Mar 1, 2024
Medfield native Nathaniel T. Allen established a cutting-edge progressive school in Newton in 1854, and in the next half century he educated some 5,000 boys and girls, rich and poor, from every state in the U.S. and dozens of foreign countries, white and black, including former slaves.
Allen’s remarkable achievements were presented at the February meeting of the historical society in the basement of the old meetinghouse, aka Unitarian Church. Newton documentarian Joe Hunter presented a 40-minute video highlighting his life.
Nathaniel was born in 1823 and raised in a house that still stands at 264 North Street. That house was one of two Medfield stops on the Underground Railway. The family members were noted for being smart, physically strong, and socially conscious, and for extraordinary longevity. A product of his domestic environment, Nathaniel was strongly anti-slavery, anti-imperialism, and pro-women’s rights.
Nathaniel attended Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and taught at a few schools before famous educator Horace Mann hired him in 1848 to teach at the West Newton Normal School.** The term “normal” referred in the 19th and early 20th centuries to schools that trained students in the norms of pedagogy and curriculum to become primary school teachers.
From the 1640s, Massachusetts had laws requiring cities and towns to offer basic education to boys. Dedham in 1642 had the first tax-supported school, but in most towns the schools charged tuition.
Early schools stressed memorization and arithmetic, and corporal punishment was widely practiced. Allen thought there were better ways. Yes, his curriculum offered preparation in science, business, and classics – but Allen sought to build character and encourage critical thinking. His was the first school in the United States to include a kindergarten. He was one of the first to introduce natural sciences, with an emphasis on outdoor field work.
To develop body as well as mind, both boys and girls participated in vigorous physical training. He dammed up a brook to create a pond for swimming lessons. He built the first gymnasium in an American public school and introduced roller skating there. (Medfield’s James Plimpton, Allen’s cousin, invented the modern roller skate about 1850.) Students were required to keep journals.
The school shut down about 1900, when Nathaniel Allen retired. Allen and his school set a very high bar for public education in Newton, which endures to this day.
The school is now the site of the First Unitarian Universalist Society at 1326 Washington Street, West Newton. The Allen house still stands at 35 Webster Street and is now occupied by the Newton Cultural Alliance.
More detailed information about Nathaniel Allen can be found here.
** The West Newton Normal School moved to Framingham in 1853; it is the ancestor of Framingham State University, which is recognized as the oldest continually-operating normal school in the United States.