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Heywood Broun, Lincoln Steffens, Floyd Dell, Director William A.
Hodson of the New York Welfare Council, Lawyer Jerome Frank, Vice
President Sheldon R. Coons of Lord & Thomas (advertising), one-time
Mayor Henry Thomas Hunt of Cincinnati, Morris Greenberg of Paramount
Publix Corp., Parole Director Winthrop D. Lane of the State of New
Jersey. John M. Kaplan, proprietor of Hearn's department store in
Manhattan, many a New York college professor. Hessian Hills' aim is a
socialized group in which the pupils feel a sense of communal
enterprise and responsibility. Much of its success has resulted from
the intelligence and enthusiasm of the parents. Any feeling of
competition is avoided; the child is to compete not against his
fellows but against his own previous efforts. Flexible, searching, the
Hessian Hills theory (though disclaimed as a theory) was well under way
by 1931. With Robert Imandt as shop director, the pupils worked at
weaving, metal, wood and leather work, drawing and painting. Elizabeth
Moos taught Rhythmics and directed academic work: social sciences, then
arithmetic and writing, after these reading and so on. The parents met
regularly, joined in school activities. The village of Croton watched
a bit suspiciously the hatless, overalled, unrepressed children,
dashing down to look at local industries, asking grown-up questions.
The Croton truant officer was perplexed, too. Once he offered to help
round up Hessian Hills truants, along with those from the public
schools. He was told that was unnecessary; but if he liked he might
help Hessian Hills at its difficult daily job of getting the children
to go home when school is over.
One day in January 1931 Hessian Hills School burned to the ground. The
parents immediately got together to plan for a new school. With a
larger enrolment (at present 63, ranging from 20 mo. to high school
age) they would need a larger school, ultimately to cost $65,000. A
new plan they got for nothing, from Howe & Lescaze of New York and
Philadelphia, who wished to design a modern, functional
school-building. Within a few months the Hessian Hills parents, organized as
a non-profit-making corporation, had enough money to begin the first
unit of the school, a long, low, glass & concrete building with a flat
roof upon which some day another section can be built. The parents got
to work painting it, digging ditches, doing all the odd jobs that
remained. Last fortnight was dedicated the second unit of Hessian
Hills' new plant, a wing containing an auditorium, music room, shower
baths and locker rooms. Half of the $12,000 that this cost was given by
Manhattan Philanthropist George Dupont Pratt in memory of his wife
whose name it bears, the rest by friends of the school. In these rooms
as throughout the school, all the bric-a-brac, small furniture and
decoration is the work of Hessian Hills pupils.
Hessian Hills parents meet fortnightly for discussion, monthly for work
about the school. At their last meeting they questioned Dr. George
Sylvester Count's of Teachers College about his proposal that school
teachers "indoctrinate" their pupils with liberalism. Of the same
intellectual bent if not in the same wage group, the Hessian Hills
parents contribute more to their children's teaching than most
parents do.
