SECTIONAL TRANSACTIONS.— L. 433 



her, and is not yet ready to share her services with other children to more 

 than a limited extent. If he is plunged into a large group of children of the 

 same age, with only one or two adult guardians, he suffers both great anxiety 

 arising from his natural attitude of rivalry to other children, and emotional 

 starvation, since the adult helper cannot under such conditions give adequate 

 attention to each child. 



(b) Social development during the nursery school years requires that the 

 children should have opportunity to form groups spontaneously for their own 

 purposes in play. These spontaneously formed groups are small and 

 evanescent, but they provide the experience through which genuine social 

 feelings can grow. When an adult imposes group activities on a larger 

 number of children, whether this arises from practical necessity or from the 

 desire to encourage social feelings, this has not the same psychological value. 

 It is forced and artificial, and often cuts across the natural impulses of the 

 young child to play intensively with one or two other children, or to cling 

 closely to the grown-up. 



Moreover, it is only in small spontaneously formed groups that the child 

 can speak freely and naturally about his activities. Such natural talk with 

 the grown-up and with other children arising out of his play is the best 

 means of training in language in the nursery school years. More formal 

 occasions provided by artificially arranged group activities have not the 

 same emotional and intellectual value. 



(c) Studies of the growth of voluntary attention in young children have 

 shown that the young child needs long periods of free play in which he can 

 learn to follow out his own aims to the end, not interrupted by a rigid general 

 routine. It is, however, only possible to give each child plenty of opportunity 

 for developing sustained attention if the nursery school is adequately supplied 

 with trained workers. 



The more we know, therefore, of the psychological conditions which 

 favour the development of social feelings and intellectual effort in the young 

 child, the clearer becomes the need for generous staffing with trained helpers 

 in the nursery school or nursery class. 



Miss E. Stevinson (12.0). 



The planning of the nursery school to meet the needs of the pre-school 

 child. 



The division of the nursery school day into periods for routine and 

 periods for free activity. 



The planning of the free play period, with some account of play material. 



The importance of a careful lay-out of the school buildings and the 

 necessity for a specialised training for nursery school teachers. 



Miss I. Jones. — Nursery education in Lancashire : some problems 

 (12.20). 



Scope of paper — to review briefly the general position with regard to 

 nursery education in Lancashire, with special reference to some aspects 

 of the problem as it occurs outside the more congested areas, as for example 

 in : 



(1) A straggling township served by widely separated infants' schools. 



(2) A semi-rural district served by a school with full age-range. 



(3) A small industrial centre served by a two-teacher junior and infants' 

 school. 



