412 SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— K*, L. 



manufacture, and by an account of the observed effects of climatic conditions on 

 timber in the process of air seasoning. 



Mr. S. H. Clarke.— T/te Tertiary Wall of Wood Fibres. 



Existing accounts of the gelatinous tertiary wall show that while it may be present 

 in the fibres of root, stem and branch of practically any dicotyledonous tree 

 species, it is not necessarily present in every annual ring, nor in all parts of the same 

 ring in any one tree. It has been suggested that the tertiary wall represents a form 

 of arrested growth. The findings of a study of the chief species of home-grown elm 

 are in agreement with these accounts. Apparently, while contributing to the density 

 of the wood, the tertiary wall does not produce a proportional increase in the mechan- 

 ical strength. It is often stated that woods with gelatinous fibre walls shrink less 

 during drying than woods from which they are absent. A comparison of samples of 

 elm whose fibres had varying proportions of tertiary walls lent no support to this 



Mr. J. Bryan. — Antiseptic Treatment of some Home-grown Conifers. 



The paper gives a summary of the theories of impregnation of wood with preser- 

 vatives under pressure and also discusses the variables affecting impregnation. The 

 adaptability of different species of home-grown conifers to antiseptic treatment by 

 different methods is also discussed. 



SECTION L— EDUCATIONAL SCIENCE. 



Thursday, September 4. 



The Pre-School Child : — 



(a) Miss Margaret Drummond. — Education. 



The term pre-school is intelligible only with reference to countries which have 

 instituted compulsory education. The age at which children must begin to attend 

 school is in our own country five, in New Zealand seven, in Egypt six, in China six, in 

 Japan six (except for invalids and the children of paupers), in Afghanistan six, in 

 Mexico six, in the United States six, seven, or eight — nine in the case of one State. 



The idea of the lower age limit for compulsory education is that the child in its 

 very early years is not ready for education. In the narrow sense of the word this is 

 probably true ; in the wider sense it is obviously false. 



It is, however, true that a special type of education has to be provided. 



The considerations which determine that such education should be provided may 

 be {a) social or economic, (6) educational, (c) scientific. These three sets of considera- 

 tions may act independently, but they tend to co-operate. 



The three great pioneers of pre-school education — Comenius, Pestalozzi, Froebel — 

 were actuated mainlj^ by social or economic and educational interest. Scientific 

 interest, as an incentive for the establishment of pre-school education, is a very 

 modern development. Dr. Montessori represents in a remarkable way all three 

 classes of interest. At present the United States and Canada show the scientific 

 interest in its purest form. 



Nursery Schools. — The term nursery school was invented by the Consultative 

 Committee to the Board of Education, which in 1907 was asked to consider what 

 public provision should be made for the education of children under five years of age. 

 At that time about a third of the children of England between the ages of three and 

 five were enrolled in the public elementary schools. The Committee considered that 

 in favourable conditions the best place for such young children was the home ; when 

 conditions were unfavourable they advocated a special type of institution to which 

 they gave the name nursery school. 



The recommendations of the Committee combined with other factors, social and 

 economic, to bring about the exclusion of the young children from the schools, so that 



