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Conclusions and recommendations.—(1) The nursery school fulfils a valuable
function in modern life and its development in number and in efficiency would prove
a great social boon.
(2) It may be regarded as a partial compensation for an unsatisfactory home.
It mitigates some of the evils arising from poverty and overcrowding.
(3) It fulfils functions which the infant school, as at present constituted,
either imperfectly performs or does not perform at all.
(4) The need for the school is greatest where the mothers go out to work, or
where the children have insufficient light, air, exercise, facilities for washing and
wholesome food.
(5) A large nursery school can be more economically and more efficiently
conducted than a small one.
(6) The more closely the school approaches an open-air school the better.
(7) The "adapted house " type is far inferior to the shed-and-garden type.
(8) The staff is quite as important as the premises; while the superintendent
alone need have a teacher's certificate, she and all her assistants should be specially
trained for the work.
(9) If there is to be a development of nursery schools the problem of securing
specially trained teachers becomes urgent. There is at present only one good source
of supply and even that is precarious.
(10) It seems desirable that the nursery schools should, for the present, be
independent of the elementary school. When, however, it has established its own
methods and its own tradition it might then enter into the infant school system
with some likelihood of reforming that system.
(11) Where nursery schools are impossible, nursery classes constitute a secondbest
reform in the same direction. Experimental nursery classes may profitably
be established in a number of the London infant schools.
Section 19 of the Education Act, 1918, which came into force on 8th August,
1918, reads as follows :—
(1) The powers of Local Education Authorities for the purpose of Part III.
of the Education Act, 1902, shall include powers to make arrangements for—
(а) Supplying or aiding the supply of nursery schools (which expression
shall include nursery classes) for children over two and under five years of age
or such later age as may be approved by the Board of Education ; and
(b) Attending to the health, nourishment and physical welfare of children
attending nursery schools.
Indications are given in the annual reports of the Chief Medical Officer of the
Board of Education that primarily nursery schools are intended for children from
unsatisfactory homes who are thus in peculiar need of a different and better environment
and training.
This principle is laid down in the report of 1916 and maintained in the 1919
report, which, after quoting the section of the 1918 Education Act dealing with
nursery schools, goes on to say:—
"Nursery schools are therefore concerned mainly with children living in
the poorer districts of large towns where housing conditions are unsatisfactory,
overcrowding common, infant mortality high, an environment, in short, where
many factors of healthy nutrition are certainly absent and where the resistance
of the body to the onset of disease is not likely to be strengthened.
The primary duty of nursery schools is nurture, the care of the health of
the children and the prevention of future disease."
In 1922 we are informed from the same source that 80 to 90 per cent. of
children are born healthy, yet 30 to 40 per cent. of children admitted to school at
five years of age have physical defects which could either have been prevented or
cured. In 1925 the report states that the chief causes of ailments amongst school
Detailed
report on the
physical
aspect of the
nursery
school by
Dr. McVail.