The Child under Eight Part 3

"Every town should have its own common playground for the boys. Glorious results would come from this for the entire community. For, at this period, games, whenever possible, are in common, and develop the feeling and desire for community, and the laws and requirements of community.

The boy tries to see himself in his companions, to weigh and measure himself by them, to know and find himself by their help."

"It is the sense of sure and reliable power, the sense of its increase, both as an individual and as a member of the group, that fills the boy with joy during these games.... Justice, self-control, loyalty, impartiality, who could fail to catch their fragrance and that of still more delicate blossoms, forbearance, consideration, sympathy and encouragement for the weaker.... Thus the games educate the boy for life and awaken and cultivate many social and moral virtues."

In England we have always had respect for boys' games and more and more, especially in America, people are realising the need for play places and play leaders. But all this was written in 1826, when for ten years Froebel had been experimenting with boys of all ages. At Keilhau play of all kinds had an honoured place. We read of excursions for all kinds of purposes, of Indian games out of Fenimore Cooper, and of "Homeric battles." It was "part of Froebel's plan to have us work with spade and pick-axe," and every boy had his own piece of ground where he might do what he pleased. Ebers, being literary, constructed in his plot a bed of heather on which he lay and read or made verses. The boys built their own stage, painted their own scenery, and in winter once a week they acted cla.s.sic dramas. Besides this, there was a large and complete puppet theatre belonging to the school. Bookbinding and carpentry were taught, and at Christmas "the embryo cabinet-maker made boxes with locks and hinges, finished, veneered and polished."

In England in 1917 we have given to us _The Play Way_, in which one who has tried it gives the results of his own experiments in education through play. Mr. Caldwell Cook was not satisfied with the condition of affairs when "school above the Kindergarten is a nuisance because there is no play." His dream is that of a Play School Commonwealth, where education, which is the training of youth, shall be filled with the spirit of youth, namely, "freshness, zeal, happiness, enthusiasm."

The next chapter will show that it has taken us exactly a hundred years to reach as far as public recognition of the Nursery School where play is the only possible motive. It is for the coming generation of teachers to act so that the dream of the Play School Commonwealth shall be realised more quickly. It is a significant fact that the lines quoted as heading for the next chapter are written by a modern schoolmaster.

CHAPTER IV

FROM 1816 TO 1919

Poor mites; you stiffen on a bench And stoop your curls to dusty laws; Your petal fingers curve and clench In slavery to parchment saws; You suit your hearts to sallow faces In sullen places: But no pen Nor pedantry can make you men.

Yours are the morning and the day: You should be taught of wind and light; Your learning should be born of play.

(_Caged:_ GEORGE WINTHROP YOUNG.)

Had England but honoured her own prophets, we should have had Nursery Schools a hundred years ago. In 1816, the year in which Froebel founded his school for older boys at Keilhau, Robert Owen, the Socialist, "following the plan prescribed by Nature," opened a school where children, from two to six, were to dance and sing, to be out-of-doors as much as possible, to learn "when their curiosity induced them to ask questions," and not to be "annoyed with books." They were to be prevented from acquiring bad habits, to be taught what they could understand, and their dispositions were to be trained "to mutual kindness and a sincere desire to contribute all in their power to benefit each other." They "were trained and educated without punishment or the fear of it.... A child who acted improperly was not considered an object of blame but of pity, and no unnecessary restraint was imposed on the children."

But the world was not ready. Owen's "Rational Infant School" attracted much notice, and an Infant School Society was founded. But even the enlightened were incapable of understanding that any education was possible without books, and the promoters rightly, though quite unconsciously, condemned themselves when they kept the t.i.tle Infant School but dropped the qualifying "Rational." Still, Infant Schools had been started and interest had been aroused. When the edict abolis.h.i.+ng Kindergartens was promulgated in Germany, some of Froebel's disciples pa.s.sed to other lands, and Madame von Marenholz came to England in 1854.

Already one Kindergarten had been opened by a Madame Ronge, to which Rowland Hill sent his children, and to which d.i.c.kens paid frequent visits. In the same year there was held in London an "International Educational Exposition and Congress," and to this Madame von Marenholz sent an exhibit, which was explained by Madame Ronge, and by a Mr.

Hoffmann. d.i.c.kens, who had watched the actual working of a Kindergarten, gave warm support to the new ideas, and wrote an excellent article on "Infant Gardens" for _Household Words_, urging "that since children are by Infinite Wisdom so created as to find happiness in the active exercise and development of all their faculties, we, who have children round about us, shall no longer repress their energies, tie up their bodies, shut their mouths.... The frolic of childhood is not pure exuberance and waste. 'There is often a high meaning in childish play,'

said Froebel. Let us study it, and act upon the hints--or more than hints--that Nature gives."

Dr. Henry Barnard represented Connecticut at this Congress, and he took the Kindergarten to America, in whose virgin soil the seed took root, and quickly brought forth abundantly. But the soil was virgin and the fields were ready for planting, for America in these days had nothing corresponding to our Infant Schools. The Kindergarten was welcomed by people of influence. Dr. Barnard found his first ally in Miss Peabody, one of whose sisters was married to Nathaniel Hawthorne, while another was the wife of Horace Mann. Miss Peabody began to teach in 1860, but eight years later, after a visit to Europe, she gave up teaching for propaganda work. Owing to her efforts the first Free Kindergarten was opened in Boston in 1870. Philanthropists soon recognised its importance as a social agency, and by 1883 one lady alone supported thirty-one such inst.i.tutions in Boston and its surroundings. In New York, Dr. Felix Adler established a Free Kindergarten in 1878, and Teachers' College was influential in helping to form an a.s.sociation which supports several.

Another name well known in this country is that of Miss Kate Douglas Wiggin,[12] who was a Kindergarten teacher for many years before she became known as a novelist. It is Miss Wiggin who tells of a quaint translation of Kindergarten heard by a San Francisco teacher making friendly visits to the mothers of her children. While she stood on a door-step sympathising with one poor woman she heard a "loud, but not unfriendly" voice from an upper window. "Clear things from under foot!"

it pealed in stentorian accents. "The teacher o' the _Kids' Guards_ is comin' down the street."

[Footnote 12: Writer of _Penelope in England_, etc., and of a capital collection of essays ent.i.tled _Children's Rights_.]

In England things were very different, because of the Infant Schools which had already been established, but which had fallen far below the ideal set up by Robert Owen. As every one knows, the education given in those days to teachers of Elementary Schools was but meagre, and the results were often so bad that, to justify the expenditure of public money, "payment by results" was introduced. In 1870 came the Education Act, and the year 1874 saw a good deal of movement. Miss Caroline Bishop was appointed to lecture to the Infants' teachers under the London School Board; Miss Heerwart took charge of a training college for Kindergarten teachers in connection with the British and Foreign School Society; the Froehel Society was founded, and Madame Michaelis took the Kindergarten into the newly established High Schools for Girls. For the children of the well-to-do Kindergartens spread rapidly, but for the children of the poor there was no such happiness; the Infant School was too firmly established as a place where children learned to read, write and count, and above all to sit still. Infants' teachers received no special training for their work; their course of study, in which professional training played but a small part, was the same as that prescribed for the teachers of older children. Some colleges, notably The Home and Colonial, Stockwell, and Saffron Walden, did try to give their students some special training, but it was not of much avail, and the word Kindergarten came to mean not Nursery School, as was the idea of its founder, but dictated exercises with Kindergarten material, a kind of manual drill supposed to give "hand and eye training," and with this meaning it made its appearance on the time-table.

Visitors from America were shocked to find no Kindergartens in England, but only large cla.s.ses of poor little automatons sitting erect with "hands behind" or worse still "hands on heads," and moving only to the word of command. One lady who ultimately found her way to our own Kindergarten told me that she had been informed at the L.C.C. offices that there were no Kindergartens in London.

It was partly the scandalised expressions of these American teachers that stimulated Miss Adelaide Wragge to take her courage into her hands, and in the year 1900 to open the first Mission Kindergarten in England.

She called it a Mission, not a Free Kindergarten, partly because the parents paid the trifling fee of one penny per week, and partly because it was connected with the parish work of Holy Trinity, Woolwich, of which her brother was vicar. The first report says: "The neighbourhood was suitable for the experiment; little children, needing just the kind of training we proposed to give them, abounded everywhere.... The Woolwich children were typical slum babies, varying in ages from three to six years; very poor, very dirty, totally untrained in good habits.

At first we only admitted a few, and when these began to improve, gradually increased the numbers to thirty-five. They needed great patience and care, but they responded wonderfully to the love given them, and before long they were real Kindergarten children, full of vigour, merriment and self-activity."

As is done in connection with all Free Kindergartens, Parents' Evenings were inst.i.tuted from the first, and the mothers were helped to understand their children by simple talks.

Sesame House for Home Life Training had been opened six months before this Mission Kindergarten. It was founded by the Sesame Club, and at its head was Miss Schepel, who for twenty years had been at the head of the Pestalozzi Froebel House. The idea of Home Life Training attracted students who were not obliged by stern necessity to earn their daily bread. Though the methods were not quite in line with progressive thought, the atmosphere created by Miss Schepel, warmly seconded by Miss Buckton,[13] was one of enthusiasm in the service of children. The second Nursery School in London had its origin in this enthusiasm. Miss Maufe left Sesame House early in 1903, and started a free Child Garden in West London. Four years later she moved to Westminster to a block of workmen's dwellings erected on the site of the old Millbank Prison. This "child garden" has a special interest from the fact that it was carried on actually in a block of workmen's dwellings like The Children's Houses of a later date. The effort was voluntary and the rooms were small, but, if the experiment had been supported by the authorities, it would have been easy to take down dividing walls to get sufficient s.p.a.ce. Miss Maufe gave herself and her income for about twelve years, but difficulties created by the war, the impossibility of finding efficient help and consequent drain upon her own strength have forced her to close her little school, to the grief of the mothers in 48 Ruskin Buildings. Another Sesame House student, Miss L. Hardy, in her charming _Diary of a Free Kindergarten_, takes us from London to Edinburgh, but the first Free Kindergarten in Edinburgh began in 1903 and had a different origin. Miss Howden was an Infants' Mistress in one of the slums, and knew well the needs of little children in that wide street, once decked with lordly mansions, which leads from the Castle to Holyrood Palace. Some of the fine houses are left, but the inhabitants are of the poorest, and Miss Howden left her savings to start a Free Kindergarten in the Canongate. The sum was not large, but it was seed sown in faith, and its harvest has been abundant, for Edinburgh with its population of under 400,000 has five Free Kindergartens, in all of which the children are washed and fed and given restful sleep, as well as taught and trained with intelligence and love. London with its population of 6,000,000 had but eight up to the time of the outbreak of the war.

[Footnote 13: Author of the beautiful mystery play of _Eager Heart_.]

In 1904 the Froebel Society took part in a Joint Conference at Bradford, where one sitting was devoted to "The Need for Nursery Schools for Children from three to five years at present attending the Public Elementary Schools." The speakers were Mrs. Miall of Leeds, and Miss K.

Phillips, who had wide opportunities for knowledge of the unsuitable conditions generally provided for these little children. Among those who joined in this discussion was Miss Margaret M'Millan, so well known for her pioneer work in connection with School Clinics, and more recently for her now famous Camp School. Miss M'Millan had already done yeoman service on the Bradford Education Committee, but was now resident in London, and she had been warmly welcomed on the Council of the Froebel Society. It was from the date of this Conference that the name Nursery School became general, though it had been used by Madame Michaelis as early as 1891. In the following year, 1905, the Board of Education published its "Reports on Children under Five Years of Age," with its prefatory memorandum stating that "a new form of school is necessary for poor children," and that parents who must send their little ones to school "should send them to nursery schools rather than to schools of instruction," to schools where there should be "more play, more sleep, more free conversation, story-telling and observation." It would seem that the recommendations of 1905 may begin to be carried out in 1919, a consummation devoutly to be wished.

In the meantime voluntary effort has done what it could. Birmingham had good reason to be in the forefront, since many of its public-spirited citizens had in their own childhood the benefit of the excellent works of Miss Caroline Bishop, a disciple of Frau Schrader. The Birmingham People's Kindergarten a.s.sociation opened its first People's Kindergarten at Greet, in 1904, and a second, the Settlement Kindergarten, in 1907.

Sir Oliver Lodge spoke strongly in favour of these inst.i.tutions, calling them a protest against the idea of the comparative unimportance of childhood.

Miss Hardy opened her Child Garden in 1906, and that work has grown so that the children are now kept till they are eight years old. The Edinburgh Provincial Council for the Training of Teachers opened another Free Kindergarten as a demonstration school for Froebelian methods, a practising school for students, and also as an experimental school, where attempts might be made to solve problems as to the education of neglected children under school age. It was the Headmistress of this school, Miss Hodsman, who invented the net beds now in general use. She wanted something hygienic and light enough to be carried easily into the garden, that in fine weather the children might sleep out of doors.

Another Sesame House student, Miss Priestman, opened a Free Kindergarten in the pretty village of Thornton-le-Dale, where the children have a sand-heap in a little enclosure allowed them by the blacksmith, and sail their boats at a quiet place by the side of the beck that runs through the village.

It was in 1908 that Miss Esther Lawrence of the Froebel Inst.i.tute inspired her old students to help her to open The Michaelis Free Kindergarten. Since the war, the name has been altered to The Michaelis Nursery School, which is in Netting Dale, on the edge of a very poor neighbourhood, where large families often occupy a single room. As in the Edinburgh Free Kindergartens, dinner is provided, for which the parents pay one penny. The first report tells how necessary are Nursery Schools in such surroundings. "The little child who was formerly tied to the leg of the bed, and left all day while his mother was out at work, is now enjoying the happy freedom of the Kindergarten. The child whose clothes were formerly sewn on to him, to save his mother the periodical labour of sewing on b.u.t.tons, is now undressed and bathed regularly. The attacks on children by drunken parents are less frequent. When the Kindergarten was first opened, many of the children were quite listless, they did not know how to play, did not care to play. Now they play with pleasure and with vigour, and one can hardly believe they are the listless, spiritless children of a year ago."

In 1910 Miss Lawrence succeeded in opening what was called from the first the "Somers Town Nursery School," where the same kind of work is done. One of the reports says: "It is interesting to see the children sweeping or dusting a room, was.h.i.+ng their dusters and dolls' clothes, polis.h.i.+ng the furniture, their shoes, and anything which needs polis.h.i.+ng. On Friday morning the 'silver' is cleaned, and the brilliant results give great pleasure and satisfaction to the little polishers.

'Have you done your work?' was the question addressed to a visitor by a three-year-old child, and the visitor beat a hasty retreat, ashamed perhaps of being the only drone in the busy hive. At dinner time four children wait on the rest, and very well and quickly the food is handed round and the plates removed."

There are other Free Kindergartens at work. One is in charge of Miss Rowland, and is in connection with the Bermondsey Settlement. It is Miss Rowland who tells of the "candid mother" she met one Sat.u.r.day who remarked, "I told the children to wash their faces in case they met you."

The Phoenix Park Kindergarten in Glasgow is interesting because the site was granted by an enlightened Corporation and the Parks Committee laid out the garden, while the real start came from the pupils of a school for girls of well-to-do families. By this time other social agencies have been grouped round the Kindergarten as a centre.

The Caldecott Nursery School was opened in 1911 and has grown into the Caldecott Community, which has now taken its children to live altogether in the country. This Nursery School was never intended to be a Kindergarten; it was started as an interesting experiment, "chiefly perhaps in the hope that the children might enjoy that instruction which is usually absorbed by the children of the wealthy in their own nurseries by virtue of their happier surroundings."

And in the very year in which we were plunged into war Miss Margaret M'Millan put into actual shape what she had long thought of, and opened her "Baby Camp" and Nursery School, with a place for "toddlers" in between, the full story of which is told in _The, Camp School_. In the Camp itself the things which impress the visitor most are first the s.p.a.ce and the fresh air, the sky above and the brown earth below, and next the family feeling which is so plain in spite of the numbers. The Camp existed long before it was a Baby Camp and Nursery School, for Miss M'Millan began with a School Clinic and went on to Open-Air Camps for girls and for boys, before going to the "preventive and constructive"

work of the Baby Camp. Clean and healthy bodies come first, but to Miss M'Millan's enthusiasm everything in life is educative.

The war has increased the supply of Nursery Schools, because the need for them has become glaringly apparent. Many experiments are going on now, and it seems as if experimental work would be encouraged, not hampered by unyielding regulations. The Nursery School should cover the ages for which the Kindergarten was inst.i.tuted, roughly from three to six years old. Already there are excellent baby rooms in some parts of London, and no doubt in other towns, and the only reason for disturbing these is to provide the children with more s.p.a.ce and more fresh air, or with something resembling a garden rather than a bare yard.

One school in London has a creche or day nursery, not exactly a part of it, but in closest touch, established owing to the efforts of an enthusiastic Headmistress working along with the Norland Place nurses.

Its s.p.a.ce is at present insufficient, but the neighbouring buildings are condemned, and will come down after the war. They need not go up again.

Then the s.p.a.ce could be used in the same way as in the Camp School. That would be to the benefit of the whole neighbourhood, and there could be at least one experiment where from creche to Standard VII. might be in close connection.

Miss M'Millan's ideal is to have a large s.p.a.ce in the centre of a district with covered pa.s.sages radiating from it so that mothers from a large area could bring their little ones and leave them in safety. It would be safety, it would be salvation. But, as the Scots proverb has it, "It is a far cry to Loch Awe."

Another question much debated is, who is to be in charge of these children. The day nursery or creche must undoubtedly be staffed with nurses, but with nurses trained to care for children, not merely sick nurses. There are, however, certain people who believe that the "trained nurse" is the right person to be in charge of children up to five, while others think that young girls or uneducated women will suffice. We are thankful that the Board of Education takes up the position that a well-educated and specially trained teacher is to be the person responsible.

We certainly want the help both of the trained nurse and of the motherly woman. The trained nurse will be far more use in detecting and attending to the ailments of children than the teacher can be, and the motherly woman can give far more efficient help in training children to decent habits than any young probationer, useful though these may be. But there is always the fear that the nurses may think that good food and cleanliness are all a child requires, and, as Miss M'Millan says, "The sight of the toddlers' empty hands and mute lips does not trouble them at all."

But every man to his trade, and though the teacher in charge must know something about ailing children, it is very doubtful if a few months in a hospital will advantage her much. Here she trenches on the province of the real nurse, whose training is thorough, and the little knowledge, as every one knows, is sometimes dangerous. One Nursery School teacher, with years of experience, says that what she learned in hospital has been of no use to her, and it is probable that attendance at a clinic for children would be really more useful. Certainly the main concern of the Nursery School teacher is sympathetic understanding of children.

There must be no more of _Punch's_ "Go and see what Tommy is doing in the next room and tell him not to," but "Go and see what Tommy is trying to accomplish, and make it possible for him to carry on his self-education through that 'fostering of the human instincts of activity, investigation and construction' which const.i.tutes a Kindergarten."

CHAPTER V

"THE WORLD'S MINE OYSTER"

A box of counters and a red-veined stone, A piece of gla.s.s abraded by the beach, And six or seven sh.e.l.ls.