A ZOO IN A SCHOOL.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 20239, 26 April 1929, Page 9

A ZOO IN A SCHOOL.

PIONEER EXPERIMENT. i An amusing pioneer experiment in aj miniature "zoo" at a school in Blackfrfars I is recalled by the retirement of Mrs. A Tyco | L. Sandford, one of the originators of the j modern type of infant school, states an | English writer. Mrs. Sandford. who was latterly head- j mistress of Brandlehow Road School, Put- ! nev. described in an interview some of the | vicissitudes of her little nienagerie, which she started at a time when nature study j was seldom taught in schools. "We had rabbits, doves, tadpoles, i guinea pigs, hedgehogs, goldfish, and a ! snake several feel long," she said. "The. { only difficulty was the snake. He would eat frogs in such a disgusting way, and wo had to turn his cage to the Wall when he was feeding, because the children could not bear to see him do. it. •. The zoo succeeded in arousing the children's imagination and interest. They were the roughest crowd ot children I have ever taught, but they all took an intense interest in the zoo. and I loved teaching them." The.authorities, she said, viowed the experimem with some concern, until Sir Cyril Cobb, as chairman of the Education Committee of the L.C.C., visited the zoo, and was impressed by what ,he saw. "I told him that ail I wanted was a dormouse," said Mrs Sandford. "Sir Cyril Cobb at once gave me 5s with which to buy a dormouse, and, in gratitude, the children called it 'Cyril.' " When tho Moral Education League held a conference and exhibition in Caxton ITall, Mrs. Sandford was asked to take her zoo to the exhibition. "We packed them all into a cart, and I sat in front I with the driver holding a bowl of goldfish in my arms. Wo arrived safely at the exhibition, but that night 'Nigger,' the black rabbit, escaped. He was not found until the following -morning, when lie darted out at one of the. cleaners and so j alarmed her that she declared ever afterj wards that she had seen the devil in CaxI ton Hall."