Education: CounteR-R-Revolution

Mrs. Isabelle Buckley wanted to start a school in Los Angeles, and she knew exactly what sort of school she wanted it to be. Those were the days (1933) “when children were allowed to run hog-wild—with the blessings of pundits and psychologists alike. I didn’t like it, and I resolved that there should be order in my school.” But after weeks of doorbell ringing around Los Angeles, Mrs. Buckley* could find only eight children whose parents were willing to try the orderly, old-fashioned Buckley way.

Gradually, more came. As the years passed, Los Angeles began to hear quite a bit about Mrs. Buckley’s “nononsense” approach to education (“The school expects the best of the child,” she flatly declared). In 1936, she opened a second school—a new sort of nursery school that emphasized work as well as play; and by 1946, she had a third school in the San Fernando Valley for grades one to eight (tuition: $400 a year up to first grade; $600 thereafter).

Down to Business. By last week Mrs. Buckley had earned a reputation as one of the top schoolteachers on the coast—a doughty and determined counter-revolutionary with a passion for sound minds, manners and morals. Today, the three Buckley schools have 300 pupils—the sons & daughters of bankers, musicians, scriptwriters, lawyers, and Hollywood stars (among them: Alice Faye, Anita Louise, Judy Garland). And last week 115 Buckley students showed up to begin a ten-week summer program of sports, hand crafts and nature study.

Starting with the two-year-olds, Mrs. Buckley gets down to business right away. All her pupils are thoroughly grounded in good manners, though Mrs. Buckley admits that some parents are still suspicious of the idea, “as if there were something sinister about a child who shakes hands firmly and says ‘Good morning’ as if he meant it.” Pupils are not just given paints and brushes and allowed to do as they please. They are taught the meaning of color and design, and, in accordance with the Buckley motto (“Self-expression through self-discipline”), to draw with skill and to finish what they start.

How to Concentrate. At two, they also begin to learn French or Spanish from pictures and classroom conversation. They start each day with a prayer (“Teach us, O God, to love Thee and to be kind to each other . . .”), and listen to stories read from the Bible. Later on, they study the Scriptures, attend Bible classes right up to graduation. Says Mrs. Buckley: “We have to go back to the things that churches and Sunday schools used to teach my generation . . . respect for the laws of God … a habitual vision of greatness.”

By the time her pupils have finished kindergarten, Mrs. Buckley expects them to know how to concentrate and to be accustomed to work. By the end of the first grade, she expects them to read, with ease, to have begun spelling, writing and arithmetic. Her techniques are as old-fashioned as her principles. Her teachers are not afraid of drilling their charges, or of having them memorize reams of poetry, or of making them listen quietly to a symphony or concerto. As Mrs. Buckley sees it, children like to learn—and they like to learn thoroughly. “It seems a shame,” says she, “to deprive them of the pleasure.”