ABSTRACT

This horticultural metaphor runs through much of the writing on infant schools (and continues to be the metaphor in some writing on early education today).8 The infant school, placed in the working-class district it was to serve, was to provide a contrast with the houses and streets from which it drew its pupils.9 Samuel Wilderspin, master of the second London infant school in Spitalfields and effective leader of the infant school movement, specified that the schoolroom should be a ‘light, airy, cheerful place, which the mind can use to give to itself agreeable sensations’.10 The provision of a playground with swings, trees and flowers was seen as very important, with the breath of the countryside which that introduced: ‘these schools are intended to supersede every­ thing that is confined and limited, so does the health of the children demand a free access to fresh air as often as may be convenient.’11