REPORT ON THE MODERN SCHOOL REUNION

By Jerry Mintz, Director, Alternative Education Resource Organization
516 621-2195     Fax 516 625-3257       e mail: jmintz@igc.apc.com       

The members and friends of  the Modern School had their annual 
reunion on Saturday September 24th. The Modern School Movement 
is based on the work of Anarchist Francisco Ferrer, who was 
executed in 1909 in Spain over the protests of Emma Goldman and 
others. In his name, Ferrer Modern Schools were established around 
the world, including on founded in 1911 in New York. Attending this 
reunion for the first time was 100 year old Alfred Leavitt, who was a 
student under one of the early teachers at the Modern School, Will 
Durant. He remembers Durant first meeting a student at the Modern 
school, who eventually became his wife, Ariel. 

Leavitt went on to become a well known artist, who has 20 of his 
works in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Leavitt said that 
he remembered important luminaries of the time such as Jack 
London, Margaret Sanger, Emma Goldman, and Peter Kropotkin when 
they visited the school. In a rousing speech, congratulating the group 
for their tenacity, he said he "intends to slide into the 21st century" 
and is still a romantic. This was attested to by Eleine Shappel, a 30 
something Director of the United States Branch of the Eureka Free 
University of Moscow. She sat next to him. She is from Harkov, 
Ukraine, where, also originally from the Ukraine,  Leavitt once lived 

Nellie Dick, 101 year old former teacher at the Stelton, New Jersey  
Modern School and a founder of other Modern Schools was also a 
participant in the reunion. She was born in the Ukraine of Jewish 
Anarchist parents. A book entitled "No Master, High or Low" has 
recently been published about some of her early work in England, 
when, at the age of 13 she started the Anarchist, Socialist,  
Communist Sunday School in 1907. 

Nellie's son Jim also attended. He grew up as a Modern School 
student, with freedom at attend or not attend classes. He was never 
interested in learning how to read until he was ten years old. "By 
that time I could put together a radio, but I just hadn't been 
interested in reading. If I had gone to a public school they would 
have failed me and told me I had a learning disability. When I 
decided to learn to read, nothing could stop me. I went on to get 
scholarship all the way through Columbia Medical School." At 73, Jim 
Dick is still a practicing and well respected pediatrician. 

Others attending the reunion included Fernanda Barone, who is the 
archivist for the special collection of Modern School documents at 
Rutgers University. She is seeking funds to preserve the materials, 
which are falling apart from extensive use. Leonard Schear, 85,  told 
about how he became a well known architect after he started 
apprenticing at the age of 14.  Also Jerry Mintz reported on the 
Publication by Macmillan of the Handbook of Alternative Education 
of which he was Editor in Chief. Co-publisher and packager of the 
book is the Solomon Press. The Solomons, father and son Sidney and 
Raymond, attended the reunion along with Sidney's wife, Clara, a 
former Modern School student. The Handbook lists 7300 educational 
alternatives. Mintz has also produced five videos on the Modern 
School. 

The Reunion opened with the singing of old Modern School songs, and 
concluded with a spirited discussion and debate on current issues in 
education.