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The physical aspect.—The nursery school differs from the ordinary school in
the emphasis placed on mere physical well-being. While other schools are primarily
concerned with the children's minds, nursery schools are primarily concerned with
their bodies. Hygiene is regarded as vital and fundamental, and it is only when the
conditions of personal cleanliness, of wholesome feeding and of healthy physical
growth have been abundantly secured that attention is paid to the strictly social
and intellectual side of the school programme.
The range of ages for the nursery school is from two to five. The schools,
however, were not originally meant for all children of that age, but only for those
who came from ill-conditioned homes. As for the level of living below which
nursery schools are desirable and above which they are unnecessary, that is a matter
on which there has been (and perhaps can be) no agreement. But, wherever the level,
it is clear that the strongest claims are those of the most neglected children and
that the proper place for the first nursery schools is the slums.
Nearly all nursery schools provide a mid-day meal and keep the children on the
premises all day. The only exception we discovered was the Ardwick Nursery
School, Manchester. The Superintendent, who lived quite close to the school and
was well familiar with the homes, contended that it was a higher achievement
to induce the mothers themselves to provide their children with a wholesome midday
meal decently served than to relieve the mothers of that responsibility. In
the majority of nursery schools, however, the higher achievement is impossible.
Indeed the mere fact that it is impossible is the main justification for the
school.
Another debatable question is that of bathing. Should the children be bathed
at the school or should the Superintendent insist on the children coming to school
clean from top to toe ? The sensible reply seems to be that the children must be
clean at all costs, that the parents should be induced to do their part as far as the
conditions of the home permit, and that the nursery school should make up the
deficiency. In no schools need all the children be bathed; in no schools need none
of them be bathed. The bath and the water should always be there for those who
need them.
Leaving debatable territory we find certain practices common to all nursery
schools. Chief among these are: inspections by the school doctor at least once a
term, daily visits by the school nurse, the systematic weighing and measuring
of the children, extreme vigilance in the detection and isolation of cases of
infectious illness and the keeping of medical record of each individual child.
All the children sleep during the early part of the afternoon. Each is provided
with his own comb, towel, tooth-brush and drinking mug.
One of the main advantages of the nursery school is the opportunity it offers
for the early detection and treatment of defects of the respiratory tract and the
sense organs. Bad teeth, septic tonsils, adenoids, defective vision and running
ears can much more easily be dealt with if they are taken in the early stages.
A large proportion of the children who enter the nursery school suffers from
rickets. If it is an open-air school the rickets rapidly disappear.
The need for preventive and remedial measures before the child reaches the
compulsory school age is clearly set forth in the following extract from the last
report of the Council's School Medical Officer:—
"The school medical service is a receiver of damaged goods and spends
most of its time and energies in patching them up. What is now required is
an intensification of social effort directed to the care of the infant in arms and
the toddler before school age, so that children shall come to school in the
beginning with constitutions unimpaired and with bodies attuned to receive
the mental, moral and physical education which it is the primary function of
the school organisation to impart."