ated exercises with Kindergarten material, a
kind of manual drill supposed to give "hand and eye training," and with
this meaning it made its appearance on the time-table.

Visitors from America were shocked to find no Kindergartens in England,
but only large classes of poor little automatons sitting erect with
"hands behind" or worse still "hands on heads," and moving only to the
word of command. One lady who ultimately found her way to our own
Kindergarten told me that she had been informed at the L.C.C. offices
that there were no Kindergartens in London.

It was partly the scandalised expressions of these American teachers
that stimulated Miss Adelaide Wragge to take her courage into her hands,
and in the year 1900 to open the first Mission Kindergarten in England.
She called it a Mission, not a Free Kindergarten, partly because the
parents paid the trifling fee of one penny per week, and partly because
it was connected with the parish work of Holy Trinity, Woolwich, of
which her brother was vicar. The first report says: "The neighbourhood
was suitable for the experiment; little children, needing just the kind
of training we proposed to give them, abounded everywhere.... The
Woolwich children were typical slum babies, varying in ages from three
to six years; very poor, very dirty, totally untrained in good habits.
At first we only admitted a few, and when these began to improve,
gradually increased the numbers to thirty-five. They needed great
patience and care, but they responded wonderfully to the love given
them, and before long they were real Kindergarten children, full of
vigour, merriment and self-activity."

As is done in connection with all Free Kindergartens, Parents' Evenings
were instituted from the first, and the mothers were helped to
understand their children by simple talks.

Sesame House for Home Life Training had been opened six months before
this Mission Kindergarten. It was founded by the Sesame Club, and at its
head was Miss Schepel, who for twenty years had been at the head of the
Pestalozzi Froebel House. The idea of Home Life Training attracted
students who were not obliged by stern necessity to earn their daily
bread. Though the methods were not quite in line with progressive
thought, the atmosphere created by Miss Schepel, warmly seconded by Miss
Buckton,[13] was one of enthusiasm in the service of children. The
second Nursery School in London had its origin in this enthusiasm. Miss
Maufe