A Book to Read Guiding Children

Dominion, Volume 31, Issue 270, 11 August 1938, Page 5

A Book to Read Guiding Children

English Nursery Schools “ Ihe Common Gateway To Education ”

“Tile English Nursery School,” by rboebe E. Cusden, sometime organising secretary, Nursery School Association of Great Britain (London: Kogan rani.) T'HLS book shows in concise ami x readable form the commendable interest that is being taken in the educational and medical worlu in “the most wholesome part of the race, the sweetest, for they are fresher iron) the hands of God”—the children. It commences with a historical review of the romantic development of the English nursing school movement in which the author states: ’lt is in large measure the story of pioneers who, having seen a vision of what childhood might be and of the nob.e race that might grow out of it. spent their lives and energies in a supreme effort to translate that vision into reality in the slums of our great cities.” The reader learns that the efforts of these pioneers have not been in vain, that the seed sown by their high endeavour is now yielding a harvest ot human happiness. A broader conception of this social service now exists than atjts genesis, for it is becoming increasingly recognised as essential to meet the needs of young children of all classes of the community. To many children, as witn the only child, the nursery or kindergarten school is literally’ a salvation. Now they are being generally accepted as an indispensable basis of any sound system of education and child welfare. The nursery school is not a substitute for the home to relieve parents of responsibility for the welfare and wise guidance of their offspring. Nothing can take the place of that intimate threefold relationship between father, mother and child that is or should be the most stable influence in the child’s life; and it has been the aim the nursery school to uphold and strengthen that relationship. Miss Cusden strongly affirms in a chapter on “Home and School.”

An outstanding feature of this book is its wealth of sound advice and information on the satisfactory admini stration of these schools, made largely possible by the guidance and co-opera-tion extended the author by eminent medical and ■educational authorities. The nutrition tables reproduced from the valuable interim and final reports of the mixed committee of the League of Nations on “Relation of Nutrition to Health, Agriculture and Eqonomic Policy,” will interest those concerned in the nutrition of the growing child./ The diet charts shown are actually those in use at the nursery schools under the control of the Leeds, Walthamstow and West Ham Education Committees, and are interesting examples of the practical application of dietary principles. However, apart'from its value to medical, educational and. nursing'professions, this book contains much that should appeal to the general reader and those contemplating taking this work up as a career. Miss Cusden has approached with affection and understanding the problem of securing the proper conditions for the healthy development, physical and mental, of children of tender years, and her well-illustrated book concludes with an appeal to make the nursery school “the common gateway to education,” for, in the words of Sir George Newman, “it will cast its penetrating influence and light over the whole realm of education, child nurture, ennobling ‘work’ and vitalising and inspiring ‘nla.v.’ ” —E.G.