pupils.

It is, of course, difficult for any one not in touch with the Dalton movement to have any idea of its universal diffusion and incontrovertible success. On every continent Dalton Schools exist, and from 16 different countries I have reports of their growth in number and success. England leads the van of progress with thousands of schools. Their efficiency and the atmosphere of keenness, responsibility and initiative win golden opinions from visitors from all parts of the world.

The root idea of the Dalton Plan is not, of course, new. It strikes a direct balance between class teaching and individual work, and was the method used in the old Parish schools of Scotland, where one graduate teacher was responsible for all the scholars, and managed it in the soundest and most common sense way by giving each class plenty of work to do on its own while he was occupied in giving class lessons to each group in turn.

Examination results, though admittedly not faultless tests of individual ability, are, nevertheless, essential to success. No scheme of education could hope to take its place permanently amongst us unless it could show that in examinations it assured results equal to those gained under the old methods. We intend to show, at a Dalton meeting at the Conference of Educational Associations at University College, in January 1925, that the Dalton Plan comes triumphantly out of this test. I will briefly mention two instances in proof of the mass of evidence of the success attained by Dalton scholars in public examinations, upon which the Dalton Association will be able to draw at this meeting.

The first is the result in a girls' school (secondary) in the London area. The headmistress said that after over a year's work on the Dalton Plan she decided that the gain of her girls in character, initiative and general capacity was so great and so evident that she felt their chances in life had been indisputably increased, even if the examination results were not so good as before. For the first time in the annals of the school all the pupils who went up for Matriculation and the School Leaving Certificates were successful, some gaining five distinctions.

The second instance is that of the scholarship examinations in a provincial area. The pupils in the Dalton Elementary school in this town gained 6 out of 14 available scholarships, although they had not been specially prepared for the examination. Other schools in the town gained four and the surrounding country districts four.

I regret that the caution exercised by the Dalton Association in waiting five years before making any boast of Dalton schools examination successes should have led yo any public pronouncement which might seem to reflect on the wisdom, enterprise and devotion of those who have been sufficiently progressive in spirit to adopt this method in their schools.

I should like, if you will allow me, to mention here the sympathetic and open-minded spirit of county education authorities who have co-operated so graciously and willingly in organising large meeting s for teachers in the provincial towns on the subject of the Dalton Plan, which no one conversant with its working, can doubt is a big step forward on the road of progress in education.

BELLE RENNIE. Hon.Sec. Dalton Association.