The Merrill Palmer School
A Report of Twenty Years, 1920-40. Published by the School.
Here is a report of a philosophy of education in practice, of which we in England stand in dire need. ” Education for home and family living ” is a conception which would give new life to our junior and infant schools and a new direction to the training of our adolescents.
In 1920, Lizzie Merrill Palmer, wife of a U.S.A. Ambassador to Spain, left her fortune for the endowment and maintenance of a school to train young women for ” the functions and service of wifehood and motherhood, and the management, supervision, direction and inspira- tion of homes In twenty years, the governing corporation of the Merrill Palmer School has interpreted the terms of the will to include the establishment of a laboratory school for children of nursery years, to study their mental and physical problems during the course of their schooling.
It has become a training centre for students previously qualified by college or university training, in all aspects of the care and develop- ment of young children. As the children pass beyond the nursery period, the centre caters for their leisure needs by recreational clubs in graded ages, and as the parents have been drawn within the circle of the School’s interests, a programme of parent advice and education has evolved. It has also been a pioneer in summer camps for the young.
The School is now an international training ground for those who are interested not in isolated aspects of child life but in the child fabric of the family society.
Though it is best known in England for the results of its researches into the technique of mental testing for young children, the School’s big contribution to our present national needs is this recognition that the child cannot be helped apart from its family. The early services of a liaison officer between the School and the homes of the children, quickly elicited the need for bringing parents together to talk and be talked to. The parents were from all social strata with possibly only one aim in common?their interest in their children. Lectures and study groups quickly developed and now there are regular sessions where parents and expectant parents may bring their problems. ” It was interesting to note that when the staff had to think about parents and their needs, they were literally forced to think about the child as a whole.”
This had constant effects on educational techniques. School reports, to mention one instance, had to be revolutionized to meet the recognition that parents are interested not only in growing intellects but in growing people. Closer knowledge of the parents has established the need to help them to expand their own lives to include larger social, recreational and intellectual interests, and the Centre has taken this, too, into its scope.
In this country we expend much verbal devotion on the family ideal, and in point of fact sacrifice a good deal to it in actuality. We do much less than is necessary, however, to ensure that family life is not an unequal struggle with ignorance on how good social relationships can be retained, and above all, what are the rights and needs of children in this respect. A school that was a child and family centre would necessarily evolve a very different attitude to a child’s emotional life than that which is at present implicit in an immoderately intellectual- ized school programme and in staffing and organization incapable of letting the child be known except as a unit in a mass. R.T.
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