NOTES FOR TALK GIVEN TO DALTON SCHOOL TRUSTEES
BY JOSEPHINE BOARDMAN CRANE

MAY 19, 1953

I am not a speaker, and shall probably fumble around a good deal, forgetting dates, etc. I was interested in so-called progressive schools when my children were growing up. I visited the Francis Parker School in Chicago, the Moraine Park School in Ohio and the Lincoln School here in New York. I joined something called The Progressive Education Society in Washington, D.C. I did not like them, though of course they had many excellent fruits.

I had read a book on the Montessori Method, and when I wanted a nursery governess for my daughter, I asked Miss Helen Parkhurst, then directing a school for Montessori teachers here in New York, to come to Dalton for a talk. She came, said she would find me a governess, and we talked primary and secondary education. What is the matter with it, I asked?

Miss Parkhurst told me of how she thought a plan could be used which would liberate the creative faculties of children, which later developed into the so-called Dalton Laboratory Plan. We must try it, I said. I believe in it, but will it work? Miss Parkhurst was very doubtful of any school boards accepting such a radical change. I said, "I think I can arrange to try it out in the Berkshire School for Crippled Children."

I had started a camp for crippled children, and Mrs. Elizabeth S. Coolidge later had given her house and grounds in

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the outskirts of Pittsfield so that boys could be helped all the year around. There were then, I think, about twenty-five boys from eight or ten years to fourteen, one academic teacher, the education being mostly hand crafts, etc. You can imagine that arranging assignments was not easy. However, it worked - superbly, I thought, the teacher behind it and the boys behind it. There were no behaviour problems.

I then talked with the teachers of the Dalton High School. They were willing to try the plan if the school board would give consent. Now, the school board consisted of three members, one elderly bookkeeper accountant, the Dalton School Superintendent and Mr. Cecil Taylor, an old socialist. He was on my side at once. Socialists like change. The other trio members were a little difficult, however, but they came around and consented to try out for a year of the system.

The school was divided into laboratories with monthly assignments. It turned out that the student could finish his four year course in three, and some did. The teachers and children were all on our side, but the parents were another matter. "Our children are studying too hard," they said.

John Dewey came to see the school. Evelyn Dewey wrote a book about it. Miss Belle Rennie of London, who had introduced Montessori methods in England, came. The *London Times Education Supplement* asked Miss Parkhurst to write a number of articles, which she did. The largest girls high school at Streatham, England (seven hundred girls), went on the plan, and a number of other schools adopted it in part. The Polish ambassador in Washington told me it was being tried out in Poland.

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The Method had been proved to my satisfaction, but, most
important of all, was the establishment of an elementary school
here in New York, at 10 West 72nd Street and at 8 West 72nd Street.

The Dalton Plan is a piece of machinery, as it were. It
can be used in various ways and extents. I wish I had time to
tell you of its successful use for the last thirty years at
the Berkshire Museum.

Children are happy. They work as anyone would who had a
piece of work to do. They used to return to school during the
vacations, particularly Easter, and get ahead with their assign-
ments. People all over the world were deeply interested: England,
Japan, China, Italy, Holland, Peru and Chile.

A prophet is not without honor save in his own country.