NEW CHILDREN’S HOME

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 73, Issue 429, 21 November 1930, Page 2

NEW CHILDREN’S HOME

MODERN METHODS USED NOW AT KINDERGARTEN. The twentieth century has been called “the century of the child” and scieu tists throughout the world are spending their lives in evolving perfect methods of training and caring for children. Some of these methods, tried by long practice in America, Great Britain and in Russia, have recently been adopted by the directress, Aliss Bennett, of the Carlton Kindergarten in Bouvcrie Street, says an overseas correspondent. In the garden behind the kindergarten, for example, one may be introduced to the carpenters’ class, a group of tiny children aged two years lustily hammering long nails into large blocks of wood. Though the steel hammers are of considerable size and weight, not one baby shows the smallest tendency to hammer his own fingers or the head of the tiny carpenter next to him. Next the ‘‘babies’ room” may be inspected where dolls are bathed in a tub of real water, a great advance on the

empty pretence of children of the last generation. Even matches are not for bidden these nioern children of the kindergartens, as it is contended that all possible danger is averted by teaching them the proper use of elemental things. In the corner of the babies’ room a pile of stretchers and quilts is stacked. The Carlton kindergarten is the first in Victoria to adopt the plan of caring for its children all day and providing them with a hot meal at lunch, and after lunch each child rests for an hour on its own stretcher covered by its own quilt. In the “big room,” gay with lacquered tables, and the coloured light of a large stained glass window to the memory of Aliss Lush, a former directress, who served the kindergarten for twenty two years, the children rest, drowsily listening to a softly-played minuet of Beethoven. AU along one wall is a large zoo, complete with cages and animals made by the children. At the end of the room is a baker’s shop with windows, counters, ovens and plasticine loaves, copied from those of a neighbouring bake house visited by the children. The bathroom, all white enamel and shining nickel, has a long mirror, set two feet from the ground, so that the

children can decide when their own faces are dirty without being reminded of the sorrv fact by a grown up. Across the playground, filled with swings and climbing-places, and a large now sun room, is the dining-room. Here, in accordance with the discoveries of modern science, the legs of the tables only are painted a bright yellow, so that too much colour on the table tops will not tire young eyes mat only at tain their full strength after six years. Yellow table mats and bowls of bright poppies rival the direct sunlight pouring in through the windows. Here tiny “housekeepers” set the tables, going backwards and forwards with an expression of anxious concentration, lest a single spoon be forgotten. The bright faces draw attention from the thin little bodies, and one thinks only of the Rus sian proverb in praise of “those who build palaces for children.”