Sir: I would like to reassure the Director of the
London Montessori Centre (Letters, 15 October) that. I do not want to criticise the London Montessori Centre particularly, as it doubtless does much good work. But I want to make it clear that because succes- sive governments have failed since H. A. L. Fisher's 1918 Nursery Education Act to provide the high-quality universal nursery education which most parents want, many middle-class parents are currently being imposed upon by commercial interests who set up schools in which the charismatic name of 'Montessori' is merely a marketing come-on. Despite the theories vaunted in their brochures, a good many of these schools cannot even offer basic nursery amenities — infant-height lavatories and washbasins, and access to outdoor land- scaping. The south-east of England is now sprinkled with do-the-babes-gartens and the lack of educational inspection and
regulation in the private nursery sector is very worrying.
Alexandra Artley I St Chad's Street, London WC1
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