CHAPTER XVI

SOME LAST REMARKS

That there is little prospect of an immediate adoption in the United

States of Montessori ideas of flexibility and unhampered individual

growth is apparent to anyone who knows even slightly the hierarchic

rigidity of our system of education with its inexorable advance along

fixed fore-ordained lines, from the kindergarten through the primary

school, on through the high school to the Chinese ordeal of the college

entrance examination, an event which casts its shadow far down the line

of school-grades, embittering the intellectual activities and darkening

the life of teachers and pupils (even pupils who have not the faintest

chance of going to college) for years before the awful moment arrives.

All really good teachers have always been, as much as they were

allowed to be, some variety of what is called in this book “Montessori

teacher.” But as the State and private systems of education have

swollen to more and more unmanageable proportions, and have settled

into more and more exact and cog-like relations with each other,

teachers have found themselves required to “turn out a more uniform

product,” a process which is in its very essence utterly abhorrent to

anyone with the soul of an educator.

Our State system of education has come to such an exalted degree of

uniformity that a child in a third grade in Southern California can

be transported to a third grade in Maine, and find himself in company

with children being ground out in precisely the same educational

hopper he has left. His temperament, capacity, tastes, surroundings,

probable future and aspirations may be what you will, he will find all

the children about his age of all temperaments, tastes, capacities,

probable futures and aspirations practically everywhere in the United

States, being “educated” exactly as he was, in his original graded

school, wherever it was. School superintendents hold conferences of

self-congratulation over this “standardizing” of American education,

and some teachers are so hypnotized by this mental attitude on the

part of their official superiors, that they come to take pride in

the Procrustean quality of their schoolroom where all statures are

equalized, and to labor conscientiously to drive thirty or more

children slowly and steadily, like a flock of little sheep, with no

stragglers and no advance-guard allowed, along the straight road

to the next division, where another shepherdess, with the same

training, takes them in hand. There is a significant anecdote current

in school-circles, of an educator rising to address an educational

convention which had been discussing special treatment for mentally

slow and deficient children, and solemnly making only this pregnant

exclamation, “We have special systems for the deficient child, and the

slow child and the stupid child ... but _God help the bright child_!”

Now it is only fair to state that this mechanical exactitude of program

and of organization has been in the past of incalculable service in

bringing educational order out of the chaos which was the inevitable

result of the astoundingly rapid growth in population of our country.

Our educational system is a monument to the energy, perseverance, and

organizing genius of the various educational authorities, city, county,

and state superintendents and so on, who have created it. But like all

other complicated machines it needs to be controlled by master-minds

who do not forget its ultimate purpose in the fascination of its

smoothly-running wheels. That there is plenty of the right spirit

fermenting among educators is evident. For, even along with the mighty

development of this educational machine, has gone a steadily increasing

protest on the part of the best teachers and superintendents, against

its quite possible misuse.

Few people become teachers for the sake of the money to be made in that

business; it is a profession which rapidly becomes almost intolerable

to anyone who has not a natural taste for it; and, as a consequence

of these two factors, it is perhaps, of all the professions, the one

which has the largest proportion of members with a natural aptitude

for their lifework. With the instinctive right-feeling of human beings

engaged in the work for which they were born, a considerable proportion

of teachers have protested against the tacit demand upon them by the

machine organization of education, to make the children under their

care, all alike. They have felt keenly the essential necessity of

inculcating initiative and self-dependence in their pupils, and in many

cases have been aided and abetted in these heterodox ideas by more or

less sympathetic principals and superintendents; but the ugly, hard

fact remains, not a whit diminished for all their efforts, that the

teacher whose children are not able to “pass” given examinations on

given subjects, at the end of a given time, is under suspicion; and

the principal whose school is full of such teachers is very apt to

give way to a successor, chosen by a board of business-men with a cult

for efficiency. To advise teachers under such conditions to “adopt

Montessori ideas” is to add the grimmest mockery to the difficulties

of their position. All that can be hoped for, at present, in that

direction, is that the strong emphasis placed by the Montessori method

on the necessity for individual freedom of mental activity and growth,

may prove a valuable reinforcement to those American educators who are

already struggling along towards that goal.

This general state of things in the formal education of our country is

one of the many reasons why this book is addressed to mothers and not

to teachers. The natural development of Montessori ideas, the natural

results of the introduction of “Children’s Homes” into the United

States, without this already existing fixed educational organization

convinced of its own perfection, would be entirely in accord with the

general, vague, unconscious socialistic drift of our time. Little by

little, various enterprises which used to be private and individual,

are being carried on by some central, expert organization. This is

especially true as regards the life of women. One by one, all the old

“home industries” are being taken away from us. Our laundry-work,

bread-making, sewing, house-furnishing, and the like, are all done

in impersonal industrial centers far from the home. The education of

children over six has already followed this general direction and is

less and less in the hands of the children’s mothers. And now here is

the Casa dei Bambini, ready to take the younger children out of our

yearning arms, and sternly forbidding us to protest, as our mothers

were forbidden to protest when we, as girls, went away to college, or

when trained nurses came in to take the care of their sick children

away from them, because the best interests of the coming generation

demand this sacrifice.

But as things stand now, we mothers have a little breathing-space in

which to accustom ourselves gradually to this inevitable change in our

world. At some time in the future, society will certainly recognize

this close harmony of the successful Casa dei Bambini with the rest of

the tendencies of our times, and then there will be a need to address

a detailed technical book on Montessori ideas to teachers, for the

training of little children will be in their hands, as is already the

training of older children.

And then will be completed the process which has been going on so long,

of forcing all women into labor suitable to their varying temperaments.

The last one of the so-called “natural,” “domestic” occupations will be

taken away from us, and very shame at our enforced idleness will drive

us to follow men into doing, each the work for which we are really

fitted. Those of us who are born teachers and mothers (for the two

words ought to mean about the same thing) will train ourselves expertly

to care for the children of the world, collected for many hours a day

in school-homes of various sorts. Those of us who have not this natural

capacity for wise and beneficent association with the young (and many

who love children dearly are not gifted with wisdom in their treatment)

will do other parts of the necessary work of the world.

But that time is still in the future. At present our teachers can

no more adopt the utter freedom and the reverence for individual

differences, which constitute the essence of the “Montessori method,”

than a cog in a great machine can, of its own volition, begin to turn

backwards. And here is the opportunity for us, the mothers, perhaps

among the last of the race who will be allowed the inestimable delight

and joy of caring for our own little children, a delight and joy of

which society, sooner or later, will consider us unworthy on account of

our inexpertness, our carelessness, our absorption in other things, our

lack of wise preparation, our lack of abstract good judgment.

Our part, during this period of transition, is to seize upon

regenerating influences coming from any source, and shape them

with care into instruments which will help us in the great task of

training little children, a complicated and awful responsibility, our

pathetically inadequate training for which is offset somewhat by our

passionate desire to do our best.

We can collaborate in our small way with the scientific founder of

the Montessori method, and can help her to go on with her system

(discovered before its completion) by assimilating profoundly her

master-idea, and applying it in directions which she has not yet had

time finally and carefully to explore, such as its application to the

dramatic and æsthetic instincts of children.

Above all, we can apply it to ourselves, to our own tense and troubled

lives. We can absorb some of Dr. Montessori’s reverence for vital

processes. Indeed, possibly nothing could more benefit our children

than a whole-hearted conversion on our part to her great and calm trust

in life itself.

INDEX

Adult analysis of children’s problems, 143, 147, 154.

Animal training different from child training, 155.

Apparatus:

Big stair, 72, 100.

Broad stair, 100.

Buttoning-frames, 13, 15, 55, 134.

Color spools, 73.

Explanation of, 99 ff.

Geometric insets, flat, 76.

Geometric insets, solid, 70.

How to use, 67 ff., 91, 92, 99.

Long stair, 100, 192.

The Tower, 71, 100.

Age of children in Montessori schools, 8.

Apathetic child, the, 41 ff.

Arithmetic, beginnings of, 16, 100.

“Bad child,” the, treatment of, 32.

Big stair, the. See Apparatus.

Buttoning-frames. See Apparatus.

Democracy, basis of Montessori system, 118, 187.

Discipline, 31, 141 ff.

Exercises, gymnastic, 146, 148;

for legs, 112;

for balance, 113, 115, 149.

Exercises, sensory:

Baric, 65, 101.

Blindfolded, 17.

Color games, 74.

Color matching, 73.

Hearth-side seed-game, 110.

In dimension, 16.

In folding up, 107 ff.

Instinctive desire for, 52-54.

Not entire occupation of children, 68.

Simplicity of, 54.

In smelling, 64.

Tactile, 59, 60, 100, 115.

In tasting, 64.

By use of water, 150, 151.

By use of weights, 65, 101.

Family life, how affected by Montessori system, 121.

Freedom, 31, 103, 118, 119, 123, 131.

Gardens, value of, in child-training, 201, 204.

Geometric insets. See Apparatus.

Individuality, respect for, of Montessori system, 40, 93.

Interest, a prerequisite to education, 30, 94 ff., 190.

Kindergarten compared with Montessori system, 20, 173, 179;

as to self-annihilation of teacher, 180;

as to absence of supervision, 180;

as to social life of children, 184;

as to overstimulation, 188, 189.

Lesson of silence, 43 ff.

Long stair. See Apparatus.

Mental concentration, 143, 145.

Music, 19.

New pupils, 37 ff.

Number of pupils in Montessori school, 8.

Obedience, 155, 159, 161.

Observation of children, necessity for, 92.

Overstimulation, 188, 189.

Patience of children, 137, 138, 190.

Plants, care of, for children, 202, 204.

Reading, 89.

Responsibility, inculcation of, 34, 35, 69, 70, 136, 201.

School day, length of, 37.

School-equipment, 8, 59.

Self-control of children, 142, 144, 145.

Self-dependence of children, 23, 102, 110, 133, 137, 156, 186.

Slowness of children, 21, 135.

Social life of children, 184, 206, 207.

Supervision, absence of, 10, 102, 103, 180, 191, 193.

Theoretic basis of Montessori system, vi, 49, 56, 103, 120, 123,--see

also under Democracy, Freedom, Interest, Individuality,

Responsibility, Self-dependence.

Touch, sense of, 57, 58;

exercises for,--see Exercises, Sensory.

Tower, the. See Apparatus.

Writing, training for, beginnings of, 59;

theory underlying, 79 ff.;

alphabet, 82;

spontaneous writing, 84;

time required to learn, 87.

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FOOTNOTES:

[A] At first he traces only the outline of the inside figure. Later the

square frame is also outlined.

[B] A note here may perhaps clear up a possible misconception. It is

to be remembered that all these statements about the necessity for

interest in the child’s mind refer only to _educative_ processes.

Occasions may arise when it is desirable that a child shall do

something which does not interest him--for instance, sit still in a

railway train until the end of the journey. But no one need think that

he will ever acquire a taste for this occupation through being forced

to it.

[C] Postage on net books is 8% additional.

TRANSCRIBER’S NOTES:

Italicized text is surrounded by underscores: _italics_.

Emboldened text is surrounded by equals signs: =bold=.

Obvious typographical errors have been corrected.

Inconsistencies in hyphenation have been standardized.

End of Project Gutenberg's A Montessori Mother, by Dorothy Canfield Fisher

A Montessori Mother · 第 16 / 16 章