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Hadow (1933) (page numbers in brackets) Notes on the text
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The Hadow Report (1933)
Infant and Nursery Schools London: HM Stationery Office
Preliminary pages [title page]  The Consultative Committee on SCHOOLS non putaverunt.' Quintillian, Institutio Oratoria, I, I, 15 PRINTED AND PUBLISHED BY HIS MAJESTY'S STATIONERY OFFICE To be purchased directly from HM STATIONERY OFFICE at the following addresses: Adastral House, Kingsway, London, WC2; 120 George Street, Edinburgh 2; York Street, Manchester 1; 1 St Andrew's Crescent, Cardiff; 15 Donegall Square West, Belfast; or through any Bookseller [page iii]
Appendices:
The estimated gross cost of the preparation of the appended Report (including the expenses of the witnesses and members of the Committee is £1,427 0s 0d, of which £345 0s 0d represents the gross cost of printing and publishing this Report. [page iv] SIR WH HADOW CBE (Chairman)
MR RF YOUNG (Secretary) To consider and report on the training and teaching of children attending nursery schools and infants' departments of public elementary schools, and the further development of such educational provision for children up to the age of 7+. [page v]
[page vi]
[page vii]
[page viii]
[page ix]
[page x]
The Government accepts no responsibility for any of the statements in the advertisements appearing in this publication (other than those emanating from Official sources), and the inclusion of any particular advertisement is no guarantee that the goods advertised therein have received official approval. [page xi] The following question was referred to us by the Board of Education: 'To consider and report on the training and teaching of children attending nursery schools and infants' departments of public elementary schools, and the further development of such educational provision for children up to the age of 7+.' We began our consideration of this problem in February 1931, immediately after we had completed our Report on The Primary School. The Full Committee has sat on 32 days between February 1931 and July 1933, and has examined 89 witnesses (see Appendix IA). In March 1932, the Committee appointed a Drafting Sub-Committee, consisting of four of its members, with Mr WA Brockington as Chairman and Mr RF Young as Secretary, with power, subject to the approval of the President of the Board of Education, to co-opt members from outside (1). In this way it was fortunate enough to secure the services of Professor RH Tawney, who placed at its disposal his wide knowledge and sound judgement, and who has rendered valuable help in the preparation of the Report. The Drafting Sub-Committee met on 26 occasions between March 1932 and July 1933. We take this opportunity of thanking our witnesses for the valuable evidence which they put before us, and also all those other organisations and persons (whose names will be found in Appendix I) who were kind enough to furnish us with memoranda, specimens of work and apparatus, statistics, illustrations, and other data bearing on our inquiry. We desire to thank Professor HA Harris and Professor Cyril Burt, and Dr Susan Isaacs, who, in addition to giving oral evidence, furnished us with valuable memoranda on the physical and mental development of children up to the age of seven, which are to a great extent summarised in Chapters II and III, and part of which are printed as Appendices II and III, respectively, to this Report. (1) Under Clause 5 (iii) of the Order in Council of 22nd July, 1920, reconstituting the Consultative Committee. [page xii] We also desire to thank Mr C Birchenough, Chief Inspector under the Kent Education Committee, and Dr Robert R Rusk, Principal Lecturer on Education to the Glasgow Provincial Committee for the Training of Teachers, and Director of the Scottish Council for Research in Education, to whom we are indebted for help given in the preparation of the first part of Chapter I. We would express our cordial gratitude to our Secretary, Mr RF Young, and to the Clerk to the Committee, Mr RJ Telling, whose services to the Committee have been invaluable. To Mr Young we are specially indebted, not only for the compilation of evidence on which our Report is based, but in large measure for the form in which it is expressed. [page xiii] The present Report completes a trilogy which we began with our report on The Education of the Adolescent (1926) and, reversing the chronological sequence, continued in our report on The Primary School (1931). We have throughout visualised the education of the boy or girl as a continuous process, but we have conceived it as developing through two successive periods. To these we have given the names 'primary' and 'secondary', although in the secondary period the education of 80 per cent of the school population continues to be administered under a school Code which by tradition is still described as 'public elementary'. In order to ensure that each period should be clearly conceived as a unitary phase, with its own problems and its own special opportunities, we have recommended that there should be two broad categories of school, primary and post-primary, the latter containing schools of several different types, so as to 'provide a range of educational opportunity sufficiently wide to appeal to varying interests and cultivate powers which differ widely, both in kind and in degree.' (1) The curriculum of one of these types, the Modern School, to which boys and girls not admitted to grammar schools or technical day schools were to proceed at the age of eleven plus, formed the main subject of our first report. The terms of our later reference, namely, 'the courses of study suitable for children ... up to the age of eleven', excluded those who were educated in infant schools and departments. Accordingly, our second report dealt mainly with the special problems and opportunities of self-contained schools attended by children between the ages of seven and eleven. There we confirmed the general practice of establishing in the primary period of education, wherever possible, separate departments or schools for children under the age of seven. With such children our present reference is concerned. The text of it is as follows: 'To consider and report on the training and teaching of children attending nursery schools and infants' departments of public elementary schools, and the further development of such educational provision for children up to the age of 7+.'(1) The Education of the Adolescent (1926), p. 79. See also the evidence of witnesses quoted on pp. 72, 73 of the same Report. [page xiv] It has been the custom, for official purposes, to describe children below the age of seven as 'infants', though this term would be more strictly applicable to children below the age of five, who have for long been taught in 'baby' classes. In recent years (i.e., since 1919) some provision has been made for them in nursery schools, outside the infant school system, or by means of nursery classes within the infant school itself. (1) When Matthew Arnold, eighty years ago, remarked upon the many good schools which were 'clogged and impeded in their operations' by large numbers of children under eight years of age at the bottom of them, he had in mind the provision of separate schools for infants which had already gained a measure of popular regard. By the year 1870, the educational value of these schools was generally recognised, and the adoption, in the Education Act of that year, of the age of five as the age of entry established them as an integral part of the national system of public elementary education. In the process of filling up the bare spaces, the new school boards treated schools for infants with the same respect as they gave to those for older children. Thus, the publicly provided infant school came into being as a peculiarly British institution. In most other countries it does not form a part of the State system of education, the age for obligatory attendance being fixed at six, or even seven. Since the year 1919, (2) school attendance bye-laws may provide that parents shall not be required to send their children to school below the age of six; but, before an authority is thus relieved of the obligation of making general provision for the education of infants from the age of five, the Board of Education 'shall have regard to the adequacy of the provision of nursery schools for the area to which the bye-law relates'. (3) In 1920, the Board, when advising authorities as to the procedure to be adopted in the framing of bye-laws, made the following statement: 'The Board are not aware that at the present time there is any area in which there is so adequate a provision of Nursery Schools as to justify the approval of such a bye-law'. Accordingly, in the model bye-laws then (1) The term 'nursery class' is sometimes used as synonymous with 'baby class'. We consider that it should have a particular connotation (see Section 78).
(2) The 'appointed day' for Section 8 (4) of the Education Act 1918, was 1st August 1919 (see Board of Education Circular 1118, 2nd July 1919).
(3) Education Act 1918, Section 8 (4), re-enacted in Education Act 1921. Sections 46 (4) (c), and 48 (4). [page xv] issued, they did not include one for this purpose. (1) Four years later, the Board, while still not including a model bye-law, repeated their assurance that they would be 'prepared to consider applications for the purpose on their merits'. (2) We are of opinion that the sections of the Education Act to which we have referred are founded upon a liberal conception of the practical needs of education in the infant and nursery stages; and, after examining the question from many points of view, we find no good reason for recommending any modification of the existing law. Attendance at public elementary schools below the age of five has throughout been voluntary; but in many districts home conditions and the wishes of parents have made it desirable to provide for children after the age of three. The numbers have varied considerably. The attendance curve of children between three and five years of age reached its highest point in the first year of the present century. During the previous thirty years, i.e. from 1870 to 1900, it had risen steadily from 24 per cent to 43 per cent of these age groups. During the next decade, 1900 to 1910, it fell to about 23 per cent; (3) by 1920 it had fallen to 15 per cent; by 1930, to rather more than 13 per cent. In the rural parts of England and Wales there are only 20,000 children at school below the age of five, and large numbers of these have been entered, as also in some urban areas, under administrative arrangements for terminal admissions, at the beginning of the term (more rarely of the year) in which they will reach the age for compulsory attendance. The number of children that can be accommodated in nursery schools, outside the infant school system, from the age of two onwards, is small. On 31st March 1932 the total number of nursery schools recognised by the Board of Education was 55, 30 being conducted by local authorities, and 25 by voluntary bodies. Accommodation for 3,221 children between two and five years of age was found in the provided, and for 1,299 in the voluntary nursery schools. The average number of children on the registers of the 55 nursery schools during the school year 1931-32 was 3,768. In view of what we now know of the importance of the early years of life, these figures have a grave significance for us. In Chapters II and III, we show that not only may inadequate care during this critical period leave behind (1) Board of Education Circular 1180 (12th October 1920).
(2) Board of Education Circular 1332 (18th June 1924).
(3) See Chapter I, p. 29. [page xvi] permanent defects in physical growth, but that what is true of physical growth is too often true also of nervous and mental development. On the other hand, the figures in themselves give no adequate indication of the extent to which the physical and mental health of children, their social behaviour and their home life have been influenced. Otherwise, we should feel that the labours of a devoted body of workers - teachers, doctors, nurses, and scientific investigators - had been largely lost to the community. But such is not the case. The evolution of the nursery school (and of the nursery class) has led to a revaluation of methods of training and teaching, which has taught broad lessons throughout the infant stage of education, and has been carried into the homes of the children. In the environment of the nursery school, some of the most valuable discoveries in infant education assume greater definiteness and precision. Teaching in the nursery stage, though it is primarily derived from the experience of the infant school, has thus become a new form of specialism, to the development of which home training as well as school training, medical research and psychological investigation have all contributed. In its turn, it may render a useful service in the place of its origin, if only in removing any vestiges of an unduly bookish and academic tradition which may still haunt the infant school. For this reason, we desire to see the nursery school developing separately, fulfilling its own particular purposes, and perfecting its own methods. In our Report on The Primary School we considered at some length the upper age limit for the infant school or department, as well as the safeguards which should be adopted to ensure that there shall be no discontinuity in the training and teaching of the child at the age of transfer. We assume the existence of these necessary safeguards in re-affirming our opinion that the full benefits of separate schools or departments for infants may be secured, when the children are retained in them to an age not later than between seven and eight. In the following pages, we have had occasion to refer to those liberal ideas on the training of young children which were present to the minds of the founders of the infant school in England - ideas mainly derived, either directly or indirectly, from Pestalozzi and Robert Owen. These ideas were destined to suffer a partial and at times even a total eclipse. Though it would not be true to say that the nature of the teacher was entirely subdued to what it worked in, yet the harsh environment of 'three-decker' buildings in crowded city streets, [page xvii] the physical restraint of serried rows of desks on infant galleries, the burden of large classes, the lack of fresh air and sunshine and of opportunities for any kind of free activity, made it very hard to achieve that natural unfolding of the child's interests and capacities which is the ideal of the good infant school. Nor can it be said that these physical impediments are entirely things of the past; but we gladly recognise that there has been some progress towards a better order. Buildings of 'open-air' design, garden playgrounds, facilities for rest and sleep, light tables and chairs in place of desks, better books and pictures, and a variety of teaching material, have contributed to a release of power on the part of the teachers. We believe, therefore, that the re-statement of some of the well recognised principles underlying the training and teaching of young children, which we have made in Chapter VI of our report, will be found to possess a practical and not merely an idealistic value. It is no new doctrine; Wordsworth voiced it when he wrote 'Delight and liberty, the simple creedEssentially, as we have said, these principles were present to the minds of the founders of the infant school, though they have been further developed by workers and thinkers since. Nowhere is there to be found a more adequate summary of them than in a Circular which was issued by the Education Department to HM Inspectors more than forty years ago. But general effect has not been given to them, and full effect can never be given to them, until the staffing of schools and the planning of school buildings have proceeded further along the lines of progressive development which we have indicated in Chapters VII and VIII. In the present report, we have not only collected a large body of evidence, oral and written, from teachers and administrators, but we have also tried to ascertain the latest views of scientists regarding the physical and mental development of children during the infant stage. We attach particular importance to the evidence which we have received from Prof. HA Harris, Prof. Cyril Burt, and Dr Susan Isaacs. We have given a general account of it in Chapters II and III, and we have printed as Appendices some portions of the original memoranda, in which certain physiological and psychological aspects of the matter are more fully set forth. We would direct the attention of teachers and administrators to these chapters and appendices: methods and systems of training [page xviii] and teaching, whether they have a philosophical or a scientific basis, should be re-valued in the light of such specialised knowledge. For the teacher, especially, this scientific groundwork will confirm conclusions which she has deduced from daily association with her pupils, and will serve to correct some misconceptions she may have formed of the ways of childhood. Against this background of scientific knowledge we have drawn, in Chapters IV and V, a picture of the internal economy of the infant school (including the nursery school and class); and in Chapter VI, we have dealt with the training and teaching in such schools. This latter chapter is necessarily different in framework and content from the corresponding chapters in our previous reports. The child has not yet reached that stage in which intellectual discipline has to be maintained by making the various branches of knowledge the subject of special study. In the infant school, there are activities, interests, experiences and experiments, but no 'subjects'. Nor must it be forgotten that these interests and activities can develop only in so far as the physical well-being of the child is carefully safeguarded against the dangers by which too often it is threatened. Mind and body are not two separate entities; they are different aspects of a single personality, and the condition of cultivating the former is to pay a jealous regard to the needs of the latter. Any realistic view of education must consider the infant school not as a place of instruction, but as an instructive environment in which the child, under the sympathetic care of his teacher, may cultivate his own garden. Of the infant stage more than of any later stage of education it is thus particularly true that 'the curriculum is to be thought of in terms of activity and experience rather than of knowledge to be acquired and facts to be stored'. The seemingly unordered ways of childhood, 'mere wondering and staring at things', are in fact at an early period associated with efforts at rationalising, and these bring about gradually an order and a system; but, in the beginning, the training will be through the senses based on children's play. ''tis a delight to look on him in tireless playThis has been recognised always by those who have closely observed the ways of the child. If the beginnings of knowledge [page xix] are on 'the voluntary footing of sport', the interests and occupations of adult life may be mutated without any sense of labour - 'his game is our earnest, and his drummes, rattles and hobby-horses, but the emblems, and mocking of mans businesse'. There is, however, always the danger that the liberal ideas underlying this conception of the infant school may be followed in the letter rather than in the spirit. The methods of Froebel, for example, were at first adopted in our infant schools in a mechanical and rigid form associated with 'gifts' and set exercises based on them. Later, the humanism of Froebel was better understood, and the spirit of his teaching found freer scope. The following-out of the letter of the doctrine rather than its spirit results merely in adding new 'subjects' to the time-table: the intellectual character of the 'gifts' of Froebel is disregarded, and the children's 'occupations' take their place beside the 3Rs 'as mere toys or amusing pastimes'. It is only when the child is fully recognised as an individual and not as a member of a class, that there can be a perfect understanding of Froebelian principles. The adoption of individual and group methods in place of mass instruction has made possible the development of these principles, as well as the development of that special type or modification of the Froebelian practice which has grown up in Italy and elsewhere under the influence and practical example of Mme Montessori. The differences between these two educational influences, and the contributions of each of them to existing systems of child training, are discussed in our report. To Mme Montessori we are under a special obligation for her personal attendance at one of our sessions, when she explained her method of child training, and demonstrated, with the aid of her assistants, the use of her educational apparatus. We have touched also upon the researches of the eminent American scholars, Prof. Dewey and Dr Gesell, to the latter of whom we are much indebted for his personal evidence. In the sections on nursery schools, we have made particular reference to the teaching and practical achievement of that great exemplar of nursery education in England, Margaret McMillan. We have felt that we could not overstate the importance of that phase of school activity, both in the nursery stage and later, which involves co-operation with the doctor and the school nurse. One particular aspect of it is the opportunity for detecting early signs of retardation in children. As regards [page xx] remedial measures, it has apparently been found undesirable to segregate the pupils at this stage in special classes, unless it be to secure for retarded children open-air conditions which are not available for all the children. We trust that such special precautions may shortly cease to be necessary. To these and many other aspects of infant training from the earliest years we have made allusion in Chapter VI, which is the core of our report. To this chapter we refer the reader for information as to 'project' methods, speech-training ('His hardest labour is his tongue, as if he were loath to use so deceitfull an organ'), the uses of educational apparatus, the place in the training of the child which is occupied by rhythm and movement, by constructive work and free drawing, by the reading of stories, by the love of acting, and finally and in due season, by the 3Rs. The season of the 3Rs is not the same for all children. Formal education, generally speaking, has been begun at too early an age in England, earlier than is usual in continental countries and in America; and we endorse the view that this early formal education 'has received so large a share of the school time that other activities of equal importance to the young child have been starved'. The child should enter upon the 3Rs merely as if he were entering a fresh field of activity, allied to his customary pursuits. Reading is but another way of looking at pictures, writing but a variety of drawing, and elementary operations in number are associated with most of his childish occupations. In the course of our report, we have made many reservations as to the efficiency of existing schools for infants. We desire to record our general opinion that such deficiencies as exist arise in very large measure from the physical conditions of the schools, such as the character of the buildings and their precincts and the size of the classes: these conditions not only limit the opportunities of the teachers, but react unfavourably upon the methods they employ. We obtained memoranda from nearly 400 mistresses of infant and primary schools and departments, as well as of infant divisions and classes, in the areas of different education authorities, both urban and rural, throughout England and Wales. The impression which we have formed is that infant teachers generally are receptive of new ideas and methods, and that great improvements have been made, and are being made, in the training and teaching of children both below and above the age of five. A considerable number of 'baby' classes [page xxi] are now working, so far as conditions will allow, on the model of the nursery class. The results of the experience which has been gained in the more favourable environment of newly-provided nursery schools and classes, have, in fact, been applied in all kinds of infant schools, where it has been found possible to do so. In Chapter VIII, the brief historical survey of the development of school architecture shows how much more closely suited to the requirements of young children are the schools of open-air design erected during the present century and especially since the [First World] War, than were schools of the older kind; but it shows also that the planning of the ordinary infant school is not yet in complete harmony with modern opinions of its function and activities. In the elementary requirement of floor space, for example, a more generous, and not a less generous, allowance for infants than for older children is an obvious necessity. We consider that the best architectural scheme for the nursery school is one which provides a series of open shelters, set in a garden playground. In schools for infants generally (especially where there are nursery classes) there should be as close an approximation to this open-air design as circumstances will allow. We are painfully aware of the shortcomings of most of the existing school buildings, judged by such standards; but we do not consider that the simple requirements which we have enumerated are an impracticable ideal, and we commend them to the attention of education authorities as practical aims which should be ensued both in the adaptation of old buildings and in the construction of new schools. In dealing with the staffing of infant schools, we have reaffirmed our opinion that teachers should be certificated. At the same time, we have faced frankly the special difficulties which are presented by infant divisions and infant classes in small schools, and we refer the reader to Chapter VII for the discussion of them. In areas having a large number of small schools, in which the infant class may not always be in charge of a certificated teacher, we think that the services of an advisory visiting teacher may be found not less necessary than for some other branches of specialised teaching; but we realise the danger of such appointments, unless particular care is taken to prevent the stereotyping of educational methods throughout the area. The special requirements of nursery schools and classes have led to the introduction into the schools of an element which is in the strictly technical [page xxii] sense a non-teaching element. In recommending the general employment of 'helpers' we have been obliged to emphasise certain limiting conditions. It is clear that employment as a 'helper' cannot be generally regarded as an avenue to the teaching profession. The question, therefore, not merely of the sources of supply, but of the future occupation of these girls after the age of eighteen or nineteen, and the question also of the quota to be employed by any particular authority, become matters of urgent importance. In Manchester, the 'helper' has been described as a 'student nurse', a not inappropriate title seeing that the majority of those hitherto engaged have subsequently entered hospitals as nurse probationers. We print in an Appendix a short account of the 'Manchester Scheme for Student Nurses'. The question of school staffing cannot be considered apart from the question of the size of the class. It is satisfactory to note that the recent small decrease in the number of classes containing 50 pupils and over has occurred mainly in those for infants and junior children. The total number of such classes in elementary schools is still, however, alarmingly high; on the 31st March 1932 there were as many as 7,986. We have re-affirmed with some insistence our recommendation that the classes of the primary school, including infant departments, should not contain more than 40 children, with the further proviso that in nursery classes approaching this size there should be one or more 'helpers'. We find no justification for the view that, as a matter of class management, classes for young children should be larger than those for older children. In Chapter IV we have noted the change in the conception of the class which has followed upon the more complete acceptance of the ideas of Froebel and his successors. While the class remains the unit for registration, it is ceasing to be a single teaching unit, except for certain collective activities. The resulting composite of 'class', 'group', and 'individual' methods of teaching makes it even more important that the class itself should be of a manageable size. We hope that advantage may be taken of the recent fall in the child population, and of the further decrease forecast in the late Report of the Government Actuary, (1) to put fewer (1) Board of Education Circular 1426 (28th April 1933).
[page xxiii] children under the care of the individual teacher, and not to reduce the aggregate of teachers. Class-rooms planned to satisfy the requirements of older Codes and Building Regulations should in future contain smaller numbers of children. In Chapter VII, we have dealt also with the special staffing which is required for nursery schools. Apart from its educational aspects, its use as a remedial agency, and its value as a channel through which beneficial influences might permeate the home of the child, there was one special aspect of the nursery school or class to which all our witnesses called attention. It was to be a means of ensuring the adequate medical supervision of young children. Opinion was, indeed, united as to the pressing need of ascertaining whether the child's home affords a reasonable prospect of a healthy upbringing for the child, of detecting at an early age any signs of physical abnormality, and of making sure that preventive and remedial measures are sufficiently available. Nevertheless, so long as the attendance of children at school below five years of age remains voluntary (and none of our witnesses expressed the view that it should be made compulsory), the nursery school or class can hardly be the only agency, or even the chief agency, for ensuring adequate medical supervision between babyhood and the compulsory school age. We need to see the infant welfare centre and the health visiting service extended, and working in conjunction with the school clinic and school nursing service, and with such schools as there are, or may be in the future, for children below school age. These are the obvious 'other means' for ensuring medical supervision during this critical period, to which we refer. They are specially necessary in country districts, where medical inspection and treatment will not be obtained for the children in any large measure through the agency of the nursery school or class. That the development of the health visiting and school nursing service based on the welfare centre and clinic would be practicable is already evident from the experience of some authorities. By its means, preventive measures may often be taken in the homes of the children, and cases of physical defect may be brought to the notice of the parent, referred to the clinic, or treated by a private practitioner. We are conscious of this hiatus in the health-visiting and medical services, and we received incidentally a large body of evidence on it. Following the text of our reference, we have not discussed specific measures, which might have [page xiv] involved the consideration of legal and administrative problems not directly connected with 'the training and teaching of children in nursery schools and infants' departments'. We believe, however, that the general measures we have indicated are ready to hand, and we are informed that they are already being employed to some extent. They will become more completely effective, as the parents of the children are brought to a fuller understanding of the need for them. All the earlier writers on infant education envisaged the child in its home, and for very young children the development of educational theory and practice has followed this principle. As we state in our report, 'the fundamental purpose of the nursery school or class is to reproduce the healthy conditions of a good nursery in a well-managed home'. The younger the child is at the time of entry, the more closely akin are the opportunities of school and home. It is this fact which is accountable for the change of attitude towards the child at about the age of five; and this also, broadly speaking, is at bottom of the differences which we have noted between nursery schools and nursery classes, because when children are admitted at the very early age of two years, the school must have even more the character of the home. The education of young children outside the home has created peculiarly close relationships between teachers and parents; and we have called attention to the many ways in which the character of the school as a social institution finds expression through their active cooperation. By these means the good influences of the school pass into the home, especially where the teacher has a sympathetic understanding of the home conditions of the child. (1) Incidentally, it may be noted that this close association between school and home is characteristic of our educational system in general, with its tendency to regard the school as a place where formal instruction is, if anything, subordinate to social training. Education outside the home has led also to the sharing of responsibility between the parent and the state, because no general provision is found possible without the intervention of the State. Subsequent changes have affected the measure of the parental responsibility; and the adoption of the age of five as the lower limit for compulsory attendance at school has created a type of public education for young children (1) As was shown in the evidence of Dr Gesell, a somewhat different line of approach to the parent has been adopted in America. [page xv] outside the home which is almost peculiar to this country. Where the home conditions are good, the best place for the child, until he approaches the age of five, is the home. Any State provision of education at this stage should be complementary to the home, and should strengthen the ties between parents and their children. Nevertheless, the State should have regard to the opportunities possessed by the parent for the suitable upbringing of the child in early years. There are homes where the environment is such that the child is of necessity deprived of his proper supply of fresh air, sleep and exercise, where suitable food is hard to provide and cleanliness hard to attain. In such circumstances, the work of the nursery school and class is preventive rather than remedial. The nation cannot afford to leave it undone. Even in more favourable circumstances, the mother may often need advice as to the physical well-being and mental training of her child. We have to determine what are the conditions in which, during the period between babyhood and the compulsory school age, it may be desirable for her to share her responsibilities with a teacher. The problem of securing proper conditions for the healthy development, physical and mental, of children below the age of five, is a complex in which many social problems meet. The process of its solution should take account of the provision of better houses and the improvement of the child's early environment, of the training of girls at school in housecraft and infant care, of the extension of the health visiting and medical services and other remedial agencies, and, lastly, of the preservation of home life and its responsibilities. In its educational as in some other of its aspects, we feel that the problem is one for local investigation and solution. We do not think that school provision for children below the compulsory school age should be a definite obligation laid upon the state or the local authority, any more than that the attendance of such children at school should be made obligatory. But there are districts in which it should be accepted as a particular responsibility. (1) Our summary recommendation is that each local authority should make a survey of the needs of its area, and in doing so should have regard to home conditions and the wishes of the parents; (1) This responsibility will not be confined to areas in which the homes of the children are definitely unsatisfactory. In districts where re-housing has been carried out on the tenement plan, provision for the nursery stage of education may often be not less desirable. [page xvi] that, after consultation with the Board of Education, it should take such measures as seem desirable to help forward the care and training given by the parents; and that these measures should be directed either towards supplying or towards aiding the supply of education in the nursery stage. By such means will particular conditions be brought into account, and particular needs be met. 
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