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SCHOOLS, POLITICS, AND RIOTS :THE GARY PLAN IN NEW YORKCITY, 1914‐1917Raymond A. Mohl a & Boca Raton aa (Florida)Published online: 28 Jul 2006.

To cite this article: Raymond A. Mohl & Boca Raton (1975) SCHOOLS, POLITICS,AND RIOTS : THE GARY PLAN IN NEW YORK CITY, 1914‐1917, PaedagogicaHistorica: International Journal of the History of Education, 15:1, 39-72, DOI:10.1080/0030923750150103

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SCHOOLS, POLITICS, AND RIOTS :THE GARY PLAN IN NEW YORK CITY, 1914-1917

by RAYMOND A. MOHL, Boca Raton (Florida)

In the past decade and a half, the history of American educationhas become an extremely fruitful area of inquiry. Beginning withthe writings of Bernard Bailyn and Lawrence A. Cremin in theearly sixties, historians began to probe seriously the functions ofeducation and the role of the school within the larger frameworkof American society. No longer could historians accept uncriticallythe popular earlier assertions about the school as the progenitorof American democracy. This approach, typified in the writingsof Ellwood Patterson Cubberley, was much too simplistic; itignored many of the more complicated interconnections betweeneducation and society. As Michael B. Katz demonstrated in hisimportant study, The Irony of Early School Reform — and as histo-rians Raymond E. Callahan, David B. Tyack, Marvin Lazerson,Joel H. Spring, Edward A. Krug, Colin Greer, and others haveshown —, the school cannot be isolated from the society withinwhich it exists (1). Looked at from the perspective of the social

(1) Bernard Bailyn, Education in the Forming of American Society (ChapelHill, N.C., 1960); Lawrence A. Cremin, The Transformation of the School :Progressivism in American Education, 1876-1957 (New York, 1961); LawrenceA. Cremin, The Wonderful World of Ellwood Patterson Cubberley (New York,1965); Michael B. Katz, The Irony of Early School Reform : Educational Innovationin Mid-Nineteenth Century Massachusetts (Cambridge, Mass., 1968); Michael B.Katz, Class, Bureaucracy and Schools : The Illusion of Educational Change in America(New York, 1971); Raymond E. Callahan, Education and the Cult of Efficiency :A Study of the Social Forces That Have Shaped the Administration of the PublicSchools (Chicago, 1962); David B. Tyack, The One Best System : A Historyof American Urban Education (Cambridge, Mass., 1974); Marvin Lazerson,Origins of the Urban School: Public Education in Massachusetts, 1870-1915 (Cam-bridge, Mass., 1971); Joel H. Spring, Education and the Rise of the CorporateState (Boston, 1972); Edward A. Krug, The Shaping of the American HighSchool, 1880-1920 (New York, 1964); Colin Greer, The Great School 'Legend(New York, 1972). See also Stanley K. Schultz, The Culture Factory : BostonPublic Schools, 1789-1860 (New York, 1973); Carl F. Kaestle, The Evolution

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historian or the historical sociologist, the school becomes not anagent of democracy but a social institution which reflects thedeeply held values and traditions of the larger society. As acrucial agency of socialization — one which transmits the valuesystem of adults to children — the schools embody the hopes andthe aspirations of a culture. Accordingly, society places a specialimportance on the school as a conservator and guardian ofaccepted values. The school becomes a protector of social orderand an instrument of cohesion; as such, it reflects societal patternsand mirrors public perceptions of many kinds. Thus, few institu-tions can tell us more about the history of a society or a culturethan the schools people have fashioned for their children.

Given their functions as agents of socialization and as custodiansof social values, the schools have proved highly resistant tochange. Overt efforts to alter the pattern of schooling (freeschools, to take a modern example), to introduce curricularmodifications based on values different from those prevailing inthe society at large (sex education, for instance), or to change theinternal institutional arrangements of the schools (such as the new« open» school arrangement) have usually been looked upon asradical threats to social order. Efforts at educational change —usually labeled reform — were attempted on a wide scale in theUnited States during the Progressive Era (1900-1920). As aresult, the schools became ideological battlegrounds betweentraditionalists and progressives, between parents and educators,between politicians and reformers, even between reformers withdiffering sets of values.

An archetypal experiment in progressive educational changeoccurred in New York City between 1914 and 1917 when reformmayor John Purroy Mitchel sought to introduce the much-discussed duplicate school plan first developed in the new steelcity of Gary, Indiana. This struggle illustrates many of the tend-

on an Urban School System : New York City, 1750-1850 (Cambridge, Mass.,1973); and Clarence J. Karier, Paul Violas, and Joel Spring, Roots of Crisis :American Education in the Twentieth Century (Chicago, 1973). An importantearly study which viewed education in a social context is Merle Curti, TheSocial Ideas of American Educators (New York, 1935).

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SCHOOLS, POLITICS, AND RIOTS : NEW YORK CITY, 1914-17 41

encies revealed by the new educational historiography. Theambiguities of urban progressivism, for example, clearly emerge;for different reasons, the Gary school plan appealed both toradical cultural reformers and business-oriented structural re-formers. But above all, the history of the Gary school campaignin New York City firmly suggests the way in which the schoolsreflected the internal conflicts and tensions, as well as the sharedvalues and assumptions, of the larger society. Educational history,in short, becomes social history, intellectual history, and politicalhistory as well.

Elected as a Fusion candidate in 1913, Mayor John PurroyMitchel brought an exciting and thoroughgoing reform adminis-tration to New York City. Dominated in previous decades byTammany corruption and mismanagement, the metropolis underMitchel's leadership became, in the words of one veteran contem-porary observer, « the best governed city in the United States».Mitchel brought a progressive passion for business-like efficiencyto city government. His energetic municipal administrationcaptured the imagination of reform-minded New Yorkers and ofprogressive politicians throughout the nation (1). One of Mitchel'smost ambitious programs involved reforms in the publicschools.

For years the New York City school system had posed seriousfinancial and administrative burdens for municipal officials. By1914, when Mitchel took office, the system had grown to tremen-dous size, provided a variety of specialized services, and absorbed

(1) Burton J. Hendrick, « The Mayor of New York», The World's Work,XXXII (September, 1916), 522; John Purroy Mitchel,« What We Have Donefor New York», The Independent, LXXXII (May 10, 1915), 237-39;« MayorMitchel and His Work», The North American Review, CCVI (August, 1917),261-70; H. S. Gilbertson, « Municipal Revolution under Mayor Mitchel»,The American Review of Reviews, LVI (September, 1917), 300-303; WilliamHard, « The New York Mayoralty Campaign : Mayor Mitchel's Record»,The New Republic, XII (October 13, 1917), 291-94; Edwin R. Lewinson, JohnPurroy Mitchel : The Boy Mayor of New York (New York, 1965).

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the biggest chunk of the city's annual budget. Some 20,000 teach-ers handled almost 800,000 students in that year, while the Boardof Education's budget totaled more than 44 million dollars. Thesystem was, as historian Sol Cohen has noted,« one of the marvelsof the world of education ». But expansion of the system had notkept pace with New York's population, swelled by the influx ofnew immigrants during the last decades of the nineteenth centuryand the early years of the twentieth. The city did not have enoughschools, especially in rapidly growing sections in upper Manhattan,Brooklyn, and the Bronx. Existing schools were terribly over-crowded and close to 120,000 students attended double sessionsor received only part-time schooling. The costs of new schoolbuildings to accommodate these children and eliminate the« part-time evil » seemed prohibitive (1).

Furthermore, some educators and progressive reformers faultedthe system on educational grounds. Their primary complaint wasthat the curriculum failed to prepare children for life and work.Progressive educators especially advocated the introduction ofvocational and manual training in the curriculum, from the ele-mentary grades through high school. Such additions were neces-sary, they argued, because about 50 per cent of the city's childrenleft school after the sixth grade, and only 10 per cent graduatedfrom high school; thrown onto the labor market without anyskills, these children were forced into low-wage jobs in factoriesand sweatshops. As an administration report noted, «the peoplewere tired of seeing the children swarming all over the city theday after graduation looking for work and unfitted to do anythingthat could support them». Reform groups like the importantPublic Education Association of New York City — essentially anorganization lobbying for progressive educational reforms —

(1) Sol Cohen, Progressives and Urban School Reform : Tie Public EducationAssociation of New York City, 189J-1954 (New York, 1964), 86-87; JohnPurroy Mitchel, Speech at Cooper Union, October 2, 1917, transcript, box 32,John Purroy Mitchel Papers, Library of Congress (hereafter cited as LC);« The Truth About the Gary Schools», The Fusion Flashlight, I (October 4,1917), 1, box 52, ibid.

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contended that the schools had failed such children, as well as thecommunity at large (1).

Administrative problems also beset the schools. Some criticsfocused on the bureaucratic nature of a system in which the Boardof Estimate and Apportionment — a division of the City Council— made appropriations, the Board of Education made policydecisions, and the Superintendent of Schools and his Board ofSuperintendents administered the schools. Moreover, the Boardof Estimate increasingly sought to reduce the policy-making powerof the Board of Education, creating serious conflict within thebureaucracy. The large size of the appointive Board of Education— 46 in number during the Mitchel years — provided anotherbone of contention. Many thought the large board best representeddivergent interests and permitted widespread community partici-pation in school matters, but Mitchel believed a smaller schoolboard would be more efficient — or perhaps more easily manip-ulated — and sought legislative approval for such a change.Efficiency-minded progressives — like Mitchel — viewed risingschool costs with alarm, especially as such increases did not seemto be matched by greater productivity within the system. Attemptsto move in that direction — in the form of larger classes, lowerteacher salaries or, alternatively, a longer school year or a longerschool day —met with howls of disapproval from teachers, addingto contention within the city's educational system (2).

(1) William G. Willcox, « Memorandum Re Industrial Education», June30, 1914, box 7, Mitchel Papers, LC; « Why New York City Adopted theGary School», undated memorandum, box 47, ibid.; Cohen, Progressives andUrban School Reform, pp. 73-74. On the industrial education movement, seeSol Cohen, «The Industrial Education Movement», American Quarterly, XX(Spring, 1968), 95-110; Cremin, Transformation of the School, pp. 21-57; BereniceM. Fisher, Industrial Education : American Ideals and Institutions (Madison, Wise,1967); and Arthur G. Wirth, Education in the Technological Society (Scranton,Pa., 1972).

(2) Howard W. Nudd, « A Small Board of Education for New York»,PEA Bulletin, No. 24 (December 22, 1914); John Purroy Mitchel to ThomasW. Churchill, January 23, 1915, box 164, John Purroy Mitchel Papers,New York Municipal Archives and Records Center (hereafter cited as NYMA);Churchill to Mitchel, April 20, 1915, box 215, ibid.; John Purroy Mitchel,Speech at Aldine Club Luncheon, February 10, 1915, transcript, box 29,

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By the time he took office on January 1, 1914, Mayor Mitchelrecognized the schools as one of his major problems. He had alsoacquired considerable knowledge and expertise about them as amember of the Board of Estimate prior to 1914. He resolved tobring efficiency to this branch of city administration, as well as toothers, even if it meant asserting political control over the Boardof Education. And he firmly believed that better education couldbe had for less money. Cooperative programs with industry, pre-vocational training, and other progressive educational reformscould be introduced without extravagant expenditures (1). Theschool plan developed by Superintendent of Schools William A.Wirt in Gary, Indiana, seemed to promise fulfillment of bothprogressive goals.

In the rising steel city on the southern shore of Lake Michigan,Wirt had fashioned a school system from scratch. A disciple ofJohn Dewey, he sought to construct his educational programentirely along progressive principles. Wirt labeled the result the«work, study, play plan» (also called «duplicate schools» or«platoon schools»). The system embodied both efficiency andenriched educational experiences in a community-like atmos-phere.

Many progressives were attracted to the Gary plan because ofits economical features. With a school population increasingrapidly as the new city expanded, but with only a few small,overcrowded school buildings at first, Wirt found it necessary toget maximum use out of his school plant. Thus, the innovativeeducator divided the students in each building into two schoolsor « platoons », which he called X and Y. For the first half of theschool day, platoon X filled all the classrooms, where they studiedtraditional academic subjects. Meanwhile, platoon Υ broke up

Mitchel Papers, LC; William A. Prendergast Memoir, p. 747, Oral HistoryArchives, Columbia University.

(1) In 1911 and 1912 Mitchel had headed the Board of Estimate's Com-mittee on School Inquiry, an investigation prompted by the Board's concernabout inefficiency and excessive spending in the school system. See Paul H.Hanus, School Efficiency : A Constructive Study Applied to New York City (Yon-kers, N.Y., 1913); and the Public School Inquiry Papers, New-York HistoricalSociety.

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into smaller groups for a succession of specialized activities : thesestudents utilized the athletic fields, gymnasiums, and swimmingpools; they took instruction in art, music, dancing, or dramatics;they studied in school libraries or science laboratories; some wenton field trips into the community; by turns, they attended audi-torium periods for group singing, movies, student theatricals, orspecial lectures by outside speakers; girls received training inhome economics, while boys attended classes in workshops or onthe school farm. After lunch, the two platoons switched, platoon Υattending classrooms and platoon X going to the specializedactivities. In Wirt's duplicate schools, every room, facility, andpiece of equipment received full use throughout the school day.The successful establishment of a « work, study, play» programdepended, of course, upon a full range of facilities in addition toclassrooms. Wirt contended, however, that these facilities wereessential in any school and that, in any case, they cost less thanthe new school buildings that otherwise would be required tohandle the same number of students (1).

But the Gary schools had other advantages, too. Following theideas of Dewey and other progressive educators, Wirt sought tomake each school« a self-sustaining child community», the edu-cational environment in these well-equipped schools matching lifein the adult world. By providing children with a wide range ofexperiences, and by enriching the school day with activitiesbeyond the traditional curriculum, Wirt's schools aimed not onlyto prepare students for life but also to enable them to cope moreadequately with the conditions of an industrial society. As JohnDewey wrote in his book, Schools of Tomorrow, the Gary schoolssought to train children to make « the most intelligent use of their

(1) An early and favorable account of Wirt's school system can be foundin Randolph S. Bourne, The Gary Schools (Boston, 1916; reprinted, Cambridge,Mass., 1970). See also William Paxton Burris, « The Public School System ofGary, Ind.», United States Bureau of Education, Bulletin, No. 18 (1914);Rheta Childe Dorr, « Keeping the Children in School», Hampton's Magazine,XXVII (July, 1911), 5 5-66; Albert Jay Nock,« An Adventure in Education»,The American Magazine, LXXVII (April, 1914), 25-28; C. G. Pearse, « Gary :The City Which Has Seen a Great Light», The American School, I (April, 1915),104-107; Callahan, Education and the Cult of Efficiency, pp. 126-36.

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own capabilities and of their environment» (1). The Gary schools,in short, reflected the two, often contradictory, thrusts of theprogressive education movement — the drive toward efficiencyand economy, on the one hand, and the urge to provide a naturaland enriched schooling in which children learned by doing, onthe other.

The lesson of Gary's platoon schools was not lost on efficiency-minded progressives. With some additional facilities, Wirt hadsucceeded in squeezing twice as many students into a single schoolbuilding. Yet, educational programs actually had been expanded.Here was the kind of productivity, matched by potentially tre-mendous financial savings, which Mitchel sought for New YorkCity.

By 1912, the Wirt schools had received national attention, andspecialists in vocational guidance had begun to advocate theGary plan. Shortly after Mitchel's election, Abraham Flexner ofthe Public Education Association (P.E.A.) also began to promotethe Gary system, while other educational reformers pushed forsimilar improvements in the schools. In March of 1914, severalP.E.A. and New York City school officials made separate trips toGary, in each case describing the Wirt plan in glowing terms intheir reports (2). In June, Mayor Mitchel, City ComptrollerWilliam A. Prendergast, Board of Education president ThomasW. Churchill, and other city officials travelled to Gary to person-ally examine its schools. Favorably impressed, Mitchel soon hiredWirt as a part-time consultant to the Board of Estimate to super-vise installation of the Gary plan in selected elementary schoolson an experimental basis (3). Mitchel was clearly optimistic that

(1) Bourne, The Gary Schools, p. 37; John Dewey and Evelyn Dewey,Schools of Tomorrow (New York, 1915; reprinted, New York, 1962), p. 181.

(2) New York Globe, October 29, 1912, Clipping File, Indiana Room, GaryPublic Library (hereafter cited as GPL); Winthrop D. Lane,« Education andWork : A Twilight Zone», The Survey, XXIX (November 23, 1912), 228;Abraham Flexner to William A. Wirt, January 25, 1914, William A. WirtPapers, Lilly Library, Indiana University; Memorandum to Henry Bruere,May 25, 1914, box 191, Mitchel Papers, NYMA; Harriet M. Johnson,« TheSchools of Gary», PEA Bulletin, No. 23 (June 5, 1914).

(3) Churchill to Wirt, May 21, June 16, 1914, Wirt Papers; Wirt toChurchill, July 30, 1914, box 7, Mitchel Papers, LC; John Purroy Mitchel,

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extension of the Gary system of duplicate schools would endpart-time, improve industrial training, and provide better educa-tion — all at greatly reduced cost. The city administration, helater noted, was not prepared «to waste large amounts of publicmoney on an inert educational administration»; but adoption ofthe Gary plan would enable the city «to finance an infinitelyricher and more practical education for its children» (1). ForMayor Mitchel the Gary school plan had become a panacea.

Within a month of beginning his New York work, Wirt hadreorganized two elementary schools on the Gary plan. At PublicSchool (P.S.) 89 in Brooklyn, one of the most overcrowdedschools in the city, modification of existing rooms and the additionof some specialized equipment facilitated implementation of theplatoon system. Similar changes were made in another over-crowded school, P.S. 45 in the Bronx. Wirt contended that theGary system was only partially complete in both schools, and thatnumerous additional facilities (gymnasium, playground, swim-ming pool, library, auditorium, workshops, and a long list ofequipment) were necessary before a full test of the program couldbe made. Nevertheless, Mitchel and even the Board of Education,at this point, remained optimistic about the larger possibilities ofWirt's innovations. In December, 1914, the Board of Educationasked Wirt to draw up plans for a duplicate program in elevenadditional Bronx elementary schools (2).

John Purroy Mitchel proved an impatient reformer. In the fallof 1915 he sought to expand the Gary system to all elementary

Address at the Eighty-second Commencement of the New York University (New York,1914), pp. 5-7; Thomas W. Churchill,« The Amazing Schools I Saw at Gary»,The Delineator, LXXXV (September, 1914), 15; New York Times, October 29,November 1, 1914; Gary Tribune, September 1, 2, 3, 1914.

(1) John Purroy Mitchel, The Mayor to the Citizens of New York (n.p.,1916), p. 31.

(2) Public Education Association, The Official Wirt Reports to the Board ofEducation of New York City (New York, 1916); William A. Wirt, « Report ona Proposed Reorganization for Public Schools Nos. 28, 2, 42, 6, 50, 44, 5, 53,40, 32, 4, and 45, the Bronx, New York City», undated typescript, box 191,Mitchel Papers, NYMA; Wirt to Mitchel, September 24, 1915, box 9, MitchelPapers, LC; Wirt to Churchill, December 23, 1914, February 27, 1915, WirtPapers.

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schools throughout the city. In a letter of September 27 to schoolboard president Churchill advocating the extension, Mitchel notedthat the earlier demonstrations in Brooklyn and the Bronx hadbeen successful; considering the city's financial burdens, hewrote,«it is fortunate that we have available a method of utilizingthe existing school facilities which will enable us to keep downexpenses for new buildings and equipment, while actually im-proving the quality of education» (1). City Comptroller WilliamA. Prendergast reiterated these points in an article in the AmericanReview of Reviews, entitled « Why New York City Needs a NewSchool Plan». The Gary system, Prendergast contended, was«the only plan that has presented a real germ of relief to NewYork City's difficult school problem, considered from the view-point of both education and finance» (2). To reinforce its deter-mination on the Gary issue, the Board of Estimate, dominated byMitchel and Prendergast, refused to increase the 1916 budget ofthe Board of Education above the appropriation of the previousyear. The practical result of this decision was to prevent theconstruction of any new school buildings, making the Gary planthe only immediate and viable alternative to overcrowding inmany parts of the city (3).

Churchill viewed these efforts by the mayor and the Board ofEstimate as improper meddling in the affairs of the Board ofEducation. Although he had originally praised Wirt's schools inGary and endorsed the Gary experiment in New York, Churchillincreasingly grew disenchanted. He felt Mitchel was pushing theGary plan before it had been properly evaluated in the trial

(1) Mitchel to Churchill, September 27, 1915, box 164, Mitchel Papers,NYMA. See also New York Times, September 28, 1915; New York Globe,September 28, 1915, Clipping File, GPL.

(2) William A. Prendergast, « Why New York City Needs a New SchoolPlan», The American Review of Reviews, LII (November, 1915), 584-88. See alsoWilliam A. Prendergast to Board of Estimate and Apportionment, September11, 1915, Wirt Papers; New York Times, September 17, 1915; New York Mail,September 16, 1915, Clipping File, GPL.

(3) Bessie C. Stern to Wirt, November 1, 1915, Wirt Papers; New YorkGlobe, October 15, 28, November 18, 26, December 3, 18, 1915, Clipping File,GPL; Tristram Walker Metcalfe to Mitchel, November 5, 1915, box 191,Mitchel Papers, NYMA.

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schools. He believed the administration's excessive concern withfinancial savings would undercut quality education in the schools.He was not convinced that the Gary plan meant better educationat less cost (1). Finally, Churchill objected to the way in whichMitchel and the Board of Estimate sought to usurp the schoolboard's authority and dictate educational policy.

Mitchel's effort to whip the school board into line on the Garyissue was accompanied by a vigorous campaign to sell the Garyplan to New Yorkers. The most aggressive publicist was AliceBarrows Fernande2, a former teacher, social worker, and P.E.A.activist. From her position as director of the school board'sVocational Education Survey, Fernandez mobilized influentialprogressives and powerful civic groups in support of the Garysystem. Throughout 1915 and 1916 she co-ordinated pro-Garyforces, cultivated Mitchel and his aides, attended innumerablemeetings, wrote newspaper and magazine articles, addressedgroups large and small, and sought publicity for the Gary plan atevery turn. In 1916 she organized the Gary School League topromote the new school plan and counter growing criticism.Fernandez also doubled as Wirt's private secretary for his NewYork work, arranged his speaking schedule, and kept him in-formed with long and detailed letters on the state of the schoolsituation in New York City (2). Others contributed in important

(1) Churchill to Mitchel, October 4, 1915, box 9, Mitchel Papers, LC;New York City, ]ournal of the Board of Education of the City of New York (October13, 1915), 1551-53; New York Times, October 5, 1915; New York Globe,October 8, December 20, 1915, Clipping File, GPL. See also New York Globe,October 15, 1917.

(2) The activities of Fernandez can best be followed in her extensivecorrespondence located in the Wirt Papers. See also Fernandez to Paul C.Wilson, December 21, 1914, box 191, Mitchel Papers, NYMA; New YorkEvening Mail, March 4, 1916, Clipping File, GPL; Alice Barrows Fernandez,«The Meaning of the Wirt Plan», The New Republic, VII (July 1, 1916),221-23. For her newspaper articles, see New York Tribune, October 25, 28,November 4, 8, 11, 15, 22, 25, 29, December 2, 6, 9, 16, 20, 23, 27, 1915,January 3, 6, 7, 10, 13, 17, March 20, 23, 1916, Clipping File, GPL; New YorkEvening Post, June 28, 1915, clipping, box 191, Mitchel Papers, NYMA. Alsovery important is her manuscript autobiography located in the Alice BarrowsPapers, University of Maine Library.

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ways, too. John Dewey's book, Schools of Tomorrow, singled outthe Gary schools for special praise. Progressive intellectualRandolph Bourne wrote a series of pieces for The New Republic,later expanded into a book, commending the « natural schools »of Gary (1). Muckraking journalist Rheta Childe Dorr conducted« a big crusade» for the Gary system in a regular column oneducation for the New York Mail (2). Agnes de Lima, a femaleactivist and executive secretary of the Women's Municipal League,wrote pamphlets on the Gary plan, contributed articles to neigh-borhood newspapers, promoted the affairs of the Gary SchoolLeague, and challenged politicians critical of the new schoolidea (3). Howard W. Nudd, director of the P.E.A., bombardedthe New York Times with letters to the editor, wrote several in-fluential reports and articles, and put the P.E.A. squarely behindthe Gary plan (4). Numerous civic, reform, religious, and welfaregroups also endorsed the Wirt schools, and New York University

(1) J. and E. Dewey, Schools of Tomorrow; Randolph S. Bourne, « Schoolsin Gary», The New Republic, II (March 27, 1915), 198-99; Bourne, «Com-munities for Children», ibid., II (April 3, 1915), 233-34; Bourne, «ReallyPublic Schools», ibid., II (April 10, 1915), 259-61; Bourne, « Apprentices tothe School», ibid., II (April 24, 1915), 302-303; Bourne,« The Natural School»,ibid., II (May 1, 1915), 326-28. See also Bourne's book, The Gary Schools;his article, « The Gary Public Schools», Scribner's Magazine, LX (September,1916) 371-80; and his letters to newspapers : New York Times, June 15,December 11, 1915; New York Globe, October 25, 1915, April 14, 1916,Clipping File, GPL.

(2) See, for example, New York Mail, September 16, December 15, 1915,January 17, April 3, 1916, January 25, 1917, Clipping File, GPL; Rheta ChildeDorr to Wirt, October 31, 1914, May 1, 27, December 5, 1915, Wirt Papers.

(3) Agnes de Lima to Wirt, October 8, 1915, Wirt Papers; de Lima toMitchel, March 7, 1917, box 264, Mitchel Papers, NYMA; de Lima to HarryA. Robitzek, April 14, 1917, ibid.', Fernandez to Wirt, January 14, June 9,1916, Wirt Papers; New York Post, June 1, 1916, Clipping File, GPL; [Agnesde Lima], Modern Schools for New York City (New York, 1916).

(4) Howard W. Nudd, « What the Gary Plan Means for the New YorkCity Schools», PEA Bulletin, No. 26 (December 16, 1915); Nudd,« The GaryPlan and Its Social Bearings », National Conference of Charities and Correc-tions, Proceedings (1916), 559-66; Nudd, «Superintendent Spaulding on theGary Plan», School and Society, III (January 22, 1916), 132-35; New York Times,June 17, September 14, 17, 23, October 13, November 7, 24, 1915, January 23,November 23, 1916; New York Globe, January 6, 1916, Clipping File, GPL.

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and Columbia University planned summer school courses on theGary plan for teachers (1). And a seemingly unending stream ofarticles kept the main features of the Gary system before readersof scholarly journals, popular magazines, religious publications,and radical periodicals such as The Masses (2).

Progressive-oriented educators within the school bureaucracyalso helped promote the Gary schools. Perhaps predictably,Mitchel's 1916 appointee as school board president, William G.Willcox, publicly endorsed the Gary plan and its extension. TheGary system, he noted in an article in The American City, provideda « flexible and elastic » school program whose economical featuresmade possible« richer educational advantages» for all children (3).William McAndrew, an Associate Superintendent of Schools inManhattan, became a strong spokesman for the Gary plan,helped drum up support through his contacts with newspapermen,and eventually was put in charge of all the « Garyized» schoolsin New York (4). Impressed with Wirt's methods in Gary, Bronx

(1) Joseph S. Taylor to Wirt, May 3, June 1, 1915, Wirt Papers; PaulMonroe to Wirt, November 12, 1915, ibid.; New York Times, May 30, 1915.

(2) See, for example, Winthrop D. Lane,« From Gary to New York City :A Demonstration in Better and Cheaper Schools», The Survey, XXXIII(March 6, 1915), 628-30; David Snedden, «The Gary System : Its Pros andCons for Other Cities», Educational Administration and Supervision, I (June,1915), 362-74;« William Wirt, Educational Engineer, Constructive Genius ofthe Gary System», Current Opinion, LIX (October, 1915), 235-36; ArthurD. Dean, « The Gary Plan on Trial in New York City», Manual TrainingMagazine, XVII (November, 1915), 211-16; Myra Sawyer Hamlin, «GarySchools in the Making», School, XXVII (December 2, 1915), 229-30; JosephV. McKee,« The Gary System», Catholic World, CII (January, 1916), 508-16;Mary Graham Bonner,« What Parents Think of the Gary Educational System»,The Outlook, CXIII (July 26, 1916), 723-26; Ide G. Sargeant, «Is the GarySystem the Panacea for Our Educational Ills ? », The Forum, LVI (September,1916), 323-26; «About Schools», The Masses, VIII (January, 1916).

(3) William G. Willcox, « The Principle of the Gary Plan and Its Applica-tion to New York», The American City, XIV (January, 1916), 6-10. See also« William G. Willcox Urges Gary Plan for Our Schools», New York TimesMagazine, January 2, 1916, p. 17.

(4) McAndrew to Wirt, August 27, 1915, December 30, 1916, February 21,March 21, 1917, Wirt Papers; New York Globe, April 16, 1915, Clipping File,GPL.

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district superintendent Dr. Joseph L. Taylor supervised the Garyexperiment in P.S. 45, urged expansion of the plan throughouthis congested district, and promoted the new system in speeches,articles, and letters to his superiors (1). The principals of theschools in which the plan was first tried, Alice Ε. Β. Ritter ofP.S. 89 and Angelo Patri of P.S. 45, were enthusiastic supporters,too; both spoke out for the Gary schools in local neighborhoods,at parent-teacher meetings, in reports to supervisors, and in lettersto newspapers (2). Apparently, teachers in the experimentalschools favored the change as well: Ritter reported that in P.S. 89all but six of forty-three teachers eagerly commended the Garyplan over the previous system (3). John Martin, chairman of theschool board's committee on vocational education, vigorouslydefended the vocational aspects of the plan against all critics.Martin warned, however, that excessive and unwarranted enthu-siasm for the plan had its dangers, for unless city officials andeducators prepared parents, teachers, and local communities forradical educational change, «the volatile public which nowapplauds will be in full cry to run the system to death» (4).

There were many within the school system who sought such aresult. Although replaced as school board president by Willcoxin 1916, Thomas W. Churchill remained a member of the Board

(1) Taylor to John H. Walsh, April 19, 1915, Wirt Papers; Taylor to Wirt,September 9, 1915, February 14, 1916, ibid.; Joseph S. Taylor, «Report onGary (Ind.) Schools», Educational Review, XLIX (May, 1915), 510-26; Taylor,« A Report on the Gary Experiment in New York City», ibid., LI (January,1916), 8-28; Taylor,« The Duplicate School as an Educational Asset», NationalEducation Association, Addresses and Proceedings, LV (1917), 810-13.

(2) Alice Ε. Β. Ritter, «Observations in the Gary Schools», March 12,1915, typescript, Wirt Papers; Ritter to Wirt, December 15, 1915, ibid.;Angelo Patri to Wirt, June 29, 1915, ibid. See also Angelo Patri, A School-master of the Great City (New York, 1917).

(3) Bessie C. Stern to Fernandez, January 15, 1916, Wirt Papers.(4) John Martin,« The Gary Plan in New York City», School and Society, II

(December 25, 1915), 925-26; Martin, « Vocational and Occupational Educa-tion in New York City», The Nation, CII (June 29, 1916), 696-97; New YorkTimes, June 23, November 30, 1915, January 18, April 24, 1916; New YorkMail, September 16, 1915, Clipping File, GPL; Martin, « The Gary PrincipleApplied in New York City Schools», The Standard, II (November, 1915), 36.

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and a vocal opponent of Mitchel's plan for full adoption of theGary system. Superintendent of Schools William H. Maxwellconsidered Wirt an outsider, felt the Gary plan underminedtraditional education by emphasizing « frills», and opposed thenew system at every turn. Typically, after visiting P.S. 45 in 1915,Maxwell told the newspapers that « the only thing new was somechildren digging up a lot» (1). The Board of Superintendents, asthe education editor of the New York Globe noted, had a « dis-tinctly antagonistic attitude» toward the new plan, and oftenprotested the pro-Gary actions of the Board of Education (2).Numerous principals also made known their opposition to change.Teachers came out against the plan because, among other reasons,it added an hour to the school day (3). Adding to the controversy,Maxwell released a report by chief statistician Burdette R. Buck-ingham, purportedly showing that children in Gary schoolsfailed to learn as rapidly as children in regular schools (4). Withsome notable exceptions, the weight of the educational bureauc-racy was brought to bear against the Gary plan and MayorMitchel's ambitious program for change and reform in the schoolsystem. As one teacher noted in a letter to Mitchel, « you had

(1) William H. Maxwell to Willcox, June 25, July 2, 12, 1917, box 234,Mitchel Papers, NYMA; New York City, Department of Education, NineteenthAnnual Report of the Superintendent of Schools for the Year Ending July 31, 1917(1918), 48-52; Journal of the Hoard of Education (June 27, 1917), 1016; New YorkGlobe, March 25, 1915, April 20, 1916, Clipping File, GPL.

(2) New York Globe, September 25, 1915, Clipping File GPL; New YorkCity, Department of Education, Minutes of the Board of Superintendents, June 24,1915, October 4, 25, November 8, 1917; Brooklyn Eagle, March 21, 1915.

(3) New York Times, July 19, December 6, 1915; Journal of the Board ofEducation (November 24, 1915), 1790; William E. Grady, «Experimentingwith Children under the Gary Plan in New York City», The PsychologicalClinic, X (March 15, 1916), 19-26;« The Gary System in New York», ManualTraining Magazine, XVII (May, 1916), 713-15; New York Globe, January 20,1916, Clipping File, GPL; Brooklyn Eagle, January 8, 1916, ibid.

(4) New York City, Department of Education, Seventeenth Annual Report ofthe City Superintendent of Schools, 1914-1915 : Survey of the Gary and PrevocationalSchools (1916); Burdette R. Buckingham,« Survey of the Gary and Prevocation-al Schools of New York City», School and Society, III (February 12, 1916),245-47; New York Times, January 28, 1916.

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almost as well try to persuade the Hudson to find a new channelfor itself on the other side of the palisades » as change the bureau-cratic nature of the school system (1).

Hostility within educational circles was gradually transformedinto more general, and occasionally political, opposition. News-papers made the controversy over the schools daily readingmatter. Influential journalists like Tristram Walker Metcalfe, whowrote a daily education column for the New York Globe, losttheir original enthusiasm for the plan and became vocal prop-agandists for the opposition. Metcalfe believed that under theMitchel administration the Gary plan was becoming « more andmore, as each day passes, a device for reducing school costs andless and less a plan for enriching the educational opportunities forthe children» (2). The public antagonism that some school re-formers feared became a reality, as local mothers' clubs and anti-Gary leagues began to organize the opposition (3). Communityand neighborhood groups began bombarding the Board ofEducation and the Board of Superintendents with petitionsobjecting to the Wirt plan. As public opposition rose in the springof 1917, and possibly under Tammany instigation, the Board ofAldermen appointed an investigatory committee, which gatheredseveral hundred pages of critical testimony from parents, teachers,and principals (4).

The Gary plan generated many complaints, some serious andsome frivolous. Some parents and organizations, for example, op-posed Wirt's proposals for released-time religious instruction (5).Others conceived of vocational education as a method of forcing

(1) James F. Boydstun to Mitchel, November 10, 1915, box 191, MitchelPapers, NYMA.

(2) New York Globe, October 8, 1915, Clipping File, GPL.(3) Ritter to Wirt, December 15, 1915, Wirt Papers; Fernandez to Wirt,

January 14, 1916, ibid.; Stern to Fernandez, January 15, 1916, ibid.(4) Journal of the Board of Education ( J a n u a r y 12, 1916), 5 3 ; Minutes of the

Board of Superintendents, November 4, 11, 1915, September 13, 20, 1917; Boardof Aldermen, Committee on General Welfare, Investigation of Public Schools,1917, transcript, NYMA; New York City, Board of Aldermen, PreliminaryReport of the Committee on General Welfare (1917).

(5) For a sample of the religious controversy, see New York Times, October4, 17, 18, 23, November 5, 10, 16, 21, 30, 1915.

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children into factory jobs (1). Objections were raised about thedepartmental system in which elementary children moved fromroom to room for instruction in different subjects. One fatherclaimed his daughter had been afflicted with the St. Vitus dance«because of the constant change of classes»; others complainedof disorder and confusion in the corridors between classes (2).Churchill added to the rhetoric on this point, contending in 1915that « there would be no one to mother the little children» as inthe traditional classroom; «a seat for every child» became thewatchword of the anti-Gary forces (3). Critics also asserted thatthe Gary schools were too noisy, that children played too muchwhile traditional academic subjects suffered, that classes were toolarge, that auditorium and play periods were improperly super-vised, that workshops were inadequately equipped, that irregularlunch hours caused malnutrition, that swimming pools spreadcontagious diseases, and that the new educational « frills » weretoo costly (4). The Gary schools had become, one principalcharged, « free-for-all circuses » in which children had « littleopportunity to learn anything exact» (5). The very fact, oneparent noted at the Board of Aldermen hearings, that the Garyplan had «the support of every wild-eyed, long-haired, be-whiskered demagogue is enough to damn it without reserva-tion» (6).

Because of opposition within school circles and among thepublic, the Board of Education moved much more slowly inextending the Gary plan between 1915 and 1917 than Mitchel

(1) See, for example, Peter J. Brady to Mitchel, February 4, 9, 1916,box 10, Mitchel Papers LC.

(2) New York Globe, January 15, 1916, Clipping File, GPL; Joseph V.McKee,« The Gary System», Bronx Home News, September 27, 1915, clipping,box 47, Mitchel Papers, LC.

(3) New York, Globe, October 8, 18, 1915, May 25, 1916, Clipping File,GPL.

(4) On these various complaints, see New York Globe, October 23, No-vember 9, December 2, 1915, January 15, 1916, Clipping File, GPL; BrooklynEagle, January 8, 1916, ibid.; Board of Aldermen, Preliminary Report of theCommittee on General Welfare.

(5) Maxwell to Willcox, July 12, 1917, box 234, Mitchel Papers, NYMA.(6) Board of Aldermen, Investigation of Public Schools, p. 605.

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wished. By the opening of school in September, 1917, the systemhad been extended to about thirty schools out of a total of morethan 680 (1). The financial squeeze imposed by the Board ofEstimate and the propaganda of pro-Gary forces succeeded onlyin further stimulating the opposition. The municipal elections ofNovember, 1917, provided the crucial test for the Mitchel educa-tional program. They also supplied the backdrop for massivecity-wide outbreaks against the Gary plan.

Inevitably, the schools became embroiled in the vortex ofpartisan politics. Running again as a Fusion candidate, Mitchelstood on his record of reformed and efficient city government.In cataloguing the achievements of his administration, the mayorpraised the Gary plan in speech after speech. The plan, he con-tinued to argue, broadened educational opportunities, democ-ratized the schools, and eliminated the « part-time evil», whilepermitting huge municipal savings at the same time (2). Tammany,however, recognized the explosive political potential of the Garyschool issue. The Tammany candidate, Brooklyn Judge John F.Hylan, blasted the Mitchel school program and appealed to thefears and prejudices of parents. The industrial and workshoptraining provided in the modified schools, Hylan asserted, wasdesigned to make the children of the poor into « wage slaves ».The Gary schools, he said, ignored the traditional subjects bycontinually marching the children up and down stairs, fromteacher to teacher, and from playground to shop to auditorium.He described the Gary plan as « a perpetual motion systemwhich ... exhausts the child, saps the vitality, enervates bothbody and brain, and leaves the little one unfit for either mental

(1) Undated Speech Notes, 1917 Mayoralty Campaign, box 32, MitchelPapers, LC; John Purroy Mitchel,« Address of Welcome», National EducationAssociation, Journal of Proceedings of the Fifty-fourth Annual Meeting (1916), 31.

(2) Transcripts of Mitchel's speeches can be found in box 32, MitchelPapers, LC. See also « Gary Schools in New York», The Elementary SchoolJournal, XVIII (November, 1917), 168-71; and William C. O'Donnell, Jr.,«The Gary System in the Crucible of a Political Campaign», EducationalFoundations, XXIX (January, 1918), 270-75.

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or physical activity». He promised to «banish this vicious Garysystem» if elected (1). A third mayoral candidate, Socialist MorrisHillquit, favored the Gary system, but contended that its bestfeatures had not been implemented in New York City. He accusedthe Mitchel administration of cost-cutting at the expense of goodschools. Many of Hillquit's supporters, notably a group called the«Hillquit Non-Partisan Committee of One Thousand for theChildren of New York City and Their Schools», went much furtherin attacking what they called Mitchel's « black school record » (2).

From the time the schools opened in September, 1917, underan extended Gary plan until the November election, they re-mained at the center of political controversy. Both Mitchel andHylan hammered home their particular school plank at everyopportunity. The newspapers were filled with the pros and consof the Gary system. Both the Gary School League and the variousanti-Gary organizations pumped out verbal and printed propa-ganda. Inflammatory street-corner speechmaking by socialistsheightened passions in the city's immigrant slums, while Tam-many stalwarts sought to make political capital by misrepresentingthe Gary plan and playing upon the confusion of voters. By themiddle of October the school issue, which previously had pittedHylan against Mitchel, aldermen against the city administration,and school officials and teachers against the school board, nowbrought mothers and elementary pupils into confrontation withschool principals and police. The schools themselves actuallybecame open battlegrounds when conflict among contendinggroups boiled over into massive demonstrations, student strikes,and school riots.

(1) Transcripts of Hylan Speeches, October 5, 12, 20, November 3, 4,1917, box 52, Mitchel Papers, LC. See also «Gary School Plan as a CityCampaign Issue», New York Times Magazine, October 21, 1917, pp. 5-6; and« The New York City Election and the Gary Plan», The Elementary SchoolJournal, XVIII (October, 1917), 89-91.

(2) New York Herald, October 18, 1917; New York World, October 14,1917; New York Sun, October 18, 1917; New York Tribune, October 19, 28,1917; «Hillquit Non-Partisan Committee of One Thousand for the Childrenof New York City and Their Schools», undated pamphlet, box 5 z, MitchelPapers, LC.

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The school violence began on the upper East Side on theevening of October 16, 1917. A crowd of about 500 boys gatheredaround P.S. 171 (Madison Avenue and 103rd Street), where theGary plan had just been introduced, and stoned the building untildispersed by the police. The following morning, the same grouppicketed the school. Older students from the nearby High Schoolof Commerce, along with some parents, harangued the crowd ofyouthful protestors, which had swelled to over 1,000. Studentswho tried to attend were harrassed by the picketers, and some werebeaten and« tumbled about», their schoolbooks seized and burnedin a pile in the gutter. The strikers insisted that they would notreturn to school until the Gary plan had been abandoned. Thestudents, a New York World reporter said,« howled and paraded,screamed and whistled and danced, cheered for Hillquit, andbooed the name of the Mayor until the arrival of the police».Assisted by teachers, the police broke up the disturbance, forciblyescorting some pupils into their classrooms; other studentsdispersed to adjacent vacant lots and continued to barrage theschool and the police with stones, cans, and bottles; about 200others adjourned to nearby Central Park for a meeting, but weresurrounded by policemen and truant officers and returned toschool. Ano her large group of strikers made their way to P.S. 72,a girls' elementary school a few blocks away (Lexington Avenueand 105th Street), where they demonstrated again and shouted tothe girls to join the anti-Gary strike. The police squashed thisoutbreak too, herding most of the demonstrators back to schoolin patrol wagons (1).

But this was only the beginning. At noon, with students let outforlunch recess, the demonstrators repeated the activities of themorning. Disorders spread suddenly from P.S. 171 to P.S. 72 andto a third nearby school, P.S. 109 (99th Street and Second Avenue).Numerous speakers continued to harangue the pupils on the evilsof the Gary system and the Mitchel administration; a vote forHillquit, one student orator asserted, was a vote against the Gary

(1) New York Times, October 17, 1917; New York World, October 17,1917; New York Herald, October 17, 1917; New York Tribune, October 17,1917.

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system. One girl on a soapbox at P.S. 72 attracted such a crowdthat traffic ground to a stop on Lexington Avenue. Other gath-erings were addressed by hysterical mothers, some high schooland City College students, and a few men, presumed by the pressto be socialist and I. W. W. « agitators ». The lunch-time street-corner oratory had its impact. The World reporter described theresults : « Little girls began marching around with Hillquitbanners. Boys bombarded the schoolhouse with stones, smashingseveral windows ... and the police swooped down upon thecrowd for the second time». Blocking police efforts to quell thedisturbances, groups of mothers « shouted their derision of thepolice and the school and attempted to prevent the policemenfrom taking children to the police station». Nevertheless, fourteenchildren were arrested, nine of them under sixteen years of age;one of those arrested, identified only as Sam Silverstein, was onlyeight. P.S. 171, where the agitation had centered all day, wasclosed down for the afternoon by school officials to reinforcepolice efforts. According to one report, more than 3,000 elemen-tary pupils from three schools had participated in the school strikeat its most intense point. The same evening, more than 5,000children marched through Harlem and Yorkville « shouting theirdisapproval of the Gary system» (1).

The newspapers uniformly blamed these first school outbreakson socialists and other « agitators ». According to one report inthe New York Tribune, neighborhood residents attributed thetrouble to «an ardent street corner campaign» by Hillquit sup-porters. Other observers noted that the students had been « eggedon by grown-ups ». One boy, armed with a slingshot and arrestednear P.S. 109, admitted to police that « a man had called him asideand urged him to 'start something' for Hillquit». The New YorkSun observed that the political campaign had earlier generated« children's parades» for Hillquit on the East Side, implying thatthe school strikes had the same origin and the same purpose.Mothers interviewed by police, however, saw in the disturbances

(1) New York Times, October 17, 1917; New York World, October 17,1917; New York Sun, October 17, 1917; New York Herald, October 17, 1917;New York Tribune, October 17, 1917; New York Globe, October 17, 1917.

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the natural result of the new and unsettling Gary system : it« kept their children too long in school; it made them get up tooearly; it kept them so busy that they got home with ferociousappetites, which quite outstripped the family pocketbook ». Later,a teacher claimed that students from the high schools — also onstrike in protest of a new state law adding one hour to the schoolday for military training — had « spread the spirit of oppositionamong the younger children» (1). Whatever the immediate cause,the widespread public hostility to the new school plan gave thearguments of mothers, student leaders, and streetcorner speakersthe kind of persuasiveness which led to action.

The school strikes continued on the upper East Side the fol-lowing day, Wednesday, October 17. Although not as extensiveas those of the previous day, the demonstrations involved severalhundred students and mothers at the same three schools inHarlem and Yorkville, as well as at a fourth school, P.S. 37 (East88th Street). Groups of strikers marched from school to school,shouted and sang, defied policemen and teachers, and mixed«leap-frog with indignation meetings ». They carried Hillquit,Hylan, and anti-Mitchel banners and placards. P.S. 171, where150 pupils stayed out of school, continued to be the « stormcentre». But «beyond a lively medley of harangue in severallanguages» and a police « scrimmage» with mothers at P.S. 109,the demonstration remained relatively non-violent (2).

Newspaper accounts of the day's events continued to relate theschool strikes to the political passions roused by the Gary plan.The Sun quoted William Willcox, president of the Board ofEducation, as saying that « some political agents have been busyin the affair». But the first-reaction allegations against socialistsbegan to give way to charges that Tammany had instigated theriots. Hillquit had endorsed the Gary plan, in principle if not inits details, but Hylan had attacked it viciously for several months.

(1) New York Tribune, October 17, 1917; New York World, October 17,1917; New York Sun, October 17, 1917; New York Herald, October 18, 1917.

(2) New York Times, October 18, 1917; New York World, October 18,1917; New York Tribune, October 18, 1917; New York Herald, October 18,1917.

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The Tribune laid the blame squarely at the doors of Tammany Hall.According to a reporter, « the outspoken criticism of the systemvoiced by Mr. Hylan ... emboldened pupils and parents toparticipate in street demonstrations ». A Tribune editorial was moredirect : the school riots represented « Tammany's last desperateeffort to fan the Gary school into a political issue. The strikes areunquestionably engineered by exactly the same trouble-hatcherswho have been fighting the Gary idea with lies and class prejudiceever since the municipal campaign came within sight». « Thewhole affair smacks of Tammany», editorialized the New YorkTimes, providing a taste of what « Tammanyization » would do tothe city's schools. The Sun chimed in as well, contending that theriots resulted from Tammany's campaign to make public education« the football of politics » (1).

Tammany made headlines again the following day, when newschool riots broke out in the Bronx. « School Rioting NewTammany Political Trick », the Sun charged on page one. Troublebegan at P.S. 54 (Freeman Street and Intervale Avenue), wherethe Gary system had just been introduced and which had been thetarget of a stone-throwing attack by 300 boys the night before.As school opened on Thursday, several thousand children gath-ered outside the building, listened to anti-Gary oratory, stonedthe school and then the police who came to disperse them. Thecrowd broke up and moved on to another school nearby, P.S. 50(Bryant Avenue and 172nd Street), which had been operating onthe Gary plan for two years with no problems. By this time themob of student demonstrators had grown to more than 5,000.Encouraged by « grownups on the outskirts » and their ownindigenous leadership, the boys and girls paraded in the streets,tore down Mitchel campaign posters, overturned garbage pails,wrote anti-Gary slogans on walls and sidewalks, smashed schoolwindows, and chanted « We won't go back till Gary gets out».Armed with sticks, stones, bricks, and bottles, they attacked thepolice who soon arrived in force. « Pitched battles » ensued, inwhich the children used garbage can covers as shields « to ward

(1) New York Sun, October 18, 1917; New York Tribune, October 18,1917; New York Times, October 18, 1917.

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the blows of coppers' sticks». And, as the Sun reported theincident, « good housewives from second stories jubilantly tossedmilk bottles to aid their gladiators on the street». Although thepolice seemed « helpless » for a time, they eventually succeeded inbreaking up the massive and unruly crowd. But smaller groups ofstrikers moved off in different directions, demonstrating andcausing disturbances at four other schools (P.S. 6, P.S. 20, P.S. 44,and P.S. 55). Attendance at the six schools involved, and at someother Gary schools in the borough for that matter, was less thanhalf the regular attendance. Many parents had kept their childrenhome for protection, not for protest purposes (1).

The same evening, street demonstrations broke out in the Bronxagain. Soapbox speakers attracted listeners on street cornersthroughout the borough. At one point, about 4,000 children andparents gathered for an open-air, anti-Gary meeting. Since nospeaking or parade permits had been issued, the police tried toarrest the speakers and disband the large crowd. The demonstratorsbegan stoning the police with such force that the officers, theirfew prisoners in tow, retreated to a nearby stationhouse, whichwas soon surrounded by the« hooting and yelling» crowd. Onlywhen police reserves from other precincts arrived, accompaniedby volunteers of the Home Defense League, was the angry anti-Gary mob quelled and dispersed. For a time some of the riotersregrouped at P.S. 54, where the day's disturbances had begun,again cheering speakers and stoning the school until arrival of thepolice. The seriousness and extent of the popular discontent andconsequent violence in the Bronx had caught school officials andpolice by surprise. The school board ordered an investigation ofthe riots, instructed the Board of Truancy to catch the ringleaders,and warned of « sterner measures» to be taken against transgres-sors in the future. The police department announced a get-tough

(1) New York Sun, October 19, 1917; New York Times, October 19, 1917;New York Globe, October 18, 1917; New York World, October 19, 1917;New York Tribune, October 19, 1917; New York Herald, October 19, 1917;Mary Graham Bonner, « School Riots and the Gary System », The Outlook,CXVII (October 31, 1917), 334-35.

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policy, but prepared for more trouble by posting a police guardaround every school in the Bronx (1).

The measures taken by school and police officials, however, didnot halt the spread of school disturbances the following day,Friday, October 19. Trouble continued in the Bronx, where some5,000 rioting students went on strike at P.S. 42 (ClaremontParkway and Washington Avenue), paraded in the streets, stonedthe building, and made things « extremely lively for a number ofpolicemen». Police dispersed the crowd several times, arrestingsome students and mothers. Groups of striking boys and girlsre-formed in nearby Crotona Park and marched to two otherschools in the Bronx — P.S. 5 5 (Claremont Parkway and St. Paul'sPlace) and P.S. 53 (Findley and Teller Avenues) —, where lessserious outbreaks occurred. Attendance was down as much as onehalf at several other Gary schools in the borough. Disorderscontinued into the evening, as children rallied at street-cornermeetings all over the Bronx. Several children were arrested, in-cluding a nine-year-old boy charged with « conducting an open-air meeting» and a nine-year-old girl who assaulted a policeman (2).

But while the school situation remained volatile in the Bronx,the most intense violence of the day occurred in the Brownsvilleand Williamsburg sections of Brooklyn, where rioting broke outfor the first time. At P.S. 175 (Blake Avenue and Bristol Street),a crowd estimated at 4,000 to 5,000, including about 500 mothers,broke windows, stoned the police, and forced the school to closedown for the day. The aggressive mob of boys and girls alsoattacked a group of police reserves standing by in nearby BetsyHead Park. Reacting to charges of police brutality in previousskirmishes, Police Commissioner Arthur Woods had instructedhis men to deal harshly with adult rioters but to treat childrenleniently. The student strikers did not show the same restraint,and four policemen were injured by bricks, stones, and bottlesthrownfrom the street and from tenement rooftops. An ambulance

(1) New York Times, October 19, 1917; New York Herald, October 19,1917; New York Sun, October 19, 1917; New York Tribune, October 19, 1917;New York World, October 19, 1917.

(2) New York Times, October 20,1917; New York Globe, October 19, 1917;New York Sun, October 20, 1917.

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which arrived to take the injured men to a hospital was viciouslyattacked as well; children slashed and hammered nails into itstires, ripped out its battery wires, and smashed its windshield.Police wagons received the same treatment. At the height of thedisturbances, about 500 of the rioters marched to the Williams-burg Bridge Plaza, where they took possession of a statue ofGeorge Washington and used its pedestal for speech-making (1).

Other Brooklyn schools experienced difficulties, too. At P.S. 50in Williamsburg a crowd of elementary children smashed morethan fifty windows and paraded with cardboard placards advo-cating «Down with the Gary system». At P.S. 72 older boysbroke school windows and prevented younger pupils fromentering the building. At P.S. n o some rioting occurred andteachers were warned to stay away. At P.S. 125 big demonstra-tions convinced all but twelve students to stay out of school.Strikes and smaller riots also hit P.S. 165 and P.S. 174, both inBrooklyn. A semblance of order was restored in the borough bymid-day, as sixteen Brooklyn schools were closed for the after-noon, each protected by a special police detail (2).

By week's end, school and police officials seemed confident, atleast publicly, that the school riots had run their course and thatpassions would cool over the weekend. These hopes quicklyproved illusory. Rumors of more trouble in Brooklyn and theBronx swept the city. The New York World reported a plotagainst schools on the lower East Side. Several schools werestoned over the weekend (3). Charges and counter-chargescovered pages of the city's newspapers. Editorials blamed Tam-many for turning the mayoral campaign into a «class war» by« capitalizing the ignorance of great alien populations in New

(1) New York Times, October 20, 1917; New York World, October 20,1917; New York Herald, October 20, 1917; New York Sun, October 20, 1917;New York Tribune, October 20, 1917; Brooklyn Eagle, October 19, 1917;« Disorder Among the Children of the New York City Schools », School andSociety, VI (October 27, 1917), 497-98.

(2) New York Sun, October 20, 1917; New York Times, October 20, 1917;New York Tribune, October 20, 1917; New York Herald, October 20, 1917.

(3) New York World, October 22, 1917; New York Sun, October 22, 1917;New York Tribune, October 21, 1917.

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York City». Mitchel supporters in the Fusion Committee and inthe Gary School League also pointed to Tammany Hall; «theTiger has ripped a few school doors open with his paw», chargedJohn Collier, chairman of the Fusion campaign's Committee onPublic Education. Mayor Mitchel himself accused the teachers ofworking with Tammany to destroy the Gary system. Otherscontinued to blame socialist agitators, «I.W.W. juveniles», ordisgruntled high school students. Meanwhile, Hylan continuedhis attack on the Gary plan in several weekend speeches. Notsurprisingly, renewed disturbances marred the opening of theschools on Monday morning (1).

In the Bronx, students returned to their classrooms « as meek aslambs», and school officials reported 80 per cent attendance attroubled schools. But 10,000 truants in Brooklyn and about halfthat number in Manhattan kept principals, teachers, and policebusy. Disturbances wracked at least six elementary schools in theBrownsville section of Brooklyn (P.S. 32, P.S. 66, P.S. 84, P.S. 167,P.S. 174, and P.S. 175). Large numbers of police stationed aroundthe school buildings minimized property damage, but the childrennevertheless paraded with anti-Gary and Hillquit banners, coercedthose seeking to attend classes, and threw stones, potatoes, andother vegetables « commandeered from pushcarts ». Implementinga plan contrived over the weekend, school officials sent batchesof truant officers to the schools involved, but when they beganseizing boys and girls numerous mothers, fathers, and olderbrothers came to the rescue. Several participants were arrestedand several hundred children captured as truants. School strikesalso returned to Manhattan, this time on the lower East Side,where about 5,000 chanting and shouting pupils marched anddemonstrated in front of seven schools (P.S. 13, P.S. 25, P.S. 62,P.S. 63, P.S. 79, P.S. 91, and P.S. 97). Although none of theseschools had been converted to the Gary plan, the rumor that thenew system was about to be installed provided sufficient induce-ment to action. The strikers carried anti-Gary posters, held street-

(1) New York World, October 21,1917; New York Tribune, October 20, 21,1917; New York Herald, October 20, 21, 1917; New York Globe, October 23,1917; New York Sun, October 22, 1917.

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corner protest meetings, and stoned the schools. Police broke upthe demonstrators, who re-grouped several times for furtherprotest. Reversing their earlier tactics of dispersing crowds ratherthan making arrests, the police arrested sixty-five student rioters.Yet, the police still seemed generally ineffective, and one officeradmitted to a newspaper man that it was « impossible to arrestsufficient strikers to make an impression on the rest» (1).

On Tuesday, October 23, the school disturbances tapered offconsiderably. About 1,000 boys paraded outside P.S. 155 inBrooklyn carrying anti-Gary and anti-Mitchel posters and ban-ners, and a stone-throwing incident occurred at P.S. 109, also inBrooklyn. At P.S. 37, on the upper East Side, picketing studentsharrassed non-strikers and stole their schoolbooks. But with theexception of these fresh outbreaks, the school rioting seemed tohave run its course and attendance was near normal in schoolsthroughout the city (2). By this time, school officials had beguntaking firm action against truants; several hundred students wereexpelled, suspended, or put on probation. Fines for violatingcompulsory attendance laws were levied against more than sevenhundred parents in Children's Court. At the same time, pro-Garyforces sought to calm the fears of parents by intensifying theircampaign to explain the Gary system and counter misrepresenta-tions about the school reform. Thus, the Board of Educationbegan showing movies at schools throughout the city depictingthe advantages of the Gary plan. The Gary School League and anew organization, the Parents' School League, also showed moviesof Gary schools, distributed literature, and held informationalmeetings for parents at parks, schools, and recreational centers.The Fusion campaign's Committee on Public Education sent outspeakers, published pamphlets, and guided groups of clergymen,labor leaders, and parents through New York's two showcaseschools — P.S. 45 and P.S. 89. A Junior Gary League was formedamong elementary pupils in several schools to mobilize students

(1) New York Globe, October 22, 1917; New York Herald, October 23,1917; New York Tribune, October 23, 1917; New York Sun, October 23, 1917;New York World, October 23, 1917.

(2) New York World, October 24, 1917; New York Tribune, October 24,1917; New York Evening Bronx, October 23, 1917.

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favorable to the Gary system. The indefatigable Alice BarrowsFernandez followed Judge Hylan to political meetings, publiclychallenging his statements on the Gary plan (1). Although theseefforts may have calmed public agitation after a week of strikesand riots, they came too late to save the Gary plan.

Clearly, the school riots had not been spontaneous. Rather, theyhad been instigated by people connected with several differentgroups, each drawing upon the widespread discontent over theGary plan. As the newspapers suspected, Tammany had indus-triously mobilized anti-Gary forces. According to reports re-ceived in the Mitchel camp, Tammany worked vigorously inItalian and Jewish neighborhoods — most of the striking childrenwere Jewish —, sent ward leaders to visit the parents of schoolchildren, and even persuaded some teachers to explain the evilsof the Gary plan in their classes. By 1917, many of the local anti-Gary organizations had been taken over by Tammany; Hylanmen, including several Tammany members of the Board ofEducation, held leadership positions in several city-wide groups —the Federated Parents' Association, the Parents' School BettermentLeague, the Federation of Neighborhood Associations, theFederated Bronx Neighborhood Association, and the Anti-GaryLeague. The New York World charged that Tammany had spentat least two years cultivating such organizations in preparation forthe 1917 election. Advocates of the Gary system believed thatformer school board president Thomas Churchill, himself aTammany leader, had a hand in the organized opposition. Church-ill, however, denied these charges, blaming the strikes insteadon the « unfathomable nature» of children (2).

(1) New York Times, October 24, 25, 26, 27, 1917; New York World,October 18, 21, 24, 27, 1917; New York Globe, October 17, 23, 31, November2, 1917; New York Herald, October 19, 20, 1917. See also Hermann Hagedorn,Mothers of New York, What of the Children ? (New York, 1917); Committee onPublic Education, Plain Facts About the Gary Schools (New York, 1917), inbox 47, Mitchel Papers, LC; Fusion Committee of 1917, The Truth About theGary Schools (New York, 1917), in ibid.; The Truth About the Schools, undatedpamphlet, in ibid.

(2) Matthew J. Smith to Mitchel, October 6, 1917, box 16, Mitchel Papers,LC; New York Tribune, October 21, 28, 1917; New York World, October 21,

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While Tammany was out organizing the opposition, somesocialist leaders also stirred up neighborhood antagonisms overthe public schools. The Hillquit Non-Partisan Committee, formedby the recently dismissed Columbia University psychologist andanti-war advocate J. McKean Cattell, articulated the socialistposition on education. The Cattell group led a drive against theadded hour for military training in the high schools and objectedto the alleged class character of industrial training in the Garyschools. The socialist propaganda had the effect of linking theissue of militarism in the high schools with the Gary plan in theelementary schools. Parents failed to distinguish between the twoprograms, since both required an additional hour of schooling,and thought the military training was part of the Gary plan. Manyof the student strikers in the high schools were socialists, or camefrom socialist families, and urged younger children to stay out ofschool as a protest against militarism and Mayor Mitchel, whostrongly supported military training and the preparedness drive.Moreover, socialist misrepresentations about the Gary plan wereeasily spread in lower-class, immigrant neighborhoods; a reporterfor the New York World found numerous « non-English-speakingYiddish mothers » who believed that industrial training under theGary system would make their children the «slaves» of JohnD. Rockefeller (1).

The pattern of each major school riot also suggests planning,preparation, and organization. Virtually every school strike andriot had been preceded by evening meetings of local parent andneighborhood associations — meetings dominated by anti-Garyspeakers and politicians. These meetings were usually followed bysmaller street-corner gatherings, more speech-making, and attackson school buildings. Rumors about strikes, demonstrations, andviolence circulated throughout the affected neighborhoods. Veryoften, posters fastened to school doors announced the strike to

22, 23, 1917; New York Sun, October 22, 25, 1917; New York Herald, October20, 1917. See also Zosa Szajkowski,« The Jews and New York City's Mayoral-ty Election of 1917», Jewish Social Studies, XXXII (October, 1970), 286-306.

(1) New York Tribune, October 28, 1917; Spencer Phoenix to Samuel L.Martin, September 19, 1917, box 234, Mitchel Papers, NYMA; New YorkWorld, October 18, 1917.

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arriving children. Adults and older children were present at eachof the riots, often making speeches, distributing Tammany andsocialist literature, providing the placards and banners, advo-cating action, and playing instigatory roles. A Board of Educationprobe revealed evidence of adults moving « from one district toanother encouraging the rioters at the height of the disturbances ».« Like parrots », one observer noted, the strikers « repeated thearguments of grown-up politicians opposed to the fusion ad-ministration». Investigation of the events by school and policeofficials seemed to confirm the politically inspired nature of theoutbreaks. As a reporter for the New York Tribune put it, « nothingin the Gary system as applied in New York would cause childrento strike of their own initiative» (1).

The school riots caused irreparable damage to Mitchel's candi-dacy and to the three-year effort of progressives to reorganize theNew York City school system on the Gary plan. Stimulated bydissatisfaction within the school bureaucracy, the rhetoric ofTammany and socialist politicians, and the critical journalism ofreporters like the Globe's Metcalfe, the Gary school controversybecame a crucial element in the mayoral election. The school riotsand the seeming ease with which they spread over the threemost populous boroughs suggested the extent of public disap-proval with radical educational change. Mitchel's continued de-fense of his school program on both financial and educationalgrounds failed to win the voters, who returned Tammany tooffice by a large margin (2). Thus, the administration which hadintroduced a wide range of reforms in municipal government andthe progressive school plan which seemed to promise a lesscostly but enriched education went down to defeat. Shortly after

(1) New York Sun, October 21, 22, 1917; Brooklyn Daily Eagle, October 19,1917; New York Globe, October 22,1917; New York Herald, October 20, 1917;New York World, October 22, 1917; New York Tribune, October 20, 28, 1917;Journal of the Board of Education (October 24, 1917), 1669-71.

(2) New York Times, November 7, 1917; Eda Amberg and William H.Allen, Civic lessons from Major Mitchel's Defeat (New York, 1921), pp. 15-20.Complete returns gave Hylan 297,282 votes to Mitchel's 149,307. Hillquitreceived 142,178 votes, while Republican candidate William S. Bennett gotonly 53,678. New York Times, November 8, 1917.

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taking office, Mayor Hylan issued orders to dismantle the work-shops, end the duplicate school experiment, and provide a seat forevery child (1).

The Gary school campaign clearly demonstrates the complicatedinterconnections between the school and the larger society itserves. As a critically important social institution which touchedthe lives of hundreds of thousands of parents and children, theNew York City school system was hardly immune from the polit-ical currents and social tensions of the city. Rather, it becamecaught up in the vortex of urban life during the Progressive Era.Thus, the Gary school experiment in New York provides someinsight into the nature of urban progressivism. Some progressiveeducators emphasized the necessity of making schools creative andhumane environments for learning about life in its totality.Others aimed at efficiency and economy in education and intro-duced business-like administrative reforms to make every schoola knowledge factory. The Gary plan combined many of theseseemingly contradictory features, suggesting the same kinds ofambiguities in progressive education that recent historians haveidentified in progressive politics (2).

Similarly, urban reformers in New York had divergent motivesin promoting the Gary system. Organizations like the P.E.A. andnumerous educators and social reformers found the Gary planappealing because of its richer educational opportunities. Someradicals and activists — people like Randolph Bourne and AliceBarrows Fernandez — viewed the Gary plan not so much as aneducational reform as an opportunity for real « social reorganiza-tion» (3). It was this commitment to social reconstruction, of

(1) New York Times, December 11, 1917, December 12, 1918; Journal ofthe Board of Education (December 12, 1917), 2022-23;« Mayor Hylan's Letteron the New York City Schools», School and Society, IX (March 22, 1919),359-60.

(2) See, for example, Melvin G. Holli, Reform in Detroit : Hazen S. Pingreeand Urban Politics (New York, 1969).

(3) Alice Barrows Fernandez, « Suggestions for Titles in Gary SchoolMotion Pictures», 1917, typescript, Wirt Papers.

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course, which gave the Gary plan the appearance of a radicalthreat to social order and traditional schooling. At the same time,however, such city officials as Mayor Mitchel and ComptrollerPrendergast were captivated by the administrative efficiency andfinancial savings promised by such educational reform. This drivefor efficiency helps to explain why Mitchel encroached on schoolboard authority and insistently pushed the Gary plan much harderand much faster than the public was willing to accept.

On another level of analysis, the great school war in New YorkCity during the Mitchel administration revealed the reluctance ofpeople to accept immediate or drastic changes in basic socialinstitutions. Bureaucratic and political opposition helped kill theGary plan in New York. It seems equally clear, however, thatNew Yorkers rejected the Gary plan for another fundamentalreason as well. The city's residents — especially the uprootedimmigrant newcomers with traditional values who crowded thetenement districts where the Gary plan was being implemented —resisted radical change in the institution which provided a kindof stability and order to individuals and communities. Moreover,American society seemed to promise that the school was the mostimportant avenue for upward economic mobility and for assimi-lation into the larger society. Parents perceived radical educationalreform as threatening to destroy these traditional school functions.The inability of progressives to square their contradictory motives,to ease parental fears, to convincingly demonstrate the advantagesof the Gary plan, or to counter the patently political propagandaof Tammany and socialist opponents, all dictated defeat. In thecrucible of the 1917 mayoralty campaign, educational reformfoundered on the twin dangers of politics and violence — adisillusioning end to a promising progressive experiment.

Although the Gary plan was presented to New Yorkers as animportant educational reform, it clearly failed to generate wide-spread public support. But for diverse reasons the reformerspushed ahead with radical school change anyway. Thus, it is notsurprising that the public schools in Mayor Mitchel's New Yorkbecame the center of controversy and even violence. As a recent

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historian of urban education has written, « Schools can serve uswell, but they can only lead where we are willing to go» (1).

(1) Selwyn K. Troen,« Education in the Gty», in Raymond A. Mohl andJames F. Richardson, eds., The Urban Experience : Themes in American History(Belmont, Calif., 1973), p . 142.

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