[2] Soon after, Lucy Sprague Mitchell joined Pratt, and offered financial and teaching support that allowed for larger quarters on MacDougal Alley.

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.

"[6] 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.

In the spring of 1913, using the materials she designed, in addition to clay, paper, tempera paint, and crayons, Pratt developed a half-day program for six five-year-olds at the Hartley Settlement House.

[9] Encouraged that children can and do learn by play, Pratt, with the assistance of Edna Smith and Helen Marot Archived 2012-11-18 at the Wayback Machine, colleagues in the Women's Trade Union League, rented a three-room apartment at the corner of West 4th and 12th Streets in Greenwich Village.

[10] It was during the early years on 13th Street that Lucy Sprague Mitchell became interested in the Play School and began a long association with City and Country.

In 1915, the Play School moved to a former stable in MacDougal Alley at the rear of a house at 15 Washington Square North, which had been purchased by Lucy and Wesley Mitchell as a family residence.

The name was changed to the City and Country School in 1921 after Pratt and Mitchell established a summer farm program at Hopewell Junction, New York.