THE 1960 NURSERY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXVII, Issue 20605, 2 July 1930, Page 5

THE 1960 NURSERY.

AS AN EXPERT SEES IT. Lucky the small person who is destined to come into the world 30 years hence and inhabit one of Mrs. St. Aubyn's ultra-modern nurseries.

This noted child expert created a tremendous amount of interest recently with the 1960 model nursery, which, in collaboration with Mr. Claude Atkinson, she exhibited at the Ideal Homes Exhibition at Olympia, states a London -writer. It would be as different, she said, as the present nursery is from the late 19th century edition of one. She foresaw a speeding-up of life in general and a decrease in playing space, so put her thinking cap on accordingly. First necessity in a town nnrsery, said this visionary, will *bo a sliding roof. With the aggravation of the servant problem, fewer mothers will be able to take the children into the parks, so the nursery—a top-floor room—must let in God's good air and sunlight. And then, if you please, attached to this model nursery will be a small gymnasium and bathroom; Mrs. St. Aubyn says this will be a natural logical outcome of the emphasis laid at present on tooth-brush drill, hygiene and physical culture.

Next, for labour-saving, the rooms will be circular and without corners and kept scrupulously clean by suction floorcleaners concealed in the skirting boards. Artistically designed sun-day lamps will keep the room at an even temperature and there will be heap* more fresh air in the form of special wall ventilators. Fantastic and extravagantly impossible this may sound, she points out, but 110 more so than a bathroom or so per house would have 30 years ago. It will probably be taken just as a matter of course. No crude or jarring colour note must offend the child's taste in thi§ nursery. Colours will all be soft and shaded. Chairs will be specially designed and adapted .in height as the children grow. There will probably, too, bo a special television chair, where* the child may sit back and watch and listen to the doings of small people in other parts of the world. Perhaps Mrs. St. Aubyn's piece de resistance will be the "administrative chair," designed to save mother's and Nannie's energy. Every nursery will be incomplete without it. Largo and well upholstered, it will have tucked away in the arm, and at one side, drawers for books or needlework, and so on, and at the other electric buttons controlling the sliding roof, the suction floor sweeper and other working gadgets. A leg slide will slip in and out so that the administrator may rest, ever the consideration of the elder's energy brought to such a fine art ? And the food problem! Listen to this! No moro lost vitamins. The edibles — perfectly cooked—will be propelled on a beautiful circular, shining, electncallyheatcd food trolley and to the dishes will ho attached thermometers by which the nurse will be able to tell the exact temp era litre and amount of nourishment in the food. ... So increasingly important is becoming the study of the child's needs, reasons Mrs. St. Aubyn, that all the scientific, aesthetic, psychological and educational knowledge of the day will be used AU years henco to creato children's furniture and rooms as visualised by her.