School for Slum Babies
£3 M ex «*- XS AX AAI AX 3A AAX A AA AX' ‘ SX.SX AX AX AX AA SJS. AA 1 AX AA» JAi A AXB XX (From Our Correspondent.) London, March 28. Little children sat on doorsteps of the slum houses in Deptford yesterday, too sickly to play. Those who were well enough to dream about play wondered why it was that they could romp about in the lovely garden in Church street, where so many lucky Deptford children attend the Rachel McMillan open-air nursery school. The tragedy for these little children, who do not know the colour of grass or the blossom of trees in spring, is that there is a long waiting list of children, and until the public is as enthusiastic about nursery schools as Miss Margaret McMillan there is likely always to be a waiting list. Yet Miss Margaret McMillan, who, with her sister Rachel, founded Deptford’s open air school in 1908, struggles on, always trying, by her undimmed enthusiasm, to arouse men and women from their apathy. After one year in this garden in the slums children are cured of rickets. No one can see the fragile, crooked little bodies in the streets outside, and the straight limbs and pink cheeks of the children inside the school without wondering why every school in the slums anywhere is not in the open air“When we first came here bricks were thrown at us,” Miss-McMillan told me yesterday, “To-day the people are our friends. We have a mothers’ club, and the mothers eagerly co-operate with us in our work. The children get their breakfast, dinner and tea here."
There are brilliant colours in all the openair shelters of the school. And there are all kinds of jolly gamps, musical dances, craftwork, painting and gardening. To be able to plant a little primrose root and nurse it tenderly is one of the greatest joys a Deptford child knows. And there are rabbits and guinea-pigs and a bird bath which attracts whatever birds ever come to Deptford, When the new training-school is completed there will be accommodation for about 70 students, who will find in nursery school work a fascinating new career.
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Southland Times, Issue 21100, 4 June 1930, Page 12
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366School for Slum Babies Southland Times, Issue 21100, 4 June 1930, Page 12
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