author

Henrietta Brown Smith

b. 1868

An early 20th-century education writer and lecturer, she focused on how young children learn best through lived experience, play, and thoughtful teaching. Her work speaks to a moment when ideas about early childhood education were being actively rethought.

1 Audiobook

The Child Under Eight

The Child Under Eight

by E. R. (Elsie Riach) Murray, Henrietta Brown Smith

About the author

Born in 1868, Henrietta Brown Smith was an education writer and lecturer associated with Goldsmiths' College, University of London. Contemporary editions of her work identify her as a lecturer in education there, and also credit her as the editor of Education by Life, a book on the schooling of younger children first published in 1914.

She is best known today for The Child Under Eight (1920), written with E. R. Murray. The book reflects a practical, child-centered approach to early education, stressing the importance of development, activity, and experience in the lives of young children.

Reliable biographical details about her personal life appear to be scarce. Based on the sources available here, it is safest to remember her as a British educational thinker whose surviving books show a strong interest in the needs of very young learners and the training of those who teach them.