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The Modern School in New York City, circa 1911-12. Will Durant stands with his pupils. This image was used on the cover of the first Modern School magazine.

The Modern Schools, also called Ferrer Schools, were American schools formed in the early 20th century around the ideas of educator and anarchist Francesc Ferrer i Guàrdia and modeled after his Escuela Moderna. They were an important part of the anarchist, free education, socialist, and labor movements in the U.S., intended to provide education to the working-classes from a liberating, class-conscious perspective. The Modern Schools had classes for children during the day, and lectures were given to adults at night.

The first and most notable of the Modern Schools was founded in New York City in 1911, shortly after Ferrer's execution in Spain. Commonly called the Ferrer Center, it was started by a group of notable anarchists including Leonard Abbott, Alexander Berkman, Voltairine de Cleyre, and Emma Goldman. The school first met on St. Mark's Place in the Lower East Side, but moved twice to other locations in Manhattan, with the second move taking it out of the Village into Harlem. It opened with only nine students, one of whom was the son of the contraceptives-rights activist, Margaret Sanger.

Philosopher Will Durant was an instructor and principal of the School starting in 1912. Ashcan School painters Robert Henri and George Bellows were also among its instructors, and writers and activists including Sanger, Jack London, and Upton Sinclair gave lectures. Artist Man Ray also studied there.

The Modern School magazine, Spring, 1920

In 1915, a group of individuals who were loosely associated with the School's adult education program plotted to detonate a bomb at the mansion of tycoon John D. Rockefeller. The bomb's premature^{[citation needed]} explosion launched a series of raids and investigations into New York City labor and anarchist organizations, and the School's organizers decided that the city was an unsafe environment for their school. 68 acres (275,000 m²) were purchased in Piscataway Township, New Jersey, and the school was moved there in 1914 as the center of the Stelton Colony. Outside of New York City, Ferrer Colony and Modern School was started as a community based around a Modern School.

The Modern School magazine had started as a newsletter for parents of students when the school was still in New York, and was printed on the hand press used in the School to teach printing. After the move to Stelton, the magazine was expanded to contain poetry, prose, art, and articles about libertarian education, with a cover emblem and many of its interior graphics were designed by illustrator Rockwell Kent. Many artists and writers, including Hart Crane and Wallace Stevens, praised The Modern School as "the most beautifully printed magazine in existence."

• Paul Avrich, The Modern School Movement: Anarchism and Education in the United States ([AK Press edition)

Anarchism Portal

• Lexington Avenue bombing

• A history of the Stelton Modern School
• Ferm, Elizabeth Byrne. Freedom in Education, review here
• Modern School Collection
• The Modern School at the Anarchist Encyclopedia