“There is in every human being the passionate desire for this self-forgetfulness—­to which it attains when it is aware of beauty—­and a passionate delight in it when it comes.  The child feels that delight among spring flowers; we can all remember how we felt it in the first apprehension of some new beauty of the universe, when we ceased to be little animals and became aware that there was this beauty outside us to be loved.  And most of us must remember, too, the strange indifference of our elders.  They were not considering the lilies of the field; they did not want us to get our feet wet among them.  We might be forgetting ourselves, but they were remembering us; and we became suddenly aware of the bitterness of life and the tyranny of facts.  Now parents and nurses (and teachers) have, of course, to remember children when they forget themselves.  But they ought to be aware that the child, when he forgets himself in the beauty of the world, is passing through a sacred experience which will enrich and glorify the whole of his life.  Children, because they are not engaged in the struggle for life, are more capable of this aesthetic self-forgetfulness than they will afterwards be; and they need all of it that they can get, so that they may remember it and prize it in later years.  In these heaven-sent moments they know what disinterestedness is.  They have a test by which they can value all future experience and know the dullness and staleness of worldly success.  Therefore it is a sin to check, more than need be, their aesthetic delight” (The Ultimate Belief).

We cannot all give to our children the experiences we should like to supply, but if we are clear that we are aiming at enjoyment of Nature, and not at supplying information, we shall come nearer to what is desirable.  For years, almost since it opened in 1908, Miss Reed of the Michaelis Free Kindergarten has taken her children to the country.  It means a great deal of work and responsibility, it means collecting funds and giving up one’s scanty leisure, it means devoted service, but it has been done, and it has been kept up even during war time, though with great difficulty as to funds, because of the inestimable benefit to the children.  Miss Stokes of the Somers Town Nursery School secured a country holiday for her little ones in various ways, partly through the Children’s Country Holiday Fund, but since the war she has been unable to secure help of that kind, and has managed to take the children away to a country cottage.  A paragraph in the report says:  “The children in the country had a delightful time, and what was seen and done during their holiday is still talked about continually.  These joys entered into all the work of the nursery school and helped the children for months to retain a breath of the country in their London surroundings.  They realised much from that visit.  Cows now have horns, wasps have wings and fly—­alas they sting also.  Hens sit on eggs, an almost unbelievable thing.  Fishes, newts, tadpoles, were all met with and greeted as friends.  Children and helpers alike returned home full of health and vigour and longing for the next time.  One little maid wept bitterly, and there seemed no joy in life at home until she came across the school rabbit, which was tenderly caressed, and consoled her with memories of the country and hopes for future visits.”