NURSERIES IN NEW HOUSING have followed with great interest the
many letters which have appeared during recent weeks in The Spectator on the housewife wad her problems, and the effect of housework on the birthrate.' It is probably within your knowledge that some eighteen months ago my Society made certain proposals to the Minister of Health, in a "Four Years Plan," for the establishment of nurseries on a considerable scale after the war in order largely to meet the difficulties outlined .by so many of•your correspondents. The matter, we understand, is still tinder official consideration. More recently, Mr. Alfred Bossom, M.P., who speaks with authority on building and planning questions, has urged in The Times that in all new housing schemes provision should be made for nurseries, so that mothers, without the " nannies " to whicli, the better-to-do were accustomed before the war, may have some relief from the 24-hours-a-day task of looking after their children. We who urge nurseries as part of the solution of the problem of the young mother with young children are by many regarded as desiring to disrupt the home. On the contrary, our object is to strengthen the ties of the home. We believe that the mother will be a better mother if she gets a regular holiday, as do all other workers, and we have therefore urged that in the re-organised society to which we look forward after the war, provision should be made by which she can get a clear day off once a week. That means nurseries on a considerable scale. If mothers' clubs can be attached to the nurseries, so much the better ; but in any event let us have the nurseries. The justification for the new social security proposals is not only the insurance that they provide from the cradle to the grave, but the fact that they constitute a form of social " self-help " for the people. The object of our proposals is to put the mother in a position properly to carry out her own respon- sibilities to her children. For this she needs not only the decent housing and children's allowances which are now accepted as part of all plans for the post-war world, but also training in mothercraft and occasional leisure which nurseries can provide.
Nursery schools are to be provided under the new Education Act. So far as they go they are excellent. But they do not go far enough: for example, they do not touch the problem of -the children under two years old. May we have the valuable support of The Spectator in urging this reform on a Government which, seeing the problem, has not yet made up its mind to accept the remedy?—I have the honour to be, Sir,
Chairman, National Society of Children's Nurseries. 117 Piccadilly, W. I.
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