NURSERIES FOR THE POOR
[NURSERY SCHOOLS.]
Intorno alla fondazione ed allo stato attuale degli asili di carità per l’infanzia in Milano. Relazione letta nell’adunanza generale tenuta il 16 marzo 1837 dai contribuenti alla fondazione e mantenimento degli asili infantili e pubblicata a beneficio degli asili medesimi.
Milan, C.G. Bianchi and company, 1837.
8vo, pp. [iv], 63, [1 (blank)]; with half-title, lithographic folding table bound at end; two letterpress tables in the text; title lightly toned, sporadic light spotting; but a good copy in the original yellow printed wrappers; front wrapper faded, corners creased, some staining, small loss to lower corner of rear wrapper with short closed tear at foot; private collector’s stamp partially visible to front wrapper.
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Intorno alla fondazione ed allo stato attuale degli asili di carità per l’infanzia in Milano. Relazione letta nell’adunanza generale tenuta il 16 marzo 1837 dai contribuenti alla fondazione e mantenimento degli asili infantili e pubblicata a beneficio degli asili medesimi.
First and only edition, rare, of this report on the establishment and progress of nursery schools for the poor in Milan – both boys and girls – with the aim of serving the poorest and most populated districts of the city.
The first nursery in Italy had been established by the priest Ferrante Aporti at Cremona in 1827; following his example, the present commission, headed by Marquess Giulio Beccaria (son of the famous Cesare Beccaria) and with the renowned educator Giuseppe Sacchi as secretary, established Milan’s first nursery for the poor in 1835, at Santa Maria Segreto, with seventy pupils between the ages of two and five; two more nurseries were established within a year. This report provides a comprehensive outline of the schools’ structure and mission, as well as case studies from the three existing schools (with a total of c. 350 pupils), detailed medical reports, and descriptions of the abject poverty in which the children lived, ending with the commission’s plans to open two more nurseries in the coming year and to significantly expand an existing one.
Each class was run by a female teacher and an assistant, with the help of a servant for menial tasks, and wealthier women were encouraged to volunteer to give back to the community. The children at each nursery were divided into three classes: in the first, they learned their first name and surname, parts of the body, basic precepts about God, sounds and syllables, and counting from 1–100; in the second they were introduced to the catechism and hymns, breaking words into syllables, addition and subtraction, and vocabulary regarding clothing, food, animals, and household objects; and in the third they began using an abbecedario, learning hymns and psalms by heart, working with fractions, and expanding their vocabulary with visual aids.
Children were vaccinated upon admission and received a medical assessment (six doctors, four pharmacists, and two surgeons worked for the nurseries pro bono); the medical reports indicate that many of the children came in with rickets, scrofula, wasting syndrome, or herpes, and describes the number of deaths at each nursery and the attention given to the children’s cleanliness and health. At one nursery, three children out of eighty-four died in a year: one of whooping cough, one of meningitis, and one of tuberculosis. The children were given bread and soup each day, and play and physical exercise were encouraged. Copies were issued with text only, or, for an additional fee, with the folding table at the end (as here), illustrating both instruments of learning (an abacus, a chalkboard) and of play (a see-saw, climbing bars, and a wagon).
OCLC finds no copies in the UK and four in the US (Brigham Young, Chicago, Illinois, Princeton). Not on Library Hub.
