pocket-money, money in the bank, and the normal shopping of ordinary
life.

The country child is frequently very ignorant of money values; probably
it will be necessary to take the country general shop as the basis. He
could also begin to estimate the produce of the school garden.

THE NURSERY SCHOOL PROGRAMME

It is quite obvious from the nature of play at this stage that a
time-table is out of the question and in fact an outrage against nature.
Only for social convenience and for the establishment of certain
physical habits can there be fixed hours. There must be approximate
limits as to the times of arrival and departure, but nothing of the
nature of marking registers to record exact minutes. Little children
sometimes sleep late, or, on the other hand, the mothers may have to
leave home very early; all this must be allowed for. There should be
fixed times for meals and for sleep, and these should be rigidly
observed, and there should be regular times for the children to go to
the lavatories; all these establish regularity and self-control, as well
as improving general health. But anything in the nature of story
periods, games periods, handwork periods, only impedes the variously
developing children in their hunger for experiences.

Their curriculum is life as the teacher has spread it out before them;
there are no subjects at this stage; the various aspects ought to be of
the nature of a glorious feast to these young children. Traherne says in
the seventeenth century:--

"Will you see the infancy of this sublime and celestial greatness? Those
pure and virgin apprehensions I had in my infancy, and that divine light
wherewith I was born, are the best unto this day wherein I can see the
Universe.... Verily they form the greatest gift His wisdom can bestow,
for without them all other gifts had been dead and vain. They are
unattainable by books and therefore will I teach them by experience....
Certainly Adam in Paradise had not more sweet and curious apprehensions
of the world than I when I was a child.

"All appeared new and strange at first, inexpressibly rare and
delightful and beautiful. I was a little stranger which at my entrance
into the world was saluted and surrounded with innumerable joys.... I
knew by intuition those things which since my apostasy I collected again
by the highest reason.... All things were spotless and pure and
glorious; yea, and infinitely mine, and joyful and precious.... I saw in