E are witnessing a most interesting shift of attention to the early period of childhood. It is almost as if the pre-school child had suddenly acquired some magnetic value. Even the steady needle of the educational compass has been somewhat deflected and begins to seek this new magnetic pole. Within the next few decades there will probably take place a reorientation in social and educational arrangements which will confer a much altered status upon the pre-school child.

The very word pre-school is new. Only five years ago it had a bookish flavor, but by common consent the word is coming into current use both in England and America. We shall soon be writing and printing it without a hyphen. When used in a restrictive manner, the term denotes the period from two to six years of age. The pre-school child in this technical sense is an ex-baby and a runabout who has not yet cut his first permanent molar. It is, however, futile to confine the word to these limitations. In proper context and in a general sense it includes the whole period of infancy preceding primary school entrance. It is most desirable that we should use the term in such a way as to preserve the educational and hygienic continuity of this entire period. We should not overdifferentiate between the infant welfare, pre-kindergarten and kindergarten fields of activity. When does a baby really become an ex-baby?

And when does the baby become an educational problem within the proper purview of social and legislative control? This question is more than theoretical. It does not suffice to say that the compulsory edu

cation attendance laws furnish the answer. They are not the complete answer. Take the notable Education Act of 1918, passed by the English Parliament. Its opening clause reads: "With a view to the establishment of a national system of public education available for all persons capable of profiting thereby it shall be the duty, etc., etc." It is quite legitimate to ask: "Is the pre-school child such a person?" And happily Clause 19 of this same parliamentary enactment contains a partial answer to our query: "The powers of Local Education Authorities shall include power to make arrangements for supplying or aiding the supply of nursery schools . . . for children over two and under five years of age... whose attendance at such a school is necessary or desirable for their healthy physical and mental development . . ."

A review of the American legislation in regard to kindergartens, during the last twenty years, would reveal a steady drift toward extending educational control down below the age of compulsory school attendance. The California Mandatory-onPetition law which compels the establishment of kindergartens under certain conditions is a significant symptom.

In 1921 Connecticut enacted a law to encourage special educational provisions for exceptional children. This statute empowers the state board of education to "make regulations requiring enumeration and reporting of all educationally exceptional children." The significant feature of the statute is the extension of this "school" enumeration down to the "pre-school" age of four. The exact language is worth quoting: "The term educationally exceptional children shall include all children

over four and under sixteen years of age, who, because of mental or physical handicap, are incapable of receiving proper benefit from ordinary instruction and who for their own and the social welfare need special educational provisions."

Just as birth registration carries the legal presumption that an infant is a "person, the subject of rights;" so does the enumeration just referred to convey an implication that the handicapped pre-school child is entitled to special educational opportunity. Such legislation clearly indicates the changing educational status of the preschool period of childhood.

The public health and medical status of the pre-school child is undergoing even more definite change. Pediatrics, which deals with the development and the diseases of infancy and childhood, has become one of the most important subdivisions of both curative and preventive medicine. During the latter half of the seventeenth century there were only three men in Great Britain who gave special attention to the diseases incident to young infants. Ignorant nurses, midwives, and quacks held chief power in these important matters. And there was a strong prejudice against feeding cows' milk to infants. In more recent years we have shifted to forms of medical and social control suggested by the following: milk station, infant welfare center, child health center, health visitors, public health nurses, compulsory vaccination, Schick test, prenatal service, vital statistics, medical inspection, and nursery school.

In spite of all of these safeguards it is still true, however, that one-third of all the deaths of the nation occur below the age of six; that there are ten times as many deaths during the first half decade of preschool life as during the following full decade; that three-fourths of all the deaf, a

considerable proportion of all the blind and mentally deficient, one-third of all crippled, and three-fourths of the speech defective, come by their handicap during the pre-school period.

No nation can conserve or build up the physique of its people without more systematic provisions for promoting pre-school hygiene. England is in a sense even more conscious of this necessity than we are, and the British nursery school is not only an educational innovation, but is part of a public health movement. A declining birth rate in both countries has contributed its part to increasing the social valuation placed upon children of pre-school age.

In America we have been rapidly developing a similar conservational attitude toward the problems of pre-school childhood. The Federal Children's Bureau during the first ten years of its existence, under the able direction of Julia Lathrop, made numerous studies and reports which have served to reveal the foundational importance of the pre-school sector of child welfare. A few years ago the pre-school age was described as the "no man's land in the field of social endeavor;" but now it is part of the main line of advance. There is no sector in the whole line which is showing more varied and significant activities.

Take, for example, the New Haven demonstration of the preventability of rickets. This work was inaugurated in 1923 and is being carried on by the United States Children's Bureau in conjunction with the Department of Pediatrics of the Yale School of Medicine and with the cooperation of the Department of Health and other local agencies. The total population of the demonstration district numbers 15,000 with 1,372 pre-school children (under five years of age). Of these pre-school children 454 were examined and eighty-seven per cent showed clinical evidence of rickets.

From August 20, 1923, to September 20, 1924, 349 babies were born in this district. Of the new-born babies who were given cod liver oil and sunlight more or less systematically, only twenty-nine per cent have shown evidence of rickets.

Although this demonstration is by no means complete the trend of its results is already clear. Rickets has been called a disease of civilization, and it affects an extremely high percentage of pre-school children. Its prevention by educational and community health measures is a problem of prime importance in the developmental hygiene of the pre-school child. Diphtheria is not as common as rickets, but it is an important problem in pre-school hygiene. Over eighty per cent of all cases of diphtheria and all deaths from diphtheria occur before the age of five. The Schick test, which originated in Europe, has had its most extensive and significant application in America, and promises to lead to a policy of protection which will eventually make diphtheria as rare as smallpox, which was once a major scourge of infancy.

Between the sytematic supervision of the nutrition of infants and the organized nutrition work of public schools there is still a gap; but the gap is steadily closing in. Supervision of the nutritional welfare of the pre-school child is serving to reveal the importance of health habits and of psychological factors. The necessity of more systematic parental guidance and parental training is constantly asserting itself. All of these considerations are contributing to the changing status of the pre-school child.

America has been the home of a mental hygiene movement which is now national and even international in its scope. It is natural then that the mental aspects of the

hygiene of the pre-school child should receive definite attention in this country. Dr. Douglas Thom has made significant case studies of pre-school children with behavior disorders. The Merrill-Palmer Nursery School has had a psychological division under the direction of Mrs. Helen T. Woolley since its inception. The Iowa Child Welfare Research Station, with Professor B. T. Baldwin as director, has conducted similar studies in connection with a preschool laboratory and junior primary room. The Bureau of Educational Experiments opened an experimental nursery school in 1919. The Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial has recently made possible research with children of pre-kindergarten age at Teachers College and at the Hecksher Foundation for Children. The Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial is also giving support to an educational program of the American Association of University Women, which includes systematic, nation-wide work through pre-school study circles. The American Federation of Women's Clubs is organizing similar pre-school circles and reading groups. The newly established official journal of the International Kindergarten Union, Childhood Education, is giving prominence to problems and movements in the field of pre-school education.

All of these activities and undertakings are both symptoms and causes of the rapidly changing status of the pre-school child. In law, in school practice, in home life, in public health provisions, in the clinic and in the laboratory, we see a new trend in the times. That the Journal of Progressive Education should so promptly dedicate a whole number to the problems of PreSchool Education is itself an auspicious sign.

HE American people believe in the superior value of organized over unorganized or informal educational influences. Everywhere organized educational work is being extended in the belief that the longer a child is subjected to purposeful educational influences the better it will be for him and for the community, the state, and the nation.

The interest which is just now being taken in pre-school education is in harmony with the interest which, during the past two decades, has been manifested in lengthening the school day and the school year, prolonging the compulsory education period, and providing opportunities for the extension of the optional period. As yet we have access to but little accurate very information relating to the effect of purposeful educational work upon children below the age of six. We have data bearing upon some phases of the developmental changes which occur from infancy to the sixth year but these data concern mainly instincts and conditioned reflex activities which have not been occasioned or influenced by organized educational effort. We are now in the way, though, of securing some scientific data which may enable us to determine with a certain degree of accuracy whether incidental and accidental educational influences are more or are less beneficial in the development of the child than is purposeful educational training.

In this issue of PROGRESSIVE EDUCATION there are descriptions of experiments that are being made in the education of children from two to five or six years of age by men and women who have had experience in scientific investigation and who are equip

ped with facilities for the measurement of the results of varied types of training during the pre-school period. Students of child nature and child needs are looking hopefully to Yale, Harvard, Detroit, the Habit Clinics of Boston, and elsewhere for data which may enable us intelligently to answer questions relating to pre-school education which cannot be answered satisfactorily or finally in the present state of our knowledge of the pre-school period in human life, the terra incognita in child psychology and education. These experiments should yield data of exceptional value in answer to the question as to whether we ought to go forward and develop a program of nursery school education which may constitute the basis of our entire educational system.

While we must wait for exact data before we can dogmatize about the value or lack of value of purposeful education between the ages of two and six, we are nevertheless in possession of some important facts bearing upon our problem. We know what facilities there are in various types of American homes for training of very young children. We know what equipment in training and experience parents have for the task of diagnosing the nature of children and prescribing remedies for physical, intellectual or temperamental defects or deficiencies. We know that nine out of ten American homes are not organized or conducted with special reference to the needs of children of preschool age. In the construction of our houses, practically no consideration is given to the question of the needs of young children. The writer has had a survey made of a large proportion of the houses in a mid

western city with a view to finding out whether in their construction any thought was taken of the possibility of young children living in them; and the number of houses which have been planned with a view to making proper provision for the care and culture of babies, as contrasted with older children and with adults, is so small as to be negligible. The investigators asked the parents why they did not consider the needs of young children at all in building their houses, and the usual response was, "Why do babies need special arrangements which are not suitable for older children or adults?" This illustrates the attitude of the typical parent toward the nature and the needs of children of preschool age they do not require any special arrangements in order that they may develop physically, intellectually, and temperamentally in the best way.

Nine out of ten homes in our country are non-specialized in respect to every activity which they undertake. The managers of our homes are non-experts. Forty-nine out of every fifty persons who are called upon to make homes have had no special training in any of the processes which are involved in this undertaking. They have made no careful study of the relative values of foods or the modes of preparing them so that they will yield their values most readily when consumed by different members of the family. They have made no study of clothing from the standpoint of the hygienic qualities of various fabrics and styles of garments. They have had no course dealing with the sanitary problems of a home, and most impressive and tragical of all-they have never given a moment's attention to the nature and needs of children of any age.

able to care for and train a young child, for the reason that all the child needs is food, sleep, and sympathetic attention to his physical wants. But all the scientific data bearing upon this matter tend to show that the foundations of bodily, intellectual, and temperamental development are laid down before the end of the fifth year, and probably earlier. The child has acquired his attitude toward the world, at least the social world, before he has completed his fifth year. This does not mean that he will not modify his attitude in any respect as he develops through childhood and youth, but it does mean that the responses that he has made the first five years will in a large degree determine the responses that he will make after his fifth year. If he has been made afraid frequently during the first five years, it will be difficult to eradicate fear responses for the rest of his life. If he has domineered over the persons with whom he has had contact during the first five years, he will continue to attempt to dominate them for the rest of his days. If he has resisted authority during his early years, he will continue to resist it, though he may learn that for his well-being he should conform as much as is necessary, but no more, in particular situations. So one might go through with the entire category of activities which are involved in the adjustments of childhood, youth, and maturity in daily life and it could be asserted in respect to most if not all of them that the foundations are laid down during the first five years of the child's life.

Probably some reader is asking by this time, "Is it being assumed that nature has left parents so ill-equipped for their special duties that they do not understand any phase of child nature and are not capable of wisely directing any of the activities of the young?" The human race would have been eliminated before this if nature had