"Giants in the Nursery" examines the evolution of developmentally appropriate practice in this biographical history of early childhood education. This book, from David Elkind, explores the theory's progression--from its beginnings in writings of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century philosophers, its experimental implementation by eighteenth- and nineteenth-century practitioners, and its scientific grounding in contemporary theory and research--and includes biographical sketches and perspectives of eleven philosophical, pedagogical, and theoretical figures--the giants--in this evolution: John Amos Comenius, John Locke, Jean Jacques Rousseau, Heinrich Pestalozzi, Frederick Froebel, Rudolf Steiner, Maria Montessori, Sigmund Freud, Jean Piaget, Erik Erikson, and Lev Semenovich Vygotsky.