New Light on the Early History of Walden School

Walden School, a celebrated Manhattan private school, began in the Progressive Era. In the winter and spring 1913, twenty-one year old Montessori pioneer Margaret Naumburg attended the very first International Montessori Teacher Training Course in Rome, Italy. In the summer that year, in London, England, she had lessons with F. M. Alexander — in what in 1910 he referred to as ―Re-education of the Kinæsthetic Systems‖ and in 1912 as ―Conscious Control‖ (a method with precursors in performing arts training addressing postural, vocal, repertory and habits aspects). Later that year, Naumburg introduced a Montessori class in a Manhattan settlement house with the musician Claire Raphael, incorporating Dalcroze music and movement instruction within the Montessori framework. In 1914, Naumburg and Raphael began a Montessori class at Leete School, a private school for girls. Between 1914 and 1917, Naumburg began Jungian psychoanalysis with Beatrice Moses Hinkle. As Naumburg and Raphael had done earlier integrating movement disciplines with Montessori classes, Naumburg now incorporated psychoanalytic themes into the school curriculum. In 1917, Naumburg relocated her classes at Leete School, opened them to boys and girls, and called it Children’s School — renamed Walden School in 1922. From its inception in 1914, New York City media reported on the mixed Montessori/creative expression/psychoanalysis/Alexander inspired educational venture. Naumburg published her accounts of the school between 1917 and 1928.