American Prometheus

by Kai Bird

Adler founded in 1880 a tuition-free school for the sons and daughters of laborers called the Workingman’s School. In addition to the usual subjects of arithmetic, reading and history, Adler insisted that his students should be exposed to art, drama, dance and some kind of training in a technical skill likely to be of use in a society undergoing rapid industrialization. Every child, he believed, had some particular talent. Those who had no talent for mathematics might possess extraordinary “artistic gifts to make things with their hands.” For Adler, this insight was the “ethical seed—and the thing to do is to cultivate these various talents.” The goal was a “better world,” and thus the school’s mission was to “train reformers.” As the school evolved, it became a showcase of the progressive educational reform movement, and Adler himself fell under the influence of the educator and philosopher John Dewey and his school of American pragmatists.