SCHOOLS AS A NUISANCE
[To the Editor of THE Seacraron.] S1R,—No doubt many of your readers followed the " Hamp- stead Nursery School " case, when on January 19th an injunction was granted to restrain Miss Tudor-Hart from " carrying on her Nursery School so as to be a nuisance to her neighbours."
With other parents of children two to seven years old at
the Heath Nursery School I gave evidence and cannot add to that. But may I ask other London parents to consider the effects of this verdict ? It will make the existence of modern nursery schools difficult, if not impossible, in residential dis- theta, • where they are most needed. The injunction was granted because (1) " the garden was too small for the number of children " ; to remedy this the judge suggested subdividing it, (2) because "any excessive noise the children made was not quickly enough suppressed " by the staff.
As a result of this Miss Tudor-Hart has to pay the costs of a two and a half days' trial, practically equivalent to a fine of, say, 11,000. In fact, if very young children occasionally disturb dwellers in residential roads, who " might be pre- disposed listeners " in the words of the judge, their teacher must pay a suns large enough to cripple many schools, with the threat of more to come. Yet the judge commended the usefulness of this school to present-day parents, and remarked that " nothing complained of by the plaintiff could be said to be due to any underlying weakness in the principles on which the school was conducted."
Everyone can sympathise with those disturbed by excessive
noise in London. But surely an attempt to crush an ad- mittedly good Nursery School out of existence with legal "big guns" and costs is discreditable in a city proud of educational progress.—I am, Sir, &c., HUGH BURNABY.
16 Primrose Hill Road, N.W.3.
[The injunction granted debars Miss Tudor-Hart not from continuing to carry on her school, but from carrying it on " so as to be a nuisance to her neighbours." The question seems to be one of degree. It is obviously desirable that there should be nursery schools, but obviously also there must be some limit to the disturbance caused by noise in peaceful neighbourhoods. In this case the judge, having heard the evidence, apparently concluded that the noise was excessive, and implied, what is, after all, common sense, that it should be possible to carry on a nursery school efficiently with a degree of noise to which neighbours could not reasonably object.—En. The Spectator.]
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