Crèche

“ The primary aim of the King’s Daughters is to deepen the spiritual life and to engage in social works. The crèche is one form of such and since its establishment in 1908, first at Outremont then at Côte des Neiges and [522] now at the above place it receives poor families with their children during three months of summer for daily rest, fresh air and relaxation, even paying their transportation thither. ”

“ There the tired babies sleep eight or ten in a row sometimes, and forget their baby troubles. The crèche is a boon and a blessing to the poor woman who going out to work has a choice of keeping an elder girl at home to nurse the baby and be summoned for it, or locking the said baby up alone in a room all day with the risk to its life and its limbs inevitable to such a course, not to mention the danger of fire and matches and fits. ”

“ The crèche—so called in remembrance of the crib of Bethlehem—is an institution of the greatest use to poor women obliged to work for their living. They either find their children an insuperable bar to their labor, or else a source of constant anxiety during their absence. ”

“ They are known as crèches, and provide for the care, not of infants merely, but of children up to the age of three. The need for and value of such institutions is obvious. It is a real service to parents of the poorer classes, if not far from their dwelling or from their place of work there exists an institution at which, either gratuitously or for a nominal payment, their little children can be properly cared for. Early in the day the mother takes her infant to the crèche, during the midday pause goes there if necessary to suckle the child, and fetches it home in the evening. ”

“ A poor woman in Southwark had of her own motion, partly from love to children and compassion for both them and their mothers, partly to earn her own bread with pleasure, established a sort of crèche in her two rooms, where mothers who had work from home could bring their children in the morning, and leave them till night. ”

“ The only condamnées who remain for any length of time within these walls are the sick, nursing women having a child less than four years of age, and those enceinte. There is a special crèche for the newly-born babies,—for there are no less than fifty or sixty births annually. ”

“ The making of the crèche is especially the children's part of the festival—though the elders always take a most lively interest in it—and a couple of days before Christmas, as we were returning from one of our walks, we fell in with all the farm children coming homeward from the mountains laden with crèche-making material: mosses, lichens, laurel, and [41] holly; this last of smaller growth than our holly, but bearing fine red berries, which in Provençal are called li poumeto de Sant-Jan—"the little apples of Saint John." ”

“ The crèche, or day home, seeks only to watch over the infants who are put in its care, or to amuse them and keep them contented; the waiting-school goes further, and tries to give the little ones some ideas of discipline and the elementary beginnings of instruction. Fliedner, who was a lover of children, took great interest in both these institutions, and in his school for infant-school teachers prepared deaconesses especially for the duties that are required in teachers of this class. ”

“ Not infrequently the attendants lack the necessary experience in the care of children, medical supervision is often inadequate, the building is unsuitable, the infants are artificially fed, the crèche is often too far from factory, workshop, or home, so that artificial feeding or feeding by a wet-nurse is encouraged. Before long crèches will become national institutions. They will become more numerous ”

“ Here a class of girls is learning the proper care of infants under competent instruction, and here mothers may leave their babies to be cared for through the day while they are seeing the fair. The creche is an exhibit of the Kindergarten Society of Buffalo. Let no one imagine that sightseers are allowed to wander at will through the room; they can only look in through a glass partition. ”

“ Instruction is given in household work and in other practical subjects, the children, at the same time, learning to read and write. A crèche has been established where infants may be left during the day in charge of a corps of nurses, while the mothers are at work. ”

“ In the case of the lower classes, the crèche, or public nursery, where abundance of romping play is permitted, deserves the most strenuous encouragement. Children of all classes will play as they ought to play if only Nature is allowed to have her course without let or hindrance from artificial restraints. ”

“ In the farm-houses, and in the dwellings of the middle-class, the crèche is placed always in the living-room, and so becomes an intimate part of the family life. On a table set in a corner is represented a rocky hill-side [44] —dusted with flour to represent snow—rising in terraces tufted with moss and grass and little trees and broken by foot-paths and a winding road. This structure is very like a Provençal hill-side, but it is supposed to represent the rocky region around Bethlehem. ”

“ Creche.—An institution which has been open in Bath Row for several years, and a great blessing to many poor mothers in its neighbourhood, but it is so little known that it has not met with the support it deserves, and is therefore crippled in its usefulness for want of more subscribers. The object of the institution is to afford, during the daytime, shelter, warmth, food, and good nursing to the infants and young children of poor mothers who are compelled to be from home at work. ”

“ As it may be more or less novel to you I will attempt to describe it, though the really right words for describing it do not exist in the English language. In the first place, it is a restaurant, where meals are served at almost any hour—and not meals such as you get in ordinary restaurants, but sane meals, spread amid flowers and diaper. Then it is also a crèche, where babies are tended upon scientific principles; nothing that a baby needs is neglected. Older, children are also looked after, and the whole question of education is deeply studied, and advice given. ”

“ The Nursery School should cover the ages for which the Kindergarten was instituted, roughly from three to six years old. Already there are excellent baby rooms in some parts of London, and no doubt in other towns, and the only reason for disturbing these is to provide the children with more space and more fresh air, or with something resembling a garden rather than a bare yard.
One school in London has a creche or day nursery, not exactly a part of it, but in closest touch, established owing to the efforts of an enthusiastic Headmistress working along with the Norland Place nurses. ”

“ To the crèche, however, they can take the little ones in the early morning and leave them till late at night, paying only a small sum, such as five cents a day, if they are able, while if circumstances warrant their being exempted even this is not required. The house is supported chiefly by voluntary contributions, and the sisters often have lay assistants eager to share in their labor of love. The children are taken in at all ages, the tiniest, unweaned infant not excepted: there are little cots of all sizes prepared for them, an abundance of milk, toys for the older ones, picture-books, etc. ”

“ Falling upon their knees they went through a short devotional exercise, and then rose to join the procession and give themselves up to unrestricted mirth. In the chateaux of the South of France crèches are still exhibited, and crèche suppers given to the poorer neighbours, and to some of the rich, who are placed at a table "above the salt." There are also "Bethlehem Stable" puppet-shows, at which the Holy Family, their visitors, and four-footed associates are brought forward as dramatis personæ. St. Joseph, the wise men, and the shepherds are made to speak in patois. ”

“ Hence the nursing of babies continues to be a work of devotion, but does not become the coordinated and progressive art it ought to be in well-organized crèches open to criticism in public exhibitions. ”

“ Is it not a miracle if something almost worse than "farming"—death from negligence, fire, or bad nursing—does not occur to them? The good ladies who have founded, and themselves work, these crèches are surely meeting a confessed necessity. ”

“ He wrote a book, Des crèches, advocating the establishment of day nurseries. The first was established at Chaillot November 11, 1844. An association of crèches was formed in 1846. Throughout the rest of his life, while specially interested in crèches, he took an active part in furthering various charities. Among his writings are: Etudes sur l'économie sociale (1844; 2d ed. 1875) ; Des crèches, ou le moyen de diminuer la misère en augmentant la population (1845; many later editions) ; Du paupérisme en France et des moyens d'y remédier (1847) ; De l'indigence et des secours (1850) . ”

“ To themselves be woe, who have eyes and see not, ears and hear not, the convulsions and sobs of injured Humanity!
My little friend told me she had nursed both her children,—though almost all of her class are obliged to put their children out to nurse; "but," said she, "they are brought back so little, [pg 216] so miserable, that I resolved, if possible, to keep mine with me." Next day in the steamboat I read a pamphlet by a physician of Lyons in which he recommends the establishment of Crèches, not merely like those of Paris, to keep the children by day, but to provide wet-nurses for them. ”

“ The nurseries are usually under medical supervision, and the small fees charged, which average in London from 3d. to 4d. a day, and on the continent of Europe about 2d., are much less than the cost to the mother who places her young children under the care of neighbours when at work or away from home. ”

“ As large a room as possible should be selected—one that is well ventilated, and always one in which the sun shines at some part of the day, as it should be remembered that an average child spends here at least three fourths of its time during the first year. The nursery should have dark shades at the windows, but no extra hangings or curtains; about the baby's crib nothing but what can be washed should be allowed. The air should be kept as fresh and as pure as possible. There should be no plumbing no drying of napkins or clothes, no cooking of food, and no gas burning at night. ”

“ A house will be given you to live in, and you will be supplied with the best we have for the use of our ward Miriam and yourself. Twice a week a deputation of the curators will visit the house, and stay there for an hour to see that the health of the infant is good, and that you are doing your duty by it, in which, if you fail, you will be removed. It is prayed that you will not talk to these curators on matters which do not concern the child. ”

“ In the midst of the floor, or squatting round the cold hearth, would be four or five little children from four to ten years old, the latter all with babies in their arms, the care of the infants being taken from the mothers (who are driven a-field as soon as they recover from child labour) , and devolved upon these poor little nurses, as they are called, whose business it is to watch the infant, and carry it to its mother whenever it may require nourishment. ”

“ We will leave the other consequences to issue naturally from observation.
1. The Cradle.—At the Vienna Exposition there was a pavilion de l'enfant (infant pavilion) , a room replete with the necessaries of the nursery—and also with its superfluities—intended altogether to represent the unbounded wishes of a mother for her baby's comfort and happiness. This palace of luxurious nursing ought, in the estimation of the writer, to have been accompanied by a little manual of what is necessary to protect and to prepare life before nativity, in relation to what may be called fœtal education. ”

“ Such pains disturb and haunt his fancy, and dishearten him. Courage and serene joy give strength and enterprise to activity.
The nursery and kindergarten education are the preliminary processes which foreshadow all the processes of the Divine Providence. Therefore, even in the nursery we play antagonizing processes. We heighten the child's enjoyment [203] by making him conscious of isolation a moment, to restore, as it were, with a shout, the delightful sense of relation; for the baby likes to have a handkerchief thrown over his head unexpectedly, and suddenly withdrawn again and again. ”

“ Into this pretty nursery flies another child—a tiny fairy of a girl, tiny even for her years which are but five—in she flies, down the long passage which leads to the children's quarters, in at the nursery door, which, in spite of her hurry, she carefully closes, and seeing that the other door is open closes it too, then, flying back to the centre of the room, deliberately sets to work to—children, can you guess?—to scream! ”

“ In the nursery, the infant children have books and playthings to occupy and amuse them, and are the objects of tender maternal care. Several children are often admitted to the orphanage from one family, in order to avoid needless breaking of household ties by separation. The average term of residence is about ten years, though some orphans have been there for seventeen. ”

“ In the nursery, an essential department of a woman’s prison, the babies show well fed, happy faces, and are as neatly and warmly clothed as the mothers. This department has sixty rooms, each ten by twelve, with a bed and crib for mothers with infants, while above it is a lying-in ward, with all necessary appliances. Often there is not the slightest hint of maternal instinct, and the mother must be watched to prevent the destruction of the child, but more often it is strong, and desire for reform is first awakened with the longing that the child should know a better life. ”