early in the cogs of adult life. It was against this tendency that Doctor Montessori made her protest, the gist of which is that the adult home is not adapted for giving that scope which is necessary for the proper bringing up of children. It cannot be denied that an unnecessary fad may be made of the Montessori system, especially in this country for which it was not primarily invented, but the soundness of much that her theory contains is incontestable. Yet the English nursery was evolved long before Doctor Montessori, and it is there that most of what is valuable in her theories had already been developed. There is nothing for which the rather wasteful spaciousness of English life, as compared with that of other countries, is so valuable as for the institution of the nursery. We may overburden ourselves with bricks and mortar and insist on having a house where our fellows abroad are content with a flat: we may use two servants where they use one, and seem to them to strain a limited income quite unreasonably by insisting on so large a shell. That this habit is due to our reserve and the Englishman’s intense longing for privacy in domesticity is undeniable, but it is not all. As a matter of fact, the privacy of the Englishman’s home is, in a sense, far less jealously guarded than that of the Frenchman. But besides privacy an Englishman wants a little space before he can feel comfortable, and he knows instinctively that children want space too. To an English child the lot of a French, German or Italian child must seem intolerable. For no single moment, except when in bed, is it out of the sight of its elders’ eyes. It must always be good and always be tidy, or else in the common living rooms of the _appartement_ it becomes an intolerable nuisance. Where can such a child expand, where can it indulge in those solitary dreams and quaint impulsive activities, the essence of whose enjoyment is that they shall be pursued in secrecy, and whose memory has an undying sweetness?