The Allen School: An Alternative Nineteenth-Century Education, 1818-1852

Abstract

In this account of an experiment in early American education, Judith Strong Albert draws upon the 1818 to 1852 journals of a distinguished New England teacher, Lucy Clark Ware Allen. Ms. Albert describes a nineteenth-century parsonage school that stressed the "innate goodness" of a child's nature and placed emphasis on practice and experience in education. She contrasts the educational philosophy held by Joseph and Lucy Allen, founders of the Allen School of Northborough, Massachusetts, with the views of the leading educational idealist of that era, Bronson Alcott, and provides an illuminating study of an early model in alternative education.