Nursery school

“ But even before kindergarten age, there will be provision for the care of the little ones. Model nurseries will constitute the lowest grade of the future public school system. They will be equipped in accordance with the highest requirements of an advanced, enlightened age. They will be better places for babies to be in than the most ideal nursery in the most ideal home of the present day, because public effort can always achieve better results than private effort. ”

“ Institution for the Promotion of Spontaneous Activity in Children; another was Self-Teaching Institution, and there was also the one which Madame Michaelis translated "Nursery School for Little Children."
But the name Kindergarten expressed just what he Wanted: "As in a garden, under God's favour, and by the care of a skilled intelligent gardener, growing plants are cultivated in accordance with Nature's laws, so here in our child garden shall the noblest of all growing things, men (that is, children) , be cultivated in accordance with the laws of their own being, of God and of Nature." ”

“ We can only understand the child, and what we are to do for it in the Kindergarten, by understanding the first stage of its being—the pre-intellectual one in the nursery. The body is the first garden in which God plants the human soul, "to dress and to keep it." The loving mother is the first gardener of the human flower. Good nursing is the first word of Frœbel's gospel of child-culture.
The process of taking possession of the organs, that I have just described, is never performed perfectly unless children are nursed genially. ”

“ In short, the Nursery-School, if it is a real place of nurture, and not merely a place where babies are “minded” till they are five, will affect our whole educational system very powerfully and very rapidly. It will quickly raise the possible level of culture and attainment in all schools, beginning with the junior schools. ”

“ In the nursery, children are taught the care of their bodies, the use of language, the nature and properties of the world around them, and many social and moral duties, all before books are used. Then it is a mother’s duty to select the school-teacher, and so to supervise, that health and intellectual training shall be duly secured. To this add the duties of training and controlling the helpers in the nursery and kitchen, and to a housekeeper and mother the duties of an educator stand first on the roll of responsibilities. ”

“ 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. ”

“ This home school is—after all which has been said of schools and education—not only the first and best school, especially for females, but emphatically the school. It is the nursery from which are to be transplanted, by and by, the plants which are to fill, and beautify, and perfect—if any perfection in the matter is attained—all our gardens and fields, and render them the fields and gardens of the Lord. ”

“ What teachers can do in school comes later in life than the period of which we now speak. Even the kindergarten, with its short hours and its more artificial life, only shows each day a picture of what the child may do later on in his own self-culture. The home nursery is the real place of actual experience for the average child, with the family table and the intimate association with father and mother and brother and sister. ”

“ Though I think the education of mothers is still more important and the first thing to aim at, as it would render nursery maids comparatively unnecessary. It is so short a period of a mother's life when she has young children, and the book of nature which these few years open to her is so rich, that, for her own being's sake as well as for the children's, it seems to me a terrible loss for her to delegate her maternal cares to others during the nursery period. On the other hand, when the age for the kindergarten comes, the mother needs to be relieved of the increasing care ”

“ Mothers will not be separated from their babies by having them socially educated at the nursery for a few hours each day, any more than mothers of the present time are separated from their children by having them socially educated at school for five hours daily. The baby's play-day at the nursery will generally coincide with the mother's workday at her trade or profession, and that day will be short. ”

“ We can and do cheerfully admit the advantages of a public school and a public school-teacher for our children. Some of us admit the advantages of a public kindergarten and a public kindergartner for our children. The step between child-garden and baby-garden is slight. Why not a public nursery and a public nurse? ”

“ Its purpose is to become a medium for the dissemination of the best thought of the time on all subjects connected with the needs of the child, embracing in its scope the period from the day of birth to the age when the nursery is supplanted by the school-room. ”

“ No nursery, therefore, not even a perfect one, can supersede the necessity of a kindergarten, where children shall come into cognizance of the moral laws which are to restrain and guide their self-assertion, and quicken and enlarge their social affections, leading them to self-denials for the sake of opportunities for themselves of useful and creative art, beneficence, and heroism. ”

“ Flowers have to be picked before the sun has opened them; they have to be packed with skill, and only certain kinds will travel well. Experience is necessary in order to know the right kind of foliage to send away with flowers.
So much, indeed, has to be learnt which cannot well be acquired at a college, that I strongly advise apprenticeship for a year or two to a nursery gardener. If it is preferred to study first at a school where surplus flowers and vegetables are sold, a good foundation of knowledge can be laid, which is considerably added to later in a market garden. ”

“ When the nursery is exchanged for the school room, easy is the task to lead that child on from knowledge to knowledge. The mind is not crowded with many and incongruous studies—but gradually is it enlarged, and its wants supplied by a well regulated course. ”

“ These are the persistent working upon school boards until they adopt the kindergarten, and, much more delicate and difficult, the protection of its interests after it is adopted; the opening of kindergartens in orphanages and refuges where they prove the most blessed instrumentality for good; the spreading of such clear knowledge and intelligent insight into the kindergarten as shall prevent it from deterioration; the insistence upon kindergartners properly trained by properly qualified training teachers ”

“ No doubt, many of the little readers of "The Nursery" go to school; yet not many of them, I think, can ever have been in such a school as the one in which I am teaching. The walls of the room are hung with pictures of birds, animals, insects, fishes, and flowers. The blackboard is covered with drawings of many familiar objects.
While I am writing this, seven little boys and nine little girls (how many does that make in all?) are busy writing on their slates. These children do not have any books to study. ”

“ The hundred or more children are not classified in grades, but in “life-classes,” which correspond roughly to those three periods in child life—the first seven years of growth, the years to adolescence, and early adolescence. The [Pg 102] first class is really an outgrowth of the nursery. In the cool rooms of the Fairhope Summer School one comes upon little farmhouses and villages and doll-houses of building-blocks, which form the basis for getting acquainted with the village the children lived in. ”

“ The time for transition from the nursery to the kindergarten is definitely indicated by two facts. Firstly, Divine Providence has so arranged general family events that every mother must give up having the child live, as it were, entirely within her life, because she has other children to nurse, or other social duties to do. And, secondly, every child's growth in bodily strength and conscious individuality makes him too strong a force of will for so narrow a scope of relation as is afforded by one family. ”

“ As the child grows older it will require the addition of low chairs, tables, etc., in the nursery; these should be simple and substantial. Do not fit up the nursery with broken or cast-off articles of furniture from other parts of the house. Few mothers realize what a deep impression these early surroundings make upon the child, and how nervous, sensitive children may be made to endure positive suffering from contact with unsightly objects. ”

“ A much more radical change has taken place in the education of girls than in that of boys. The whole curriculum of girls’ study has been enlarged and the adoption of the more serious side is now a sine quâ non in all families of whatever rank. The training begins in the nursery and little girls go into the school-room at about the same age as their brothers. The subjects they learn are generally the same, for a knowledge of Latin and advanced arithmetic, as well as mathematics, is now considered essential for well-educated girls. ”

“ For these nurseries attempt to minister only to physical wants. Although the needs of the child at infancy seem to be largely physical, we know, that from the day of its birth, the infant is getting impressions and forming habits. The manner in which we satisfy his needs, the habits which he forms under our care, shape his future character,—and yet, the training of the so-called trained nurses in charge of the average nursery, enables them to attend to the physical needs only. ”

“ A pretty, cheerful nursery—a nursery in which surely children could not but be happy—with pictures on the walls and toys in the glass-doored cupboard, and rocking-horse and doll-house, and everything a child's heart could wish for. ”

“ The problem faced by these mothers can be solved only by social co-operative measures. The establishment of a new type of public nursery to meet the demands of intelligent mothers is now under way. To distinguish it from the prevailing nurseries it is to be called “the baby garden.” The children are to be divided into the following groups according to age: Infants of one year or less; babies from a year to two years; those from two to four years. Only experts in baby culture specially trained to meet the needs of each of these individual groups are to be placed in charge. ”

“ If you would teach your child to read in the easiest, quickest, and most practicable way, easiest both to the child and the teacher, put "The Nursery" in its hands every month. Our word for it, you will be surprised at the result. "The Nursery" will be found a primer, a reading-book, drawing-book, story-book, and lesson-book, all in one.—Boston Transcript.
"The Nursery" is as great a favorite as ever; and all attempts to imitate it have failed. No other magazine can supply its place. No family where there are small children can afford to be without it.—Providence Press. ”

“ But this process of the "gradual disappearance" of domestic activities and their relegation to outside organization is to be carried still further, so as to remove from the home the nurture of even "very young children." "There is nothing which would seem more absolutely dependent upon the mother than the care and training of very young children. Yet the careful study of the best modes of training these early years, which has come in with the Kindergarten, shows how far the nursery alone is from meeting their needs ”

“ That the rules of the nursery—I mean the nursery where the true mother is the present genius, not the hell at the top of a London house—that the rules of the nursery over which broods a wise mother with outspread wings of tenderness, should be the laws also of cosmic order, of a world's well-being, of national greatness, and of all personal dignity, may well be an old-wives'-fable to the man who dabbles at saving the world by science, education, hygiene and other economics. ”

“ This union of joy and gentleness is the very temper to be cultivated in the nursery. The boisterous behaviour sometimes allowed in children is unnecessary—within doors, at any rate; but even a momentary absence of sunshine on the faces of her children will be a graver cause of uneasiness to the mother. On the whole, we may say that some of the principles which should govern Kindergarten training are precisely those in which every thoughtful mother endeavours to bring up her family ”

“ The influence of surroundings during the formative years of childhood has a deal to do with the child's future attitude toward life, and now that parents realize this more, the ideal nursery has simplicity, charm and artistic merit, all suited to the needs of its romping inhabitants. ”

“ Let us take a simultaneous survey of the two extremities of the youth’s education, namely, of nursery training and of the higher education. The two are more intimately dependent upon each other than is generally suspected. With regard to the nursery, early advantages are the key to education. The focus of all cultivation is the fireside. Learning is a stove plant that lives in the cottage and thrives during the long winter in domestic warmth. ”