Developmental Records of 500 Nursery School Children
This is a preliminary report of records gathered between December 1943 and Decem ber 1946 in two California nursery schools attended by children of employed mothers. In planning the forms to be used, the aims were two-fold: to understand the children's developmental histories, in order to adapt school procedures where possible to meet their individual needs; and to secure clues at least as to the effects of nursery school experience on personality growth and on family living. To determine what attitudinal changes, if any, take place within the family following a child's enrollment in nursery school seemed particularly urgent. There is considerable evidence that the wartime child care program, financed through Lanham Act funds and parents' fees, not only enabled women to work in war industries, as intended, but also definitely strengthened family relationships in a period of complex strains. As one mother put it, after moving for the third time, "Nursery schools have given our child security. No matter where we are, if we can find a child care center, she feels it is her world. She knows her way around, understands what is expected of her, makes friends." The young father, a pilot in the air corps, emphatically agreed. Today, families are reunited; tension is less in many homes but heightened in others, as the divorce rate mounts and war injuries take their toll. There are still numerous obstacles to the building of strong families. It is no accident that keen interest exists in the whole field of child care and early child hood education?two converging currents which were unceremoniously united in many communities during the war years. Many child care, centers have been closed, but the employment of women has not tapered off to the extent that was frequently predicted. We are told by the former chairman of Cali fornia's Joint Legislative Committee on Pre school and Primary Training1 that such em ployment on the West Coast has remained 50 percent above prewar, and that for every child enrolled in a child care center as of October 1946 there was at least one other waiting to get in. Yet it is said too that there is "tremendous apathy" working against any development along this line, and that the legislators are concerned about the effect of the centers on home and family. California acted, when federal support ended, to con tinue the child care program under the State Department of Education through March 1947 only. It has since been extended to May 30, 1948. That it is a people's program is evident from the widespread and determined support given to each year's legislative cam paign.