The child who has completed all the exercises above described, and is
thus _prepared_ for an advance towards unexpected conquests, is about
four years old.
He is not an unknown quantity, as are children who have been left to
gain varied and casual experiences by themselves, and who therefore
differ in type and intellectual standard, not only according to their
"natures," but especially according to the chances and opportunities
they have found for their spontaneous inner formation.
Education has _determined an environment_ for the children. Individual
differences to be found in them can, therefore, be put down almost
exclusively to each one's individual "nature." Owing to their
environment which offers _means_ adapted and measured to meet the
needs of their psychical development, our children have acquired a
fundamental type which is common to all. They have _coordinated_ their
movements in various kinds of manual work about the house, and so have
acquired a characteristic independence of action, and initiative in
the adaptation of their actions to their environment. Out of all this
emerges a _personality_, for the children have become little men, who
are self-reliant.
The special attention necessary to handle small fragile objects
without breaking them, and to move heavy articles without making a
noise, has endowed the movements of the whole body with a lightness
and grace which are characteristic of our children. It is a deep
feeling of responsibility which has brought them to such a pitch of
perfection. For instance, when they carry three or four tumblers at a
time, or a tureen of hot soup, they know that they are responsible not
only for the objects, but also for the success of the meal which at
that moment they are directing. In the same way each child feels the
responsibility of the "silence," of the prevention of harsh sounds,
and he knows how to cooperate for the general good in keeping the
environment, not only orderly, but quiet and calm. Indeed, our
children have taken the road which leads them to mastery of
themselves.
But their formation is due to a deeper psychological work still,
arising from the education of the senses. In addition to ordering their
environment and ordering themselves in their outward personalities,
they have also ordered the inner world of their minds.
The didactic material, in fact, does not offer to the child the
"content" of the mind, but the _order_ for that "content." It causes
him to distinguish identities from differences, extreme differences
from fine gradations, and to classify, under conceptions of quality
and of quantity, the most varying sensations appertaining to surfaces,
colors, dimensions, forms and sounds. The mind has formed itself by a
special exercise of attention, observing, comparing, and classifying.
The mental attitude acquired by such an exercise leads the child to
make ordered observations in his environment, observations which prove
as interesting to him as discoveries, and so stimulate him to multiply
them indefinitely and to form in his mind a rich "content" of clear
ideas.
Language now comes to _fix_ by means of _exact words_ the ideas which
the mind has acquired. These words are few in number and have
reference, not to separate objects, but rather to the _order of the
ideas_ which have been formed in the mind. In this way the children
are able to "find themselves," alike in the world of natural things
and in the world of objects and of words which surround them, for they
have an inner guide which leads them to become _active and
intelligent explorers_ instead of wandering wayfarers in an unknown
land.
These are the children who, in a short space of time, sometimes in a
few days, learn to write and to perform the first operations of
arithmetic. It is not a fact that children in general can do it, as
many have believed. It is not a case of giving my material for writing
to unprepared children and of awaiting the "miracle."
The fact is that the minds and hands of our children are already
_prepared_ for writing, and ideas of quantity, of identity, of
differences, and of gradation, which form the bases of all calculation,
have been maturing for a long time in them.
One might say that all their previous education is a preparation for
the first stages of essential culture--_writing_, _reading_, _and
number_, and that knowledge comes as an easy, spontaneous, and logical
consequence of the preparation--that it is in fact its natural
_conclusion_.
We have already seen that the purpose of the _word_ is to fix
ideas and to facilitate the elementary comprehension of _things_.
In the same way writing and arithmetic now fix the complex inner
acquisitions of the mind, which proceeds henceforward continually
to enrich itself by fresh observations.
* * * * *
Our children have long been preparing the hand for writing.
Throughout all the sensory exercises the hand, whilst cooperating
with the mind in its attainments and in its work of formation, was
preparing its own future. When the hand learned to hold itself
lightly suspended over a horizontal surface in order to touch rough
and smooth, when it took the cylinders of the solid insets and
placed them in their apertures, when with two fingers it touched the
outlines of the geometrical forms, it was coordinating movements,
and the child is now ready--almost impatient to use them in the
fascinating "synthesis" of writing.
The _direct_ preparation for writing also consists in exercises of the
movements of the hand. There are two series of exercises, very
different from one another. I have analyzed the movements which are
connected with writing, and I prepare them separately one from the
other. When we write, we perform a movement for the _management_ of
the instrument of writing, a movement which generally acquires an
individual character, so that a person's handwriting can be
recognized, and, in certain medical cases, changes in the nervous
system can be traced by the corresponding alterations in the
handwriting. In fact, it is from the handwriting that specialists in
that subject would interpret the _moral character_ of individuals.
Writing has, besides this, a general character, which has reference to
the form of the alphabetical signs.
When a man writes he combines these two parts, but they actually exist
as the _component parts of a single product_ and can be prepared
apart.
_Exercises for the Management of the Instrument of Writing_
(THE INDIVIDUAL PART)
In the didactic material there are two sloping wooden boards, on each
of which stand five square metal frames, colored pink. In each of
these is inserted a blue geometrical figure similar to the geometrical
insets and provided with a small button for a handle. With this
material we use a box of ten colored pencils and a little book of
designs which I have prepared after five years' experience of
observing the children. I have chosen and graduated the designs
according to the use which the children made of them.
The two sloping boards are set side by side, and on them are placed
ten complete "insets," that is to say, the frames with the geometrical
figures. (Fig. 28.) The child is given a sheet of white paper and the
box of ten colored pencils. He will then choose one of the ten metal
insets, which are arranged in an attractive line at a certain distance
from him. The child is taught the following process:
[Illustration: FIG. 28.--SLOPING BOARDS TO DISPLAY SET OF METAL INSETS.]
He lays the frame of the iron inset on the sheet of paper, and,
holding it down firmly with one hand, he follows with a colored pencil
the interior outline which describes a geometrical figure. Then he
lifts the square frame, and finds drawn upon the paper an enclosed
geometrical form, a triangle, a circle, a hexagon, etc. The child has
not actually performed a new exercise, because he had already
performed all these movements when he _touched_ the wooden plane
insets. The only new feature of the exercise is that he follows the
outlines no longer directly with his finger, but through the medium
of a pencil. That is, he _draws, he leaves a trace_ of his movement.
The child finds this exercise easy and most interesting, and, as soon
as he has succeeded in making the first outline, he places above it
the piece of blue metal corresponding to it. This is an exercise
exactly similar to that which he performed when he placed the wooden
geometrical figures upon the cards of the third series, where the
figures are only contained by a simple line.
This time, however, when the action of placing the form upon the
outline is performed, the child takes _another colored pencil_ and
draws the outline of the blue metal figure.
When he raises it, if the drawing is well done, he finds upon the
paper a geometrical figure contained by two outlines in colors, and,
if the colors have been well chosen, the result is very attractive,
and the child, who has already had a considerable education of the
chromatic sense is keenly interested in it.
These may seem unnecessary details, but, as a matter of fact, they are
all-important. For instance, if, instead of arranging the ten metal
insets in a row, the teacher distributes them among the children
without thus exhibiting them, the child's exercises are much limited.
When, on the other hand, the insets are exhibited before his eyes, he
feels the desire to draw them _all_ one after the other, and the
number of exercises is increased.
The two _colored outlines_ rouse the desire of the child to see
another combination of colors and then to repeat the experience. The
variety of the objects and the colors are therefore an _inducement_ to
work and hence to final success.
Here the actual preparatory movement for writing begins. When the
child has drawn the figure in double outline, he takes hold of a
pencil "like a pen for writing," and draws marks up and down until he
has completely filled the figure. In this way a definite filled-in
figure remains on the paper, similar to the figures on the cards of
the first series. This figure can be in any of the ten colors. At
first the children fill in the figures very clumsily without regard
for the outlines, making very heavy lines and not keeping them
parallel. Little by little, however, the drawings improve, in that
they keep within the outlines, and the lines increase in number, grow
finer, and are parallel to one another.
When the child has begun these exercises, he is seized with a desire
to continue them, and he never tires of drawing the outlines of the
figures and then filling them in. Each child suddenly becomes the
possessor of a considerable number of drawings, and he treasures them
up in his own little drawer. In this way he _organizes_ the movement
of writing, which brings him _to the management of the pen_. This
movement in ordinary methods is represented by the wearisome pothook
connected with the first laborious and tedious attempts at writing.
The organization of this movement, which began from the guidance of a
piece of metal, is as yet rough and imperfect, and the child now
passes on to the _filling in of the prepared designs_ in the little
album. The leaves are taken from the book one by one in the order of
progression in which they are arranged, and the child fills in the
prepared designs with colored pencils in the same way as before. Here
the choice of the colors is another intelligent occupation which
encourages the child to multiply the tasks. He chooses the colors by
himself and with much taste. The delicacy of the shades which he
chooses and the harmony with which he arranges them in these designs
show us that the common belief, that children love _bright and
glaring_ colors, has been the result of observation of _children
without education_, who have been abandoned to the rough and harsh
experiences of an environment unfitted for them.
The education of the chromatic sense becomes at this point of a
child's development the _lever_ which enables him to become possessed
of a firm, bold and beautiful handwriting.
The drawings lend themselves to _limiting_, in very many ways, _the
length of the strokes with which they are filled in_. The child will
have to fill in geometrical figures, both large and small, of a
pavement design, or flowers and leaves, or the various details of an
animal or of a landscape. In this way the hand accustoms itself, not
only to perform the general action, but also to confine the movement
within all kinds of limits.
Hence the child is preparing himself to write in a handwriting
_either_ large or small. Indeed, later on he will write as well
between the wide lines on a blackboard as between the narrow, closely
ruled lines of an exercise book, generally used by much older
children.
The number of exercises which the child performs with the drawings is
practically unlimited. He will often take another colored pencil and
draw over again the outlines of the figure already filled in with
color. A help to the _continuation_ of the exercise is to be found in
the further education of the chromatic sense, which the child acquires
by painting the same designs in water-colors. Later he mixes colors
for himself until he can imitate the colors of nature, or create the
delicate tints which his own imagination desires. It is not possible,
however, to speak of all this in detail within the limits of this
small work.
_Exercises for the Writing of Alphabetical Signs_
[Illustration: FIG. 29.--SINGLE SANDPAPER LETTER.]
[Illustration: FIG. 30.--GROUPS OF SANDPAPER LETTERS.]
In the didactic material there are series of boxes which contain the
alphabetical signs. At this point we take those cards which are
covered with very smooth paper, to which is gummed a letter of the
alphabet cut out in sandpaper. (Fig. 29.) There are also large cards
on which are gummed several letters, grouped together according to
analogy of form. (Fig. 30.)
The children "have to _touch_ over the alphabetical signs as though
they were writing." They touch them with the tips of the index and
middle fingers in the same way as when they touched the wooden insets,
and with the hand raised as when they lightly touched the rough and
smooth surfaces. The teacher herself touches the letters to show the
child how the movement should be performed, and the child, if he has
had much practise in touching the wooden insets, _imitates_ her with
_ease_ and pleasure. Without the previous practise, however, the
child's hand does not follow the letter with accuracy, and it is most
interesting to make close observations of the children in order to
understand the importance of a _remote motor preparation_ for writing,
and also to realize the _immense_ strain which we impose upon the
children when we set them to write directly without a previous motor
education of the hand.
The child finds great pleasure in touching the sandpaper letters. It
is an exercise by which he applies to a new attainment the power he
has already acquired through exercising the sense of touch. Whilst
the child touches a letter, the teacher pronounces its sound, and she
uses for the lesson the usual three periods. Thus, for example,
presenting the two vowels _i_, _o_, she will have the child touch them
slowly and accurately, and repeat their relative sounds one after
the other as the child touches them, "i, i, i! o, o, o!" Then she
will say to the child: "Give me i!" "Give me o!" Finally, she will ask
the question: "What is this?" To which the child replies, "i, o."
She proceeds in the same way through all the other letters, giving,
in the case of the consonants, not the name, but only the sound. The
child then touches the letters by himself over and over again,
either on the separate cards or on the large cards on which several
letters are gummed, and in this way he establishes the movements
necessary for tracing the alphabetical signs. At the same time he
retains the _visual_ image of the letter. This process forms the first
preparation, not only for writing, but also for reading, because it
is evident that when the child _touches_ the letters he performs the
movement corresponding to the writing of them, and, at the same
time, when he recognizes them by sight he is reading the alphabet.
The child has thus prepared, in effect, all the necessary movements
for writing; therefore he _can write_. This important conquest is the
result of a long period of inner formation of which the child is not
clearly aware. But a day will come--very soon--when he _will write_,
and that will be a day of great surprise for him--the wonderful
harvest of an unknown sowing.
* * * * *
[Illustration: FIG. 31.--BOX OF MOVABLE LETTERS.]
The alphabet of movable letters cut out in pink and blue cardboard,
and kept in a special box with compartments, serves "for the
composition of words." (Fig. 31.)
In a phonetic language, like Italian, it is enough to pronounce
clearly the different component sounds of a word (as, for example,
m-a-n-o), so that the child whose ear is _already educated_ may
recognize one by one the component sounds. Then he looks in the
movable alphabet for the _signs_ corresponding to each separate sound,
and lays them one beside the other, thus composing the word (for
instance, mano). Gradually he will become able to do the same thing
with words of which he thinks himself; he succeeds in breaking them up
into their component sounds, and in translating them into a row of
signs.
When the child has composed the words in this way, he knows how to
read them. In this method, therefore, all the processes leading to
writing include reading as well.
If the language is not phonetic, the teacher can compose separate
words with the movable alphabet, and then pronounce them, letting the
child repeat by himself the exercise of arranging and rereading them.
In the material there are two movable alphabets. One of them consists
of larger letters, and is divided into two boxes, each of which
contains the vowels. This is used for the first exercises, in which
the child needs very large objects in order to recognize the letters.
When he is acquainted with one half of the consonants he can begin to
compose words, even though he is dealing with one part only of the
alphabet.
The other movable alphabet has smaller letters and is contained in a
single box. It is given to children who have made their first attempts
at composition with words, and already know the complete alphabet.
It is after these exercises with the movable alphabet that the child
_is able to write entire words_. This phenomenon generally occurs
unexpectedly, and then a child who has never yet traced a stroke or a
letter on paper _writes several words in succession_. From that moment
he continues to write, always gradually perfecting himself. This
spontaneous writing takes on the characteristics of a _natural_
phenomenon, and the child who has begun to write the "first word" will
continue to write in the same way as he spoke after pronouncing the
first word, and as he walked after having taken the first step. The
same course of inner formation through which the phenomenon of writing
appeared is the course of his future progress, of his growth to
perfection. The child prepared in this way has entered upon a course
of development through which he will pass as surely as the growth of
the body and the development of the natural functions have passed
through their course of development when life has once been
established.
For the interesting and very complex phenomena relating to the
development of writing and then of reading, see my larger works.