SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— L. 413 



in 191G, when Sir George Newman began his campaign in their favour, only about an 

 eighth of the total were in regular attendance in the schools. 



The Education Act of 1918 empowered Local Education Authorities to establish 

 nursery schools where necessary for the mental or physical welfare of children under 

 five. 



So slow was progress, however, that in 1922 the Nursery School Association was 

 founded to further the interests of these children. 



Private experiment, meanwhile, influenced largely by the Kindergarten movement, 

 on the one hand, and, on the other, by Robert Owen's great social work at New Lanark, 

 had done much to formulate aims and ideals and to create an educational method. 

 In recent years the work of Maria Montessori and of Margaret MacMillan has 

 revitalised the movement and stirred public imagination in its favour. The dis- 

 coveries of the psychologists showing the enormous importance of the experiences 

 of the very early years in the development of personality traits added scientific weight 

 to the forces already active. Political parties made the nurser}' school part of their 

 educational programme. Local Authorities, urged by public interest and support, 

 began to stir in the matter, and to-day the time seems ripe for a change in the founda- 

 tions of our educational practice which will have a far-reaching influence throughout 

 our whole social structure. 



(b) Dr. J. A. Hadfield. — Mental Health. 



Psychopathologists agree that abnormalities such as delinquencies, and psycho- 

 neuroses (obsessions, hysteria and sex perversions) have their roots in the first years 

 of life. Illustration. — By discovering their origins, possibility not only of curing 

 them, but finding means of prevention. 



Mental health depends on full and harmonious development of innate tendencies. 

 Necessity of (a) opportunity for expression, (h) ideal by which to control them, and 

 towards which to guide them. 



Relation of freedom and discipline from point of view of procuring mental health. 



Basic causes of abnormalities. 



(c) Dr. W. E. Blatz.— Motivation of Child Behaviour, 

 {d) Discussion. 



Presidential Address by the Rt. Hon. Lord Eustace Percy, P.O., on 

 A Policy of Higher Education. (See p. 219.) 



Afternoon. 

 Visit to the New Hospital School for Cripples, Wiuford. 



Friday, September 5. 



The Curricula of Central Modern and Senior Schools : — 



(a) Mr. W. A. Beockington, C.B.E. — A General Survey. 



The paper deals generally with the historical development of post-primary educa- 

 tion on the basis of the age-break at 11 + , and the reasons for adopting a new type 

 of organisation which offers an alternative form of secondary education with a 

 minimum leaving age of 15. 



(6) Mr. J. A. White. — The Selective Central School. 



With only twenty years' experience behind it, and without the prestige of the 

 ordinary secondary school on the one hand, and the strong vocational attraction of 

 the technical and trade schools on the other, the central school has rapidly increased 

 in popularity and has succeeded in winning public support from both employers and 

 parents. Its success has indicated the need for more varied and more flexible types 

 of education of a secondary character than were in existence at the time of their estab- 



