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another basis of classification. The bulk of the schools are held in adapted houses.
It is not always, however, a dwelling house that has been adapted. In one instance,
the Jellicoe Nursery School in Gospel Oak, it is a garage, and in another, the Collyhurst
Nursery School in Manchester, it is a series of army huts. Five only have been
built specifically for nursery school purposes—the two McMillan Schools, the Children's
House in Bow, the Rommany Road School in Gipsy Hill and two of the schools
in Bradford.
Lastly we may classify nursery schools on the ground of the facility they offer
for open-air pursuits. At the one extreme stands the Rachel McMillan School
where the garden is the essential factor and the structure consists of sheds which
cost more for plumbing than for building, and at the other extreme stands theEncombe
Place Nursery School, Salford, where the house is the essential factor and the only
open-air space for the disporting of sixty children is a sort of platform no larger than
an ordinary dining table. We may point out, however, that all the superintendents
we saw regarded open-air instruction as the ideal, and indoor instruction as always
a second best, to which they were driven, permanently by stress of circumstances
or temporarily by stress of weather.
Size of the school.—When nursery schools were first established in 1918 the
prevailing opinion was that they should be small. A school of 40 was considered
quite large enough. The Board of Education, in the regulations which they published
in 1919, laid down 40 as the ideal number ; but they went on to say that " they would
not refuse to consider proposals for a nursery school providing for as many as 80
or 100 children, but in no case should the number exceed 100." And even at the
present day most nursery schools are small. If we leave out the McMillan School,
we find the numbers in London Schools varying from 25 to 70, in the Manchester
schools from 30 to 60, and in the Bradford schools from 60 to 80.
Since those early days, however, opinion has been veering round. The ideal
nursery school is now considered to be a large one. The main objection to the large
nursery school was neither social nor scholastic; it was medical. The large school
was regarded as a breeding place for infectious diseases and a centre from which they
were spread. The larger the school the greater was supposed to be the danger.
Experience has shown these fears to be groundless.

The medical objection having been overcome, the advantages of the large school
over the small came clearly into view. It is easier to organise, it affords more numerous
social contacts, it involves less strain on the individual teacher and finally, it is
cheaper.
The functions of the nursery school may conveniently be discussed under the
three heads : physical, social and scholastic.