The Nursery School is a collection of individuals presumably from 2-1/2 to 5-1/2 years of age.  They know no social life beyond the family life, and family experience is relative to the size of the family.  In any case they have not yet measured themselves against their peers, with the exception of the occasional twin.  A few months ago about twenty children of this description formed the nucleus of a new Nursery School where, as far as possible, the world in miniature was spread out before them, and they were guided in their entrance to it by an experienced teacher and a young helper.  For the first few weeks the chief characteristic was noise; the children rushed up and down the large room, shouting, and pushing any portable toys they could find.  One little boy of 2-1/2 employed himself in what can only be called “punching” the other children, snatching their possessions away from them and responding to the teacher by the law of contra-suggestion.  He was the most intelligent child in the school.  He generally left a line of weeping children behind him, and several began to imitate him.  The pugnacious instinct requires little encouragement.  Lunch was a period of snatching, spilling, and making plans to get the best.  Many of the toys provided were carelessly trampled upon and broken:  requests to put away things at the end of the day were almost unavailing.

When the time for sleeping came in the afternoon many of the children refused to lie down:  some consented but only to sing and talk as they lay.  Only one, a child of 2-1/2, slept, because he cried himself to sleep from sheer strangeness.  This apparently unbeautiful picture is only the first battle of the individual on his entrance to the life of the community.

On the other hand, there were intervals of keen joy:  water, sand and clay chiefly absorbed the younger children:  the older ones wanted to wash up and scrub, and many spent a good deal of time looking at picture-books.  This was the raw material for the teacher to begin with:  the children came from comfortable suburban homes:  none were really poor, and many had known no privation.  They were keen for experiences and disposed to be very friendly to her.

After five months there is a marked difference in spirit.  The noise is modified because the children found other absorbing interests, though at times nature still demands voice production.  During lunch time and sleeping time there is quiet, but the teacher has never asked for silence unless there was some such evident reason.  There is no silence game.  The difference has come from within the children.  All now lie down in the afternoon quietly, and the greater number sleep; but there has been no command or any kind of general plan:  again the desire has gradually come to individuals from suggestion and imitation.  Lunch is quite orderly, but not yet without an occasional accident or struggle.  There is much less fighting, but primitive man is still