famous Camp School. Miss M'Millan had already done yeoman
service on the Bradford Education Committee, but was now resident in
London, and she had been warmly welcomed on the Council of the Froebel
Society. It was from the date of this Conference that the name Nursery
School became general, though it had been used by Madame Michaelis as
early as 1891. In the following year, 1905, the Board of Education
published its "Reports on Children under Five Years of Age," with its
prefatory memorandum stating that "a new form of school is necessary for
poor children," and that parents who must send their little ones to
school "should send them to nursery schools rather than to schools of
instruction," to schools where there should be "more play, more sleep,
more free conversation, story-telling and observation." It would seem
that the recommendations of 1905 may begin to be carried out in 1919, a
consummation devoutly to be wished.

In the meantime voluntary effort has done what it could. Birmingham had
good reason to be in the forefront, since many of its public-spirited
citizens had in their own childhood the benefit of the excellent works
of Miss Caroline Bishop, a disciple of Frau Schrader. The Birmingham
People's Kindergarten Association opened its first People's Kindergarten
at Greet, in 1904, and a second, the Settlement Kindergarten, in 1907.
Sir Oliver Lodge spoke strongly in favour of these institutions, calling
them a protest against the idea of the comparative unimportance of
childhood.

Miss Hardy opened her Child Garden in 1906, and that work has grown so
that the children are now kept till they are eight years old. The
Edinburgh Provincial Council for the Training of Teachers opened another
Free Kindergarten as a demonstration school for Froebelian methods, a
practising school for students, and also as an experimental school,
where attempts might be made to solve problems as to the education of
neglected children under school age. It was the Headmistress of this
school, Miss Hodsman, who invented the net beds now in general use. She
wanted something hygienic and light enough to be carried easily into the
garden, that in fine weather the children might sleep out of doors.

Another Sesame House student, Miss Priestman, opened a Free Kindergarten
in the pretty village of Thornton-le-Dale, where the children have a
sand-heap in a little enclosure allowed them by the blacksmith, and sail
their boats at a quiet place b