The first issue of "Childhood Education," published in 1924, included an article by the eminent physician, Arnold Gesell. In the article, "The Significance of the Nursery School" he advocated for early childhood education, indicating its importance for both promoting the development of young children and supporting and strengthening families. He discussed the history of the nursery school, including Plato's recommendation for community nurseries, the early establishment of a nursery school in the United States by followers of Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi and Robert Owen, and the influence of these advocates on Friedrich Froebel's later kindergarten model. Gesell also discussed the "educational significance of the preschool period" and noted that the education of very young children is related to child health, mental health, and social welfare. He advocated for children with special needs to be integrated into early childhood programs and noted how the nursery school is significant as a provider of a solid start up the "educational ladder." Although the original article was written in the more formal language of the period in which Dr. Gesell was working, his ideas are as fresh, insightful, strong, and convincing as if it had been written today. In this article, Doris Bergen concludes that Dr. Gesell would probably be surprised and disappointed to discover that in 2017 there is still no universal preschool in the United States supporting what he believed were "the educational possibilities of the preschool child."