The Child under Eight

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t our hearts shall leap up at sight of the rainbow until we die. For, indeed, if we lose that uplift of the heart, some part of us

beginning: "Man's chief end is to glorify God and to enjoy Him for ever." Do we lose the vision be

three desires, three ends, and that it cannot be satisfied till it attains all three. Man desires to do right, so far as he sees it, for

ause it is beautiful. There is a glory of the universe which we call truth which we discover and

stence and his answer is that all things exist to make manifest the spirit, t

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beauty and nought else, you get a

ure and with the fair silent things of Nature, should be fostered by parents and others," Froebel tells us, "as

limb high enough to look back upon our own childhood, to

or five and declared "the glory of God." Heaven was not on high among these glorious stars, however. It was a grassy place with flowers and sunshine. It had to be Heaven because

eld with a little stream running far down below. It was not really far and there was nothing particularly beautiful in the place to grown-up eyes, but the beholder was very small and loved it dearly.

hes, for sand-heaps and seesaws; for the necessary shelter, for the children's gardens, and for the lawn, for even on his smallest plan, a "twenty-five-foot lot," we find "room for a spot of green." Later he explains that for this green one must use what will grow, and if grass will not perhaps clover will. The way in which the trees and plants are chosen is most suggestive. Beauty and suitability are always considered, but he remembers his own youth, and also considers the special joys of childhood. For it is not Nature lessons that come into h

pub. Elder, Morgan & Shep

, sweet-smelling clover and golden dandelions; feeding snapdragons with fallen petals, finding what's o'clock by blowing dandelion fruits, paying for dock tea out of a fairy purse, shading poppy dolls with woodruff parasols, that is how a child enjoys the beauty of colour, scent and form. He gets not more but less beauty when he must sit in a class and answer formal questions. "Must we talk about them before we take the flowers home?" asked a child one day; "they are so pretty." Clearly, the "talk" was going to lessen, not to deepen the beauty. And animals? The child plays with cat and dog,

but to keep it alive by keeping pace with the child's natural development. It is not merely living in the country that develops the little child's interest in shape and colour and scent into something deeper. People still "spend all their time in the fields and forests and see and feel nothing of the beauties of Nature, and

g the lilies of the field; they did not want us to get our feet wet among them. We might be forgetting ourselves, but they were remembering us; and we became suddenly aware of the bitterness of life and the tyranny of facts. Now parents and nurses (and teachers) have, of course, to remember children when they forget themselves. But they ought to be aware that the child, when he forgets himself in the beauty of the world, is passing through a sacred experience which will enrich and glorify the whole of his life. Children

e of the inestimable benefit to the children. Miss Stokes of the Somers Town Nursery School secured a country holiday for her little ones in various ways, partly through the Children's Country Holiday Fund, but since the war she has been unable to secure help of that kind, and has managed to take the children away to a country cottage. A paragraph in the report says: "The children in the country had a delightful time, and what was seen and done during their holiday is still talked about continually. These joys entered into all the work of the nursery school and helped the children for months

chers argued about t

re-lessons, one point i

assed the Object-lesso

i

bulbs and of opening chestnut branches: without any cruelty we can let them enjoy watching snails and worms and we can keep caterpillars or silkworms and so l

erbread elephant, but now and then tugging at her skirts and holding up a fat hand. Each time he was rewarded by a dab of soapsuds, which she deposited good-naturedly in his palm. He received it with solemn delight; watching the roseate pla

nt's report show how this may spring n

23: Miss E

them to get the feeling of beautiful colour, so I shall show them a book with the colours graded in it, and we shall each have a paper and paint on it all the rich colours we can think of. The colours will probably run into each other, and so the children will get idea

to represent ourselves. The suggestion will probably have to come from the teacher, but the children will probably have the desire when it is suggested, and I hop

o build a town. Bernard is anxious to know how we shall make mortar. Just then it started to rain, and Bernard said that if the sun kept shining and it rained hard enough we should have a rainbow, and he wished it would come so as to see the beautiful colours. I thought this rather a coincidence, and told him I had a book with all the rainbow colours in it. They asked to see it, so I showed it and suggested painting the colours ourselves. Those who had finished their

spectrum papers, Montessori silks, colour top, and anything else so long as the children keep up their interest. The interest in colour need never die out; it will probably sh

ous activities in a suburban garden where th

e trains go in and out of the station at the foot of the garden, and explored all the side doors, going up and down all the steps and into the cycle shed. They helped Miss S. to stir the soot water, then they went to the grassy bank and ran down it, slid down it, and rolled dow

s are part of those alre

ood-bye to the hen and chickens, and kept on repeating 'Good-by

ch, but I was not sure that we should be allowed t

in the hammock, this time to the rhythm of "Margery Daw" sung twice through, and then counting up to twenty. Very often they went to watch the trains. Cecil is particularly interested in them, and wanted to know how long was the time between. He said three minutes, I guessed nine, but we found they were irregular. In the intervals while waiting for a train to pass, we played a 'listening' game, listening to what sounds we could hear

ing gathering them. I suggested that they should see how many kinds they could find. They found three, but were not enthusiastic about it, being content just to pluck, but they were delighted when they found specially

en went to gardening. The children were delighted to find ladybirds on the lett

ng with the sand, Cecil made a discovery. He said, 'Miss Beer,

Our own children have been fortunate enough to have a bank for their play, and though, unfortunately, extension of buildings has taken away much of this, we have had abundant opportunity to see the value of sloping ground. Then there are the discoveries, the feathery grasses, especially those which were hidden, the ladybirds, that sand is really "tiny tiny stones"-has every adult noticed that, or is sand "just sand"?

ess, ask, "Is it wonderful, I suppose it is, but I never thought about it, why do you call it wonderful?" If the child answers, it is well, if not the teacher can go on thinking aloud, thinking with the child. "Let's think what other things we can see through." We can never understand it, we can only reach the fact of "transparency" as a wonderful property of certain substances and consider which possess this magic quality. There is water of cour

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