TEACHING YOUNG CHILDREN

Press, Volume LXIX, Issue 20979, 6 October 1933, Page 9

TEACHING YOUNG CHILDREN

KINDERGARTEN SCHOOLS IN. ENGLAND . MINISTER'S STATEMENT CRITICISED The Minister for Education (the Hon. R.. Masters) was taken to task for his recent remark that "the kindergarten system in England was developed to such a small extent," by Professor J. Shelley yesterday. As far as the Minister's mere verbal statement went, he might claim to be correct, said Professor Shelley, but it was wrong in that it suggested to the public that the kindergarten type of infant education was not going on in England. The Minister appeared to want to give the impression that New Zealand was ahead of England in this matter of infant teaching. That was not the truth. Kindergarten work in New Zealand was done outside the State schools, and for children up to the age of six. In England no fewer than 666,000 children under the age of six years were taught in the infant departments of the public elementary schools run by the State. Different Organisation. These were really separate infant i schools, under their own headmis- | tresses, and the teaching in them was on the lines followed in kindergartens. In New Zealand the term "kinderigarten" was used loosely to mean merely the education of young children, but in England it meant the special kind of education dominated by the technique of Froebel, and practically the whole of the education of young children In England was. done on those lines. In the ordinary public elementary schools of England and Wales there were SI.OOO children of , three years of age, 127,000 of four years of age, and 509,000 of five years of. age.

i What appeared to have impressed Mr Masters was that in England there was not the development of kindergartens outside of the State schools in the same proportion as there was in New Zealand. That was merely because the State in England provided kindergarten education in its own schools. In New Zealand the kindergartens had had to be developed because the State schools maae no provision for this type of education. In England also there were many nursery schools, caring for children even under the age of three. Nearly 3000 children were taught in 44 of these schools.