Kindergarten Work in Japan

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 22, 27 January 1937, Page 15 (Supplement)

Kindergarten Work in Japan

Interesting nows of a Japanese kindergarten student was received . in Dunedin this week. Since studying in America this lucky girl has visited England, Germany and'Soviet Russia to see the latest methods in nursery schools and kindergartens there. Now she has returned to Japan to carry out on an ambitious scalo a community scheme similar to farm community schemes in New Zealand. In the crowded districts where live her father's factory employees she is organising nursery schools, where certain mothors undertake the communal washing and cooking and others the care of the children under expert guidance. This little Japanese lady is far from appearing a gaunt and forbidding and horribly efficient female. She is always exquisitely dressed, and shows a strong propensity to giggle! In fact, strangers meeting her for the first time may be inclined to dismiss her as a social butterfly, whereas she is actually an extremely earnest educationist. i ‘My father has built a new school for the bigger children, ” writes Shizue, “and I am busy with the little ones. People were frightened I had come home with terrible Bolshevik ideas, but all is happy now."