Essay written by Florence (Bisser) Lloyd Jones Barnett (Jenkin Line)

Uncle Enos said the family established itself at Hillside before the end of the Civil War. The Valley was virtually the family's as Richard Lloyd Jones, with his strong love of home and family, had chosen the rich, pleasant Hillside site for himself and nearby rose the homes and barns of sons Thomas, James, John and Enos.

In 1887 when the Hillside Home School was founded these tall farmers were known to the first children in the school as Uncle Thomas, Uncle James, Uncle John and Uncle Enos.

Their sisters, Ellen and Jane Lloyd Jones, gave up responsible teaching positions to found Hillside Home School. Ellen had been head of the history department at the River Falls Wisconsin State Normal School; Jane was the director of kindergarten training in St. Paul, Minnesota.

From the opening to the closing of the school it was a family project designed to provide good college preparation for their own nieces and nephews.

The uncles and aunts on the neighboring farms, their homes, barns and fields, their horses and cattle were familiarly known to every child of every age. When children of the family left for the University they left their parents still in the treasured "Aunt" and "Uncle" roles for newly enrolled children who ran in and out of their homes, never doubted their welcome, watched and helped with planting or husbandry and loved them because they were worthy of of love.

From the beginning the heads of this new and unique school planned for the education and nurture of both boys and girls from 5 to 18. Since it was a family school it could not be limited to (or crippled by) only boys or girls.

On Richard's farm was erected a large pleasant house called the Home Building. This was home for girls 13 - 18. The original house of Richard was Home Cottage and used for the younger girls. West Cottage, originally built for the Hugenholtz family, domiciled the little boys. In 1903, the former school house / gymnasium (whose bones now lie under the FLlW drafting room) was converted into a homelike building for the older boys and connected with an adequate and beautiful building in native limestone designed and erected by Frank Lloyd Wright, son of Anna and nephew to Ellen and Jane. The Frank Lloyd Wright School of Architecture, inhabiting Hillside thereafter, carries the teaching tradition on today.

Mary Ellen Chase tells in her book The Goodly Fellowship of her early experience teaching at the Hillside Home School. Since her remembrance is between the extravagant praises of some ex-pupils and Mother's (Georgia Hayden Lloyd Jones’) rather sour memories of burnt oatmeal when she was a young student there, I've relied on Miss Chase to tell the story of what must have been a very remarkable school. The quotes will not always be exact, but the sense is all hers.

Miss Chase describes the Lloyd Jones sisters as tall and stately, yet small of frame, with snow white hair -- Jane's being curly and Ellen's glossy and straight. Both had very dark eyes. They supplemented each other in a curious way. "Together they gave warmth and fire, stability and strength, the soul and the spirit which for nearly thirty years sustained and supported the most wholesome and abundant of schools."

Their questions to the budding teacher were not how much she knew of the subjects she was to teach but if she liked the country, did children interest and amuse her, if she enjoyed long walks, what she knew of birds and flowers, did she ride a horse, did she like animals, did she enjoy music. Then about her brothers and sisters. Never about her preparation.

"I suppose that the Hillside Home School, were it existing today exactly as it was in 1909, would be termed a progressive school. Yet the charm and value of Hillside lay in the fact that it did not know it was a pioneer in new education. It was too busy doing its job as a school, a home and a farm all at once. Each area contributed to the others and was never separate."

Ten years before John Dewey at the University of Chicago and fourteen years before Col. Francis Parker lent his name to "child-centered" education and a full quarter century before "progressive schools" began springing up all over the nation, this school in a remote Wisconsin valley looked at each child as an individual and centered its efforts on his reasonable growth, activity and self-expression. Hillside did not do this because "the Aunts" had latched onto something new, but because they used something as old as when Socrates moved his students to a grove by the river to discuss the nature of love and soul. Hillside utilized the virtues of sympathy, patience, wisdom and humor simply because "the Aunts" were sympathetic, patient, wise and humorous women.

Ellen and Jane Lloyd Jones would have been perplexed as well as highly amused had they known of the existence of such pretentious terms as orientation, integration, behavior patterns, units of work, adjustments to environment, socialized atmosphere and the laws of self-activity. They recognized and encouraged these principles naturally as the only decent and reasonable way to treat a child.