The nursery school / by Margaret McMillan.

  • Margaret McMillan
Date:
[1930]
Catalogue details

Licence: In copyright

Credit: The nursery school / by Margaret McMillan. Source: Wellcome Collection.

    37/186 page 11
    of one to seven, space, that is ample space, is almost as much wanted as food and air. To move, to run, to find things out by new movement, to feel one’s life in every limb, that is the life of early childhood. And yet one sees already dim houses, behind whose windows and doors thirty to forty little ones are penned in Day Nurseries. Bare sites and open spaces are what we need to-day. Surveys are made for various purposes in every city. We know that free spaces lie between many streets and thoroughfares. A railway ride from Whitechapel to Barking, for example, will show you large spaces lying idle, the ground broken here and there perhaps by allotments, but for the most part all unused. In Dept¬ ford itself, perhaps the most thickly settled district in South-east London, we are surrounded on all sides by waste space. There are small pieces and large. There is a waste space in front of the camp, and one on the right of our hostel. We had a big dumping-ground behind the camp opening on the recreation gound, which we cleared to make the camp itself. There are other places close by. Yet I admit there are barriers to-day. In 1919-20 the L.C.C. tried to get open spaces. It found sites, but it found, too, that many of them were tied up by old laws and agreements that made purchase difficult. This, of course, should not deter the L.C.C. It has been found possible to open vast parks even in London — great open spaces that are the lungs of a district. We have these in Deptford close to the thundering street, green, health-giving, and for the most part empty. Through the long hours of the summer day our recreation ground here is empty. We have now to clear spaces that will not be empty. In these spaces we must have not only flowers and grass, but children. They must be allowed to live in gardens,
    digitised image 1
    digitised image 2
    digitised image 3