City and Country School

City and Country School (C&C)
City and Country School 13th Street Entrance.
Address
146 West 13th Street between 6th and 7th Ave New York, NY United States
Information
Type	Independent, Coeducational
Established	1914
Founder	Caroline Pratt
Faculty	44
Grades	N–8
Enrollment	approx. 363 as of 2013
Campus	Urban
Accreditation	NAIS, NYSAIS
Affiliation	NAIS, NYSAIS, Interschool
Website	www.cityandcountry.org

The City and Country School is a progressive independent pre-school and elementary school for children aged 2–13 that is located in the Greenwich Village section of New York City.

City and Country School was founded by Caroline Pratt in 1914. Originally named the Play School, it occupied a three-room apartment at the corner of 4th and 12th Streets. Soon after, Lucy Sprague Mitchell joined Pratt, and offered financial and teaching support that allowed for larger quarters on MacDougal Alley.

Mitchell and colleague Harriet Johnson founded the Bureau of Educational Experiments (BEE) with the purpose of documenting the developmental and learning processes of children in order to gain accurate information about the methods of progressive schools and the abilities and needs of children. The laboratory schools for BEE observation were a nursery school, overseen by Johnson, and the Play School (its name was changed to City and Country School in 1921). As the school grew, City and Country moved to buildings purchased by Mitchell, which were later sold to the school when the BEE and C&C formally parted ways, on West 12th and 13th Streets, where it remains today.

"A goodly floor space, basic materials for play, and many children using them together" were the elements of a new kind of democratic education for children that guided Caroline Pratt to begin the City and Country School in 1914. Experiences teaching in a small independent school and two settlement houses had left Pratt questioning the value of an education in which "none of these children made any use of what they had learned." In contrast to her frustration was Pratt's observation of the meaningful world created by the young child of a friend while constructing a miniature railroad on the floor of his room. This child was not only enjoying himself, but he was also making sense of the world around him. Pratt discovered for herself the educational value of play.

Her ideas about how children learn, combined with her own woodworking skills, led to Pratt's creation of basic wooden toys and blocks, now known as unit blocks, which were designed to stimulate dramatic play. In the spring of 1913, using the materials she designed, in addition to clay, paper, and crayons, Pratt developed a half-day program for six five-year-olds at the Hartley Settlement House. This successful two-month trial flight convinced her that self-generated and self-directed play do inspire learning.