IMPORTANT WORK

Evening Star, Issue 23189, 11 February 1939, Page 26

IMPORTANT WORK

AN AUSTRALIAN IN LONDON j An Australian woman, Miss Lilian do Lissa, holds an important position in England in the nursery school movement. states an exchange! Miss de Lissa I was associated with the establishment some years ago of the Gipsy Hill Training School, the first of its kind in Eng- | land. She first became interested in | the problem of the pre-school child in i industrial areas when, as a young girl, , she used to teach and play with the | children in the VVoolloomooioo district, j Later she became associated with the 1 kindergarten movement in South Ausi tralia, am! shortly before the war she j was sent abroad to study development iin kindergarten work in the United - States, Italy, Germany, and Great Brii tain.

In Italy she did a good deal of work with Madame Montessori. and during her visit to Great Britain she made such a good impression on the education authorities there that a request was sent to South Australia that she should bo permitted to remain in London. The result wuis that, although she returned to Adelaide for a time, she went back eventually to London and played an important part in the development of the nursery school movement there. During the winter months it is her practice to travel through the country lecturing in such centres as Manchester and Birmingham and interviewing applicants for nursery' school training.

Miss de Lissa actually lives in Surrey in the Old Cottage at Oxshott, which she bought some years ago at an ideal homos exhibition at Olympia. At present she is working on a book on the nursery school movement, which will be published probably this year.