Our History

The founder of The Dalton School, Helen Parkhurst.

The Dalton School, originally called the Children’s University School, was founded by Helen Parkhurst in 1919. It was a time marked by educational reform. Philosophers, teachers, and child psychologists identified as “progressives” began to question the conventional wisdom of the day which held that education was a process of drill and memorization and that the only way to teach was to regiment children in classrooms. Their natural instincts to play, to move, to talk, and to inquire freely were to be suppressed. Progressive educators believed that the development of the whole child is of primary importance; that children are social beings and that schools should be communities where they can learn to live with others; that these communities should devote themselves to the total enrichment of mind, body, and spirit. Helen Parkhurst, after experimentation in her own one-room school with Maria Montessori, developed what she termed the Laboratory Plan. It called for teachers and students to work together toward individualized goals. The Laboratory Plan was put into effect as an experiment in the High School of Dalton, Massachusetts, in 1916. From this beginning, the Laboratory Plan and The Dalton School eventually took their names and their mission.

In 1919, Helen Parkhurst relocated to New York City, where she opened her first school on West 74th Street. Larger facilities soon became necessary; the Lower School was moved to West 72nd Street and the High School opened in the autumn of 1929 in the current building at 108 East 89th Street. Eleanor Roosevelt admired the work of Helen Parkhurst and played an important role in expanding the population and resources of the school by promoting a merger between the Todhunter School and Dalton in 1939.

Enlarged and modified through the years, Dalton has served as the center of an ever-expanding community—always alert to promising innovations in education and yet, in the best sense, committed to traditional values. Dalton still celebrates many of the school-wide traditions begun by Helen Parkhurst, particularly the Candlelighting ceremony in the winter, Greek Festival in the spring, and Arch Day in June. Dalton continues to place a high premium on original thinking among its students and faculty. Dalton’s Original Mind Program was created to identify outstanding creative individuals in their respective fields who are then invited to Dalton for the academic year to create and implement interdisciplinary projects with children and faculty in all three divisions of the school. Participants include Sara Sze, renowned installation artist; Natasha Trethewey, award-winning poet; and David Macaulay, celebrated author and illustrator. Also, as part of this program, Dalton educators and administrators participated in a workshop at The Extrapolation Factory, a state-of-the-art, interdisciplinary space designed to support robotics, artificial intelligence, and other “connected” technologies. Dalton works with these visionary thinkers generating plausible and possible forwardlooking educational ideas. The Original Mind Program continues to be a source of inspiration and collaboration.

Over the years, Dalton has gained international recognition for its academic excellence. Schools in the Netherlands, Australia, England, Korea, the Czech Republic, Taiwan, and Chile have adopted the Dalton Plan. Today there are two schools founded on the Dalton Plan in Japan. Leading educators from universities and public and independent schools around the United States and abroad visit Dalton on a regular basis to observe its system of education and to learn more about the school’s recognized achievements in the area of technology. As Dalton continues to expand its global initiatives and partners with schools around the world, many more schools are becoming members of our international Dalton community.