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[Illustration: DR. MONTESSORI GIVING A LESSON IN TOUCHING GEOMETRICAL
INSETS]
THE
MONTESSORI METHOD
SCIENTIFIC PEDAGOGY AS APPLIED TO CHILD
EDUCATION IN "THE CHILDREN'S HOUSES"
WITH ADDITIONS AND REVISIONS
BY THE AUTHOR
BY
MARIA MONTESSORI
TRANSLATED FROM THE ITALIAN BY
ANNE E. GEORGE
WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY
PROFESSOR HENRY W. HOLMES
OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY
_WITH THIRTY-TWO ILLUSTRATIONS FROM PHOTOGRAPHS_
NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
MCMXII
_Copyright, 1912, by_
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
_All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign
languages, including the Scandinavian_
_I place at the beginning of this volume, now appearing in the
United States, her fatherland, the dear name of_
_ALICE HALLGARTEN_
_of New York, who by her marriage to Baron Leopold Franchetti
became by choice our compatriot._
_Ever a firm believer in the principles underlying the Case dei
Bambini, she, with her husband, forwarded the publication of
this book in Italy, and, throughout the last years of her short
life, greatly desired the English translation which should
introduce to the land of her birth the work so near her heart._
_To her memory I dedicate this book, whose pages, like an
ever-living flower, perpetuate the recollection of her
beneficence._
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Grateful acknowledgment is made to Mrs. Guy Baring, of London, for
the loan of her manuscript translation of "Pedagogia Scientifica";
to Mrs. John R. Fisher (Dorothy Canfield) for translating a large
part of the new work written by Dr. Montessori for the American
Edition; and to The House of Childhood, Inc., New York, for use
of the illustrations of the didactic apparatus. Dr. Montessori's
patent rights in the apparatus are controlled, for the United
States and Canada, by The House of Childhood, Inc.
THE PUBLISHERS.
PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION
In February, 1911, Professor Henry W. Holmes, of the Division of
Education of Harvard University, did me the honour to suggest that an
English translation be made of my Italian volume, "_Il Metodo della
Pedagogia Scientifica applicato all' educazione infantile nelle Case dei
Bambini_." This suggestion represented one of the greatest events in the
history of my educational work. To-day, that to which I then looked
forward as an unusual privilege has become an accomplished fact.
The Italian edition of "_Il Metodo della Pedagogia Scientifica_" had no
preface, because the book itself I consider nothing more than the
preface to a more comprehensive work, the aim and extent of which it
only indicates. For the educational method for children of from three to
six years set forth here is but the earnest of a work that, developing
the same principle and method, shall cover in a like manner the
successive stages of education. Moreover, the method which obtains in
the _Case dei Bambini_ offers, it seems to me, an experimental field for
the study of man, and promises, perhaps, the development of a science
that shall disclose other secrets of nature.
In the period that has elapsed between the publication of the Italian
and American editions, I have had, with my pupils, the opportunity to
simplify and render more exact certain practical details of the method,
and to gather additional observations concerning discipline. The results
attest the vitality of the method and the necessity for an extended
scientific collaboration in the near future, and are embodied in two new
chapters written for the American edition. I know that my method has
been widely spoken of in America, thanks to Mr. S. S. McClure, who has
presented it through the pages of his well-known magazine. Indeed, many
Americans have already come to Rome for the purpose of observing
personally the practical application of the method in my little schools.
If, encouraged by this movement, I may express a hope for the future, it
is that my work in Rome shall become the centre of an efficient and
helpful collaboration.
To the Harvard professors who have made my work known in America and to
_McClure's Magazine_, a mere acknowledgment of what I owe them is a
barren response; but it is my hope that the method itself, in its effect
upon the children of America, may prove an adequate expression of my
gratitude.
MARIA MONTESSORI.
ROME, 1912.
CONTENTS
PAGE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS V
THE AMERICAN EDITION VII
INTRODUCTION XVII
CHAPTER I
A CRITICAL CONSIDERATION OF THE NEW PEDAGOGY IN ITS RELATION TO
MODERN SCIENCE
Influence of Modern Science upon Pedagogy 1
Italy's part in the development of Scientific Pedagogy 4
Difference between scientific technique and the scientific
spirit 7
Direction of the preparation should be toward the spirit
rather than toward the mechanism 9
The master to study man in the awakening of his intellectual
life 12
Attitude of the teacher in the light of another example 13
The school must permit the free natural manifestations of the
child if in the school Scientific Pedagogy is to be born 15
Stationary desks and chairs proof that the principle of
slavery still informs the school 16
Conquest of liberty, what the school needs 19
What may happen to the spirit 20
Prizes and punishments, the bench of the soul 21
All human victories, all human progress, stand upon the inner
force 24
CHAPTER II
HISTORY OF METHODS
Necessity of establishing the method peculiar to Scientific
Pedagogy 28
Origin of educational system in use in the "Children's
Houses" 31
Practical application of the methods of Itard and Seguin in
the Orthophrenic School at Rome 32
Origin of the methods for the education of deficients 33
Application of the methods in Germany and France 35
Seguin's first didactic material was spiritual 37
Methods for deficients applied to the education of normal
children 42
Social and pedagogic importance of the "Children's Houses" 44
CHAPTER III
INAUGURAL ADDRESS DELIVERED ON THE OCCASION OF THE OPENING OF ONE
OF THE "CHILDREN'S HOUSES"
The Quarter of San Lorenzo before and since the establishment
of the "Children's Houses" 48
Evil of subletting the most cruel form of usury 50
The problem of life more profound than that of the
intellectual elevation of the poor 52
Isolation of the masses of the poor, unknown to past
centuries 53
Work of the Roman Association of Good Building and the moral
importance of their reforms 56
The "Children's House" earned by the parents through their
care of the building 60
Pedagogical organization of the "Children's House" 62
The "Children's House" the first step toward the socialisation
of the house 65
The communised house in its relation to the home and to the
spiritual evolution of women 66
Rules and regulations of the "Children's Houses" 70
CHAPTER IV
PEDAGOGICAL METHODS USED IN THE "CHILDREN'S HOUSES"
Child psychology can be established only through the method of
external observation 72
Anthropological consideration 73
Anthropological notes 77
Environment and schoolroom furnishings 80
CHAPTER V
DISCIPLINE
Discipline through liberty 86
Independence 95
Abolition of prizes and external forms of punishment 101
Biological concept of liberty in pedagogy 104
CHAPTER VI
HOW THE LESSON SHOULD BE GIVEN
Characteristics of the individual lessons 107
Method of observation the fundamental guide 108
Difference between the scientific and unscientific methods
illustrated 109
First task of educators to stimulate life, leaving it then
free to develop 115
CHAPTER VII
EXERCISES OF PRACTICAL LIFE
Suggested schedule for the "Children's Houses" 119
The child must be prepared for the forms of social life and
his attention attracted to these forms 121
Cleanliness, order, poise, conversation 122
CHAPTER VIII
REFECTION--THE CHILD'S DIET
Diet must be adapted to the child's physical nature 125
Foods and their preparation 126
Drinks 132
Distribution of meals 133
CHAPTER IX
MUSCULAR EDUCATION--GYMNASTICS
Generally accepted idea of gymnastics is inadequate 137
The special gymnastics necessary for little children 138
Other pieces of gymnastic apparatus 141
Free gymnastics 144
Educational gymnastics 144
Respiratory gymnastics, and labial, dental, and lingual
gymnastics 147
CHAPTER X
NATURE IN EDUCATION--AGRICULTURAL LABOUR: CULTURE OF PLANTS
AND ANIMALS
The savage of the Aveyron 149
Itard's educative drama repented in the education of little
children 153
Gardening and horticulture basis of a method for education
of children 155
The child initiated into observation of the phenomena of life
and into foresight by way of auto-education 156
Children are initiated into the virtue of patience and into
confident expectation, and are inspired with a feeling for
nature 159
The child follows the natural way of development of the human
race 160
CHAPTER XI
MANUAL LABOUR--THE POTTER'S ART, AND BUILDING
Difference between manual labour and manual gymnastics 162
The School of Educative Art 163
Archaeological, historical, and artistic importance of the
vase 164
Manufacture of diminutive bricks and construction of
diminutive walls and houses 165
CHAPTER XII
EDUCATION OF THE SENSES
Aim of education to develop the energies 168
Difference in the reaction between deficient and normal
children in the presentation of didactic material made up
of graded stimuli 169
Education of the senses has as its aim the refinement of
the differential perception of stimuli by means of repeated
exercises 173
Three Periods of Seguin 177
CHAPTER XIII
EDUCATION OF THE SENSES AND ILLUSTRATIONS OF THE DIDACTIC
MATERIAL: GENERAL SENSIBILITY: THE TACTILE, THERMIC, BARIC
AND STEREOGNOSTIC SENSES
Education of the tactile, thermic and baric senses 185
Education of the stereognostic sense 188
Education of the senses of taste and smell 190
Education of the sense of vision 191
Exercises with the three series of cards 199
Education of the chromatic sense 200
Exercise for the discrimination of sounds 203
Musical education 206
Tests for acuteness of hearing 209
A lesson in silence 212
CHAPTER XIV
GENERAL NOTES ON THE EDUCATION OF THE SENSES
Aim in education biological and social 215
Education of the senses makes men observers and prepares them
directly for practical life 218
CHAPTER XV
INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION
Sense exercises a species of auto-education 224
Importance of an exact nomenclature, and how to teach it 225
Spontaneous progress of the child the greatest triumph of
Scientific Pedagogy 228
Games of the blind 231
Application of the visual sense to the observation of
environment 232
Method of using didactic material: dimensions, form,
design 233
Free plastic work 241
Geometric analysis of figures 243
Exercises in the chromatic sense 244
CHAPTER XVI
METHOD FOR THE TEACHING OF READING AND WRITING
Spontaneous development of graphic language: Seguin and
Itard 246
Necessity of a special education that shall fit man for
objective observation and direct logical thought 252
Results of objective observation and logical thought 253
Not necessary to begin teaching writing with vertical
strokes 257
Spontaneous drawing of normal children 258
Use of Froebel mats in teaching children sewing 260
Children should be taught how before they are made to execute
a task 261
Two diverse forms of movement made in writing 262
Experiments with normal children 267
Origin of alphabets in present use 269
CHAPTER XVII
DESCRIPTION OF THE METHOD AND DIDACTIC MATERIAL USED
Exercise tending to develop the muscular mechanism necessary
in holding and using the instrument in writing 271
Didactic material for writing 271
Exercise tending to establish the visual-muscular image of
the alphabetical signs, and to establish the muscular memory
of the movements necessary to writing 275
Exercises for the composition of words 281
Reading, the interpretation of an idea from written signs 296
Games for the reading of words 299
Games for the reading of phrases 303
Point education has reached in the "Children's Houses" 307
CHAPTER XVIII
LANGUAGE OF CHILDHOOD
Physiological importance of graphic language 310
Two periods in the development of language 312
Analysis of speech necessary 319
Defects of language due to education 322
CHAPTER XIX
TEACHING OF NUMERATION: INTRODUCTION TO ARITHMETIC
Numbers as represented by graphic signs 328
Exercises for the memory of numbers 330
Addition and subtraction from one to twenty: multiplication
and division 332
Lessons on decimals: arithmetical calculations beyond ten 335
CHAPTER XX
SEQUENCE OF EXERCISES
Sequence and grades in the presentation of material and in
the exercises 338
First grade 338
Second grade 339
Third grade 342
Fourth grade 343
Fifth grade 345
CHAPTER XXI
GENERAL REVIEW OF DISCIPLINE
Discipline better than in ordinary schools 346
First dawning of discipline comes through work 350
Orderly action is the true rest for muscles intended by nature
for action 354
The exercise that develops life consists in the repetition,
not in the mere grasp of the idea 358
Aim of repetition that the child shall refine his senses
through the exercise of attention, of comparison, of judgment 360
Obedience is naturally sacrifice 363
Obedience develops will-power and the capacity to perform the
act it becomes necessary to obey 367
CHAPTER XXII
CONCLUSIONS AND IMPRESSIONS
The teacher has become the director of spontaneous work in
the "Children's Houses" 371
The problems of religious education should be solved by
positive pedagogy 372
Spiritual influence of the "Children's Houses" 376
ILLUSTRATIONS
Dr. Montessori giving a lesson in touching geometrical
insets _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
Dr. Montessori in the garden of the school at Via Giusti 144
Children learning to button and lace. Ribbon and button frames 145
Children playing a game with tablets of coloured silk 186
Girl touching a letter and boy telling objects by weight 187
Pupils arranging colours in chromatic order 187
Didactic apparatus to teach differentiation of objects 190
Blocks by which children are taught thickness, length and size 191
Geometric insets to teach form 194
Geometric insets and cabinet 195
Cards used in teaching form and contour 196
Frames illustrating lacing; shoe buttoning; buttoning
of other garments; hooks and eyes 200
Tablets with silk, for educating the chromatic sense 201
Didactic apparatus for training the sense of touch,
and for teaching writing 282
Children touching letters and making words with cardboard
script 283
Montessori children eating dinner 348
School at Tarrytown, N. Y. 349
INTRODUCTION
An audience already thoroughly interested awaits this translation of a
remarkable book. For years no educational document has been so eagerly
expected by so large a public, and not many have better merited general
anticipation. That this widespread interest exists is due to the
enthusiastic and ingenious articles in _McClure's Magazine_ for May and
December, 1911, and January, 1912; but before the first of these
articles appeared a number of English and American teachers had given
careful study to Dr. Montessori's work, and had found it novel and
important. The astonishing welcome accorded to the first popular
expositions of the Montessori system may mean much or little for its
future in England and America; it is rather the earlier approval of a
few trained teachers and professional students that commends it to the
educational workers who must ultimately decide upon its value, interpret
its technicalities to the country at large, and adapt it to English and
American conditions. To them as well as to the general public this brief
critical Introduction is addressed.
It is wholly within the bounds of safe judgment to call Dr. Montessori's
work remarkable, novel, and important. It is remarkable, if for no other
reason, because it represents the constructive effort of a woman. We
have no other example of an educational system--original at least in its
systematic wholeness and in its practical application--worked out and
inaugurated by the feminine mind and hand. It is remarkable, also,
because it springs from a combination of womanly sympathy and intuition,
broad social outlook, scientific training, intensive and long-continued
study of educational problems, and, to crown all, varied and unusual
experience as a teacher and educational leader. No other woman who has
dealt with Dr. Montessori's problem--the education of young
children--has brought to it personal resources so richly diverse as
hers. These resources, furthermore, she has devoted to her work with an
enthusiasm, an absolute abandon, like that of Pestalozzi and Froebel,
and she presents her convictions with an apostolic ardour which commands
attention. A system which embodies such a capital of human effort could
not be unimportant. Then, too, certain aspects of the system are in
themselves striking and significant: it adapts to the education of
normal children methods and apparatus originally used for deficients; it
is based on a radical conception of liberty for the pupil; it entails a
highly formal training of separate sensory, motor, and mental
capacities; and it leads to rapid, easy, and substantial mastery of the
elements of reading, writing, and arithmetic. All this will be apparent
to the most casual reader of this book.
None of these things, to be sure, is absolutely new in the educational
world. All have been proposed in theory; some have been put more or less
completely into practice. It is not unjust, for instance, to point out
that much of the material used by Dr. Walter S. Fernald, Superintendent
of the Massachusetts Institution for the Feeble-Minded at Waverley, is
almost identical with the Montessori material, and that Dr. Fernald has
long maintained that it could be used to good effect in the education of
normal children. (It may interest American readers to know that Seguin,
on whose work that of Dr. Montessori is based, was once head of the
school at Waverley.) So, too, formal training in various psycho-physical
processes has been much urged of late by a good many workers in
experimental pedagogy, especially by Meumann. But before Montessori, no
one had produced a system in which the elements named above were
combined. She conceived it, elaborated it in practice, and established
it in schools. It is indeed the final result, as Dr. Montessori proudly
asserts, of years of experimental effort both on her own part and on the
part of her great predecessors; but the crystallisation of these
experiments in a programme of education for normal children is due to
Dr. Montessori alone. The incidental features which she has frankly
taken over from other modern educators she has chosen because they fit
into the fundamental form of her own scheme, and she has unified them
all in her general conception of method. The system is not original in
the sense in which Froebel's system was original; but as a system it is
the novel product of a single woman's creative genius.
As such, no student of elementary education ought to ignore it. The
system doubtless fails to solve all the problems in the education of
young children; possibly some of the solutions it proposes are partly or
completely mistaken; some are probably unavailable in English and
American schools; but a system of education does not have to attain
perfection in order to merit study, investigation, and experimental use.
Dr. Montessori is too large-minded to claim infallibility, and too
thoroughly scientific in her attitude to object to careful scrutiny of
her scheme and the thorough testing of its results. She expressly states
that it is not yet complete. Practically, it is highly probable that the
system ultimately adopted in our schools will combine elements of the
Montessori programme with elements of the kindergarten programme, both
"liberal" and "conservative." In its actual procedure school work must
always be thus eclectic. An all-or-nothing policy for a single system
inevitably courts defeat; for the public is not interested in systems as
systems, and refuses in the end to believe that any one system contains
every good thing. Nor can we doubt that this attitude is essentially
sound. If we continue, despite the pragmatists, to believe in absolute
principles, we may yet remain skeptical about the logic of their
reduction to practice--at least in any fixed programme of education. We
are not yet justified, at any rate, in adopting one programme to the
exclusion of every other simply because it is based on the most
intelligible or the most inspiring philosophy. The pragmatic test must
also be applied, and rigorously. We must try out several combinations,
watch and record the results, compare them, and proceed cautiously to
new experiments. This procedure is desirable for every stage and grade
of education, but especially for the earliest stage, because there it
has been least attempted and is most difficult. Certainly a system so
radical, so clearly defined, and so well developed as that of Dr.
Montessori offers for the thoroughgoing comparative study of methods in
early education new material of exceptional importance. Without
accepting every detail of the system, without even accepting
unqualifiedly its fundamental principles, one may welcome it, thus, as
of great and immediate value. If early education is worth studying at
all, the educator who devotes his attention to it will find it necessary
to define the differences in principle between the Montessori programme
and other programmes, and to carry out careful tests of the results
obtainable from the various systems and their feasible combinations.
One such combination this Introduction will suggest, and it will discuss
also the possible uses of the Montessori apparatus in the home; but it
may be helpful first to present the outstanding characteristics of the
Montessori system as compared with the modern kindergarten in its two
main forms.
Certain similarities in principle are soon apparent. Dr. Montessori's
views of childhood are in some respects identical with those of Froebel,
although in general decidedly more radical. Both defend the child's
right to be active, to explore his environment and develop his own inner
resources through every form of investigation and creative effort.
Education is to guide activity, not repress it. Environment cannot
create human power, but only give it scope and material, direct it, or
at most but call it forth; and the teacher's task is first to nourish
and assist, to watch, encourage, guide, induce, rather than to
interfere, prescribe, or restrict. To most American teachers and to all
kindergartners this principle has long been familiar; they will but
welcome now a new and eloquent statement of it from a modern viewpoint.
In the practical interpretation of the principle, however, there is
decided divergence between the Montessori school and the kindergarten.
The Montessori "directress" does not teach children in groups, with the
practical requirement, no matter how well "mediated," that each member
of the group shall join in the exercise. The Montessori pupil does about
as he pleases, so long as he does not do any harm.
Montessori and Froebel stand in agreement also on the need for training
of the senses; but Montessori's scheme for this training is at once more
elaborate and more direct than Froebel's. She has devised out of
Seguin's apparatus a comprehensive and scientific scheme for formal
gymnastic of the senses; Froebel originated a series of objects
designed for a much broader and more creative use by the children, but
by no means so closely adapted to the training of sensory
discrimination. The Montessori material carries out the fundamental
principle of Pestalozzi, which he tried in vain to embody in a
successful system of his own: it "develops piece by piece the pupil's
mental capacities" by training separately, through repeated exercises,
his several senses and his ability to distinguish, compare, and handle
typical objects. In the kindergarten system, and particularly in the
"liberal" modifications of it, sense training is incidental to
constructive and imaginative activity in which the children are pursuing
larger ends than the mere arrangement of forms or colours. Even in the
most formal work in kindergarten design the children are "making a
picture," and are encouraged to tell what it looks like--"a star," "a
kite," "a flower."
As to physical education, the two systems agree in much the same way:
both affirm the need for free bodily activity, for rhythmic exercises,
and for the development of muscular control; but whereas the
kindergarten seeks much of all this through group games with an
imaginative or social content, the Montessori scheme places the emphasis
on special exercises designed to give formal training in separate
physical functions.
In another general aspect, however, the agreement between the two
systems, strong in principle, leaves the Montessori system less formal
rather than more formal in practice. The principle in this case consists
of the affirmation of the child's need for social training. In the
conservative kindergarten this training is sought once more, largely in
group games. These are usually imaginative, and sometimes decidedly
symbolic: that is, the children play at being farmers, millers,
shoemakers, mothers and fathers, birds, animals, knights, or soldiers;
they sing songs, go through certain semi-dramatic activities--such as
"opening the pigeon house," "mowing the grass," "showing the good child
to the knights," and the like; and each takes his part in the
representation of some typical social situation. The social training
involved in these games is formal only in the sense that the children
are not engaged, as the Montessori children often are, in a real social
enterprise, such as that of serving dinner, cleaning the room, caring
for animals, building a toy house, or making a garden. It cannot be too
strongly emphasized that even the most conservative kindergarten does
not, on principle, exclude "real" enterprises of this latter sort; but
in a three-hour session it does rather little with them. Liberal
kindergartens do more, particularly in Europe, where the session is
often longer. Nor does the Montessori system wholly exclude imaginative
group games. But Dr. Montessori, despite an evidently profound interest
not only in social training, but also in aesthetic, idealistic, and even
religious development, speaks of "games and foolish stories" in a casual
and derogatory way, which shows that she is as yet unfamiliar with the
American kindergartner's remarkable skill and power in the use of these
resources. (Of course the American kindergartner does not use "foolish"
stories; but stories she does use, and to good effect.) The Montessori
programme involves much direct social experience, both in the general
life of the school and in the manual work done by the pupils; the
kindergarten extends the range of the child's social consciousness
through the imagination. The groupings of the Montessori children are
largely free and unregulated; the groupings of kindergarten children are
more often formal and prescribed.
On one point the Montessori system agrees with the conservative
kindergarten, but not with the liberal: it prepares directly for the
mastery of the school arts. There can be no doubt that Dr. Montessori
has devised a peculiarly successful scheme for teaching children to
write, an effective method for the introduction of reading, and good
material for early number work. Both types of kindergarten increase, to
be sure, the child's general capacity for expression: kindergarten
activity adds to his stock of ideas, awakens and guides his imagination,
increases his vocabulary, and trains him in the effective use of it.
Children in a good kindergarten hear stories and tell them, recount
their own experiences, sing songs, and recite verses, all in a company
of friendly but fairly critical listeners, which does even more to
stimulate and guide expression than does the circle at home. But even
the conservative kindergarten does not teach children to write and to
read. It does teach them a good deal about number; and it may fairly be
questioned whether it does not do more fundamental work in this field
than the Montessori system itself. The Froebelian gifts offer
exceptional opportunity for concrete illustration of the conceptions of
_whole_ and _part_, through the creation of wholes from parts, and the
breaking up of wholes into parts. This aspect of number is at least as
important as the series aspect, which children get in counting and for
which the Montessori "Long Stair" provides such good material. The
Froebelian material may be used very readily for counting, however, and
the Montessori material gives some slight opportunity for uniting and
dividing. So far as preparation for arithmetic is concerned, a
combination of the two bodies of material is both feasible and
desirable. The liberal kindergarten, meanwhile, abandoning the use of
the gifts and occupations for mathematical purposes, makes no attempt
to prepare its pupils directly for the school arts.
Compared with the kindergarten, then, the Montessori system presents
these main points of interest: it carries out far more radically the
principle of unrestricted liberty; its materials are intended for the
direct and formal training of the senses; it includes apparatus designed
to aid in the purely physical development of the children; its social
training is carried out mainly by means of present and actual social
activities; and it affords direct preparation for the school arts. The
kindergarten, on the other hand, involves a certain amount of
group-teaching, in which children are held--not necessarily by the
enforcement of authority, yet by authority, confessedly, when other
means fail--to definite activities; its materials are intended primarily
for creative use by the children and offer opportunity for mathematical
analysis and the teaching of design; and its procedure is rich in
resources for the imagination. One thing should be made entirely clear
and emphatic: in none of these characteristics are the two systems
rigidly antagonistic. Much kindergarten activity is free, and the
principle of prescription is not wholly given over by the "Houses of
Childhood"--witness their _Rules and Regulations_; the kindergarten
involves direct sense training, and the Montessori system admits some of
the Froebel blocks for building and design; there are many purely
muscular activities in the kindergarten, and some of the usual
kindergarten games are used by Montessori; the kindergarten conducts
some gardening, care of animals, construction-work, and domestic
business, and the Montessori system admits a few imaginative social
plays; both systems (but not the liberal form of the kindergarten) work
directly toward the school arts. Since the difference between the two
programmes is one of arrangement, emphasis, and degree, there is no
fundamental reason why a combination especially adapted to English and
American schools cannot be worked out.
The broad contrast between a Montessori school and a kindergarten
appears on actual observation to be this: whereas the Montessori
children spend almost all their time handling _things_, largely
according to their individual inclination and under individual guidance,
kindergarten children are generally engaged in group work and games with
an imaginative background and appeal. A possible principle of adjustment
between the two systems might be stated thus: work with objects designed
for formal sensory, motor, and intellectual training should be done
individually or in purely voluntary groups; imaginative and social
activity should be carried on in regulated groups. This principle is
suggested only as a possible basis for education during the kindergarten
age; for as children grow older they must be taught in classes, and they
naturally learn how to carry out imaginative and social enterprises in
free groups, and the former often alone. Nor should it be supposed that
the principle is suggested as a rule to which there can be no exception.
It is suggested simply as a general working hypothesis, the value of
which must be tested in experience. Although it has long been observed
by kindergartners themselves that group-work with the Froebelian
materials, especially such work as involves geometrical analysis and
formal design, soon tires the children, it has been held that the
kindergartner could safeguard her pupils from loss of interest or real
fatigue by watching carefully for the first signs of weariness and
stopping the work promptly on their appearance. For small groups of the
older children, who can do work of this sort with ease and enjoyment, no
doubt the inevitable restraint of group teaching is a negligible factor,
the fatiguing effects of which any good kindergartner can forestall. But
for younger children a regime of complete freedom would seem to promise
better results--at least so far as work with objects is concerned. In
games, on the other hand, group teaching means very little restraint and
the whole process is less tiring any way. To differentiate in method
between these two kinds of activity may be the best way to keep them
both in an effective educational programme.
To speak of an effective educational programme leads at once, however,
to an important aspect of the Montessori system, quite aside from its
relation to the kindergarten, with which this Introduction must now
deal. This is the social aspect, which finds its explanation in Dr.
Montessori's own story of her first school. In any discussion of the
availability of the Montessori system in English and American
schools--particularly in American public schools and English "Board"
schools--two general conditions under which Dr. Montessori did her early
work in Rome should be borne in mind. She had her pupils almost all day
long, practically controlling their lives in their waking hours; and her
pupils came for the most part from families of the laboring class. We
cannot expect to achieve the results Dr. Montessori has achieved if we
have our pupils under our guidance only two or three hours in the
morning, nor can we expect exactly similar results from children whose
heredity and experience make them at once more sensitive, more active,
and less amenable to suggestion than hers. If we are to make practical
application of the Montessori scheme we must not neglect to consider
the modifications of it which differing social conditions may render
necessary.
The conditions under which Dr. Montessori started her original school in
Rome do not, indeed, lack counterpart in large cities the world over.
When one reads her eloquent "Inaugural Address" it is impossible not to
wish that a "School within the Home" might stand as a centre of hopeful
child life in the midst of every close-built city block. Better, of
course, if there were no hive-like city tenements at all, and if every
family could give to its own children on its own premises enough of
"happy play in grassy places." Better if every mother and father were in
certain ways an expert in child psychology and hygiene. But while so
many unfortunate thousands still live in the hateful cliff-dwellings of
our modern cities, we must welcome Dr. Montessori's large conception of
the social function of her "Houses of Childhood" as a new gospel for the
schools which serve the city poor. No matter what didactic apparatus
such schools may use, they should learn of Dr. Montessori the need of
longer hours, complete care of the children, closer co-operation with
the home, and larger aims. In such schools, too, it is probable that the
two fundamental features of Dr. Montessori's work--her principle of
liberty and her scheme for sense training--will find their completest
and most fruitful application.
It is just these fundamental features, however, which will be most
bitterly attacked whenever the social status of the original _Casa dei
Bambini_ is forgotten. Anthropometric measurements, baths, training in
personal self-care, the serving of meals, gardening, and the care of
animals we may hear sweepingly recommended for all schools, even for
those with a three-hour session and a socially favored class of pupils;
but the need for individual liberty and for the training of the senses
will be denied even in the work of schools where the conditions
correspond closely to those at San Lorenzo. Of course no practical
educator will actually propose bathtubs for all schools, and no doubt
there will be plenty of wise conservatism about transferring to a given
school any function now well discharged by the homes that support it.
The problems raised by the proposal to apply in all schools the
Montessori conception of discipline and the Montessori sense-training
are really more difficult to solve. Is individual liberty a universal
educational principle, or a principle which must be modified in the case
of a school with no such social status as that of the original "House of
Childhood"? Do all children need sense training, or only those of
unfavorable inheritance and home environment? No serious discussion of
the Montessori system can avoid these questions. What is said in answer
to them here is written in the hope that subsequent discussion may be
somewhat influenced to keep in view the really deciding factor in each
case--the actual situation in the school.
There is occasion enough in these questions, to be sure, for
philosophical and scientific argument. The first question involves an
ethical issue, the second a psychological issue, and both may be
followed through to purely metaphysical issues. Dr. Montessori believes
in liberty for the pupil because she thinks of life "as a superb
goddess, ever advancing to new conquests." Submission, loyalty,
self-sacrifice seem to her, apparently, only incidental necessities of
life, not essential elements of its eternal form. There is obvious
opportunity here for profound difference of philosophic theory and
belief. She seems to hold, too, that sense perception forms the sole
basis for the mental and hence for the moral life; that "sense training
will prepare the ordered foundation upon which the child may build up a
clear and strong mentality," including, apparently, his moral ideals;
and that the cultivation of purpose and of the imaginative and creative
capacities of children is far less important than the development of the
power to learn from the environment by means of the senses. These views
seem to agree rather closely with those of Herbart and to some extent
with those of Locke. Certainly they offer material for both
psychological and ethical debate. Possibly, however, Dr. Montessori
would not accept the views here ascribed to her on the evidence of this
book; and in any case these are matters for the philosopher and the
psychologist. A pedagogical issue is never wholly an issue of high
principle.
Can it reasonably be maintained, then, that an actual situation like
that in the first "House of Childhood" at Rome is the only situation in
which the Montessori principle of liberty can justifiably find full
application? Evidently the Roman school is a true Republic of Childhood,
in which nothing need take precedence of the child's claim to pursue an
active purpose of his own. Social restraints are here reduced to a
minimum; the children must, to be sure, subordinate individual caprice
to the demands of the common good, they are not allowed to quarrel or to
interfere with each other, and they have duties to perform at stated
times; but each child is a citizen in a community governed wholly in the
interests of the equally privileged members thereof, his liberty is
rarely interfered with, he is free to carry out his own purposes, and he
has as much influence in the affairs of the commonwealth as the average
member of an adult democracy. This situation is never duplicated in the
home, for a child is not only a member of the family, whose interests
are to be considered with the rest, but literally a subordinate member,
whose interests must often be frankly set aside for those of an adult
member or for those of the household itself. Children must come to
dinner at dinner time, even if continued digging in the sand would be
more to their liking or better for their general development of muscle,
mind, or will. It is possible, of course, to refine on the theory of the
child's membership in the family community and of the right of elders to
command, but practically it remains true that the common conditions of
family life prohibit any such freedom as is exercised in a Montessori
school. In the same way a school of large enrollment that elects to
cover in a given time so much work that individual initiative cannot be
trusted to compass it, is forced to teach certain things at nine o'clock
and others at ten, and to teach in groups; and the individual whose life
is thus cabined and confined must get what he can. For a given school
the obvious question is, Considering the work to be done in the time
allowed, can we give up the safeguards of a fixed programme and group
teaching? The deeper question lies here: Is the work to be done in
itself so important that it is worth while to have the children go
through it under compulsion or on interest induced by the teacher? Or to
put it another way: May not the work be so much less important than the
child's freedom that we had better trust to native curiosity and
cleverly devised materials anyway and run the risk of his losing part of
the work, or even the whole of it?
For schools beyond the primary grade there will be no doubt as to the
answer to this question. There are many ways in which school work may
safely be kept from being the deadening and depressing process it so
often is, but the giving up of all fixed and limited schedules and the
prescriptions of class teaching is not one of them. Even if complete
liberty of individual action were possible in schools of higher grade,
it is not certain that it would be desirable: for we must learn to take
up many of our purposes in life under social imperative. But with young
children the question becomes more difficult. What work do we wish to
make sure that each child does? If our schools can keep but half a day,
is there time enough for every child to cover this work without group
teaching at stated times? Is the prescription and restraint involved in
such group teaching really enough to do the children any harm or to make
our teaching less effective? Can we not give up prescription altogether
for parts of the work and minimise it for others? The general question
of individual liberty is thus reduced to a series of practical problems
of adjustment. It is no longer a question of total liberty or no liberty
at all, but a question of the practical mediation of these extremes.
When we consider, furthermore, that the teacher's skill and the
attractiveness of her personality, the alluring power of the didactic
apparatus and the ease with which it enables children to learn, to say
nothing of a cheerful and pleasant room and the absence of set desks and
seats, may all work together to prevent scheduled teaching in groups
from becoming in the least an occasion for restraint, it is plain that
in any given school there may be ample justification for abating the
rigour of Dr. Montessori's principle of freedom. Every school must work
out its own solution of the problem in the face of its particular
conditions.
The adoption of sense-training would seem to be much less a matter for
variable decision. Some children may need less than others, but for all
children between the ages of three and five the Montessori material will
prove fascinating as well as profitable. A good deal of modern
educational theory has been based on the belief that children are
interested only in what has social value, social content, or "real use";
yet a day with any normal child will give ample evidence of the delight
that children take in purely formal exercises. The sheer fascination of
tucking cards under the edge of a rug will keep a baby happy until any
ordinary supply of cards is exhausted; and the wholly sensory appeal of
throwing stones into the water gives satisfaction enough to absorb for a
long time the attention of older children--to say nothing of grown-ups.
The Montessori apparatus satisfies sense hunger when it is keen for new
material, and it has besides a puzzle-interest which children eagerly
respond to. Dr. Montessori subordinates the value of the concrete mental
content her material supplies to its value in rendering the senses more
acute; yet it is by no means certain that this content--purely formal as
it is--does not also give the material much of its importance. Indeed,
the refinement of sensory discrimination may not in itself be
particularly valuable. What Professor G. M. Whipple says on this point
in his _Manual of Menial and Physical Tests_ (p. 130) has much weight:
The use of sensory tests in correlation work is particularly
interesting. In general, some writers are convinced that keen
discrimination is a prerequisite to keen intelligence, while
others are equally convinced that intelligence is essentially
conditioned by "higher" processes, and only remotely by
sensory capacity--barring, of course, such diminution of
capacity as to interfere seriously with the experiencing of
sensations, as in partial deafness or partial loss of vision.
While it is scarcely the place here to discuss the
evolutionary significance of discriminative sensitivity, it
may be pointed out that the normal capacity is many times in
excess of the actual demands of life, and that it is
consequently difficult to understand why nature has been so
prolific and generous; to understand, in other words, what
is the sanction for the seemingly hypertrophied
discriminative capacity of the human sense organs. The usual
"teleological explanations" of our sensory life fail to
account for this discrepancy. Again, the very fact of the
existence of this surplus capacity seems to negative at the
outset the notion that sensory capacity can be a conditioning
factor in intelligence--with the qualification already noted.
It is quite possible that the real pedagogical value of the Montessori
apparatus is due to the fact that it keeps children happily engaged in
the exercise of their senses and their fingers when they crave such
exercise most and to the further fact that it teaches them without the
least strain a good deal about forms and materials. These values are not
likely to be much affected by differing school conditions.
In the use of the material for sense-training, English and American
teachers may find profit in two general warnings. First, it should not
be supposed that sense training alone will accomplish all that Dr.
Montessori accomplishes through the whole range of her school
activities. To fill up most of a morning with sense-training is to give
it (except perhaps in the case of the youngest pupils) undue importance.
It is not even certain that the general use of the senses will be much
affected by it, to say nothing of the loss of opportunity for larger
physical and social activity. Second, the isolation of the senses should
be used with some care. To shut off sight is to take one step toward
sleep, and the requirement that a child concentrate his attention, in
this situation, on the sense perceptions he gets by other means than
vision must not be maintained too long. No small strain is involved in
mental action without the usual means of information and control.
The proposal, mentioned above, of a feasible combination of the
Montessori system and the kindergarten may now be set forth. If it is
put very briefly and without defense or prophecy, it is because it is
made without dogmatism, simply in the hope that it will prove suggestive
to some open-minded teacher who is willing to try out any scheme that
promises well for her pupils. The conditions supposed are those of the
ordinary American public-school kindergarten, with a two-year programme
beginning with children three and a half or four years old, a
kindergarten with not too many pupils, with a competent kindergartner
and assistant kindergartner, and with some help from training-school
students.
The first proposal is for the use of the Montessori material during the
better part of the first year instead of the regular Froebelian
material. To the use of the Montessori devices--including the gymnastic
apparatus--some of the time now devoted to pictures and stories should
also be applied. It is not suggested that no Froebelian material should
be used, but that the two systems be woven into each other, with a
gradual transition from the free, individual use of the Montessori
objects to the same sort of use of the large sizes of the Froebel gifts,
especially the second, third, and fourth. When the children seem to be
ready for it, a certain amount of more formal work with the gifts should
be begun. In the second year the Froebelian gift work should
predominate, without absolute exclusion of the Montessori exercises. In
the latter part of the second year the Montessori exercises preparatory
to writing should be introduced. Throughout the second year the full
time for stories and picture work should be given to them, and in both
years the morning circle and the games should be carried on as usual.
The luncheon period should of course remain the same. One part of Dr.
Montessori's programme the kindergartner and her assistant should use
every effort to incorporate in their work--the valuable training in
self-help and independent action afforded in the care of the materials
and equipment by the children themselves. This need not be confined to
the Montessori apparatus. Children who have been trained to take out,
use, and put away the Montessori objects until they are ready for the
far richer variety of material in the Froebelian system, should be able
to care for it also. Of course if there are children who can return in
the afternoon, it would be very interesting to attempt the gardening,
which both Froebel and Montessori recommend, and the Montessori
vase-work.
For the possible scorn of those to whom all compromise is distasteful,
the author of this Introduction seeks but one compensation--that any
kindergartner who may happen to adopt his suggestion will let him study
the results.
As to the use of the Montessori system in the home, one or two remarks
must suffice. In the first place, parents should not expect that the
mere presence of the material in the nursery will be enough to work an
educational miracle. A Montessori directress does no common "teaching,"
but she is called upon for very skillful and very tiring effort. She
must watch, assist, inspire, suggest, guide, explain, correct, inhibit.
She is supposed, in addition, to contribute by her work to the
upbuilding of a new science of pedagogy; but her educational
efforts--and education is not an investigative and experimental effort,
but a practical and constructive one--are enough to exhaust all her
time, strength, and ingenuity. It will do no harm--except perhaps to the
material itself--to have the Montessori material at hand in the home,
but it must be used under proper guidance if it is to be educationally
effective. And besides, it must not be forgotten that the material is by
no means the most important feature of the Montessori programme. The
best use of the Montessori system in the home will come through the
reading of this book. If parents shall learn from Dr. Montessori
something of the value of child life, of its need for activity, of its
characteristic modes of expression, and of its possibilities, and shall
apply this knowledge wisely, the work of the great Italian educator will
be successful enough.
This Introduction cannot close without some discussion, however limited,
of the important problems suggested by the Montessori method of teaching
children to write and to read. We have in American schools admirable
methods for the teaching of reading; by the Aldine method, for instance,
children of fair ability read without difficulty ten or more readers in
the first school year, and advance rapidly toward independent power. Our
instruction in writing, however, has never been particularly noteworthy.
We have been trying recently to teach children to write a flowing hand
by the "arm movement," without much formation of separate letters by the
fingers, and our results seem to prove that the effort with children
before the age of ten is not worth while. Sensible school officers are
content to let children in the first four grades write largely by
drawing the letters, and there has been, a fairly general conviction
that writing is not in any case especially important before the age of
eight or nine. In view of Dr. Montessori's success in teaching children
of four and five to write with ease and skill, must we not revise our
estimate of the value of writing and our procedure in teaching it? What
changes may we profitably introduce in our teaching of reading?
Here again our theory and our practice have suffered from the headstrong
advocacy of general principles. Because by clumsy methods children used
to be kept at the task of learning the school arts to the undoubted
detriment of their minds and bodies, certain writers have advocated the
total exclusion of reading and writing from the early grades. Many
parents refuse to send their children to school until they are eight,
preferring to let them "run wild." This attitude is well justified by
school conditions in some places; but where the schools are good, it
ignores not only the obvious advantages of school life quite aside from
instruction in written language, but also the almost complete absence of
strain afforded by modern methods. Now that the Montessori system adds a
new and promising method to our resources, it is the more unreasonable:
for as a fact normal children are eager to read and write at six, and
have plenty of use for these accomplishments.
This does not mean, however, that reading and writing are so important
for young children that they should be unduly emphasised. If we can
teach them without strain, let us do so, and the more effectively the
better; but let us remember, as Dr. Montessori does, that reading and
writing should form but a subordinate part of the experience of a child
and should minister in general to his other needs. With the best of
methods the value of reading and writing before six is questionable. Our
conscious life is bookish enough as it is, and it would seem on general
grounds a safer policy to defer written language until the age of normal
interest in it, and even then not to devote to it more time than an easy
and gradual mastery demands.
Of the technical advantages of the Montessori scheme for writing there
can be little doubt. The child gains ready control over his pencil
through exercises which have their own simple but absorbing interest;
and if he does not learn to write with an "arm movement," we may be
quite content with his ability to draw a legible and handsome script.
Then he learns the letters--their forms, their names, and how to make
them--through exercises which have the very important technical
characteristic of involving a _thorough sensory analysis_ of the
material to be mastered. Meumann has taught us of late the great value
in all memory work of complete impression through prolonged and
intensive analytical study. In the teaching of spelling, for instance,
it is comparatively useless to devise schemes for remembering unless the
original impressions are made strong and elaborate; and it is only by
careful, varied, and detailed sense impression that such material as the
alphabet can be thus impressed. So effective is the Montessori scheme
for impressing the letters--especially because of its novel use of the
sense of touch--that the children learn how to make the whole alphabet
before the abstract and formal character of the material leads to any
diminution of interest or enthusiasm. Their initial curiosity over the
characters they see their elders use is enough to carry them through.
In Italian the next step is easy. The letters once learned, it is a
simple matter to combine them into words, for Italian spelling is so
nearly phonetic that it presents very little difficulty to any one who
knows how to pronounce. It is at just this point that the teaching of
English reading by the Montessori method will find its greatest
obstacle. Indeed, it is the unphonetic character of English spelling
that has largely influenced us to give up the alphabet method of
teaching children to read. Other reasons, to be sure, have also induced
us to teach by the word and the sentence method; but this one has been
and will continue to be the deciding factor. We have found it more
effective to teach children whole words, sentences, or rhymes by sight,
adding to sense impressions the interest aroused by a wide range of
associations, and then analysing the words thus acquired into their
phonetic elements to give the children independent power in the
acquisition of new words. Our marked success with this method makes it
by no means certain that it is "in the characteristic process of natural
development" for children to build up written words from their
elements--sounds and syllables. It would seem, on the contrary, as James
concluded, that the mind works quite as naturally in the opposite
direction--grasping wholes first, especially such as have a practical
interest, and then working down to their formal elements. In the
teaching of spelling, of course, the wholes (words) are already known at
sight--that is, the pupil recognises them easily in reading--and the
process aims at impressing upon the child's mind the exact order of
their constituent elements. It is because reading and spelling are in
English such completely separate processes that we can teach a child to
read admirably without making him a "good speller" and are forced to
bring him to the latter glorious state by new endeavours. We gain by
this separation both in reading and in spelling, as experience and
comparative tests--popular superstition to the contrary
notwithstanding--have conclusively proved. The mastery of the alphabet
by the Montessori method will be of great assistance in teaching our
children to write, but of only incidental assistance in teaching them to
read and to spell.
Once more, then, this Introduction attempts to suggest a compromise. In
the school arts the programme used to such good effect in the Italian
schools and the programme which has been so well worked out in English
and American schools may be profitably combined. We can learn much about
writing and reading from Dr. Montessori--especially from the freedom her
children have in the process of learning to write and in the use of
their newly acquired power, as well as from her device for teaching them
to read connected prose. We can use her materials for sense training and
lead as she does to easy mastery of the alphabetic symbols. Our own
schemes for teaching reading we can retain, and doubtless the phonetic
analysis they involve we shall find easier and more effective because of
our adoption of the Montessori scheme for teaching the letters. The
exact adjustment of the two methods is of course a task for teachers in
practice and for educational leaders.
To all educators this book should prove most interesting. Not many of
them will expect that the Montessori method will regenerate humanity.
Not many will wish to see it--or any method--produce a generation of
prodigies such as those who have been heralded recently in America. Not
many will approve the very early acquisition by children of the arts of
reading and writing. But all who are fair-minded will admit the genius
that shines from the pages which follow, and the remarkable
suggestiveness of Dr. Montessori's labors. It is the task of the
professional student of education to-day to submit all systems to
careful comparative study, and since Dr. Montessori's inventive power
has sought its tests in practical experience rather than in comparative
investigation, this duller task remains to be done. But however he may
scrutinise the results of her work, the educator who reads of it here
will honour in the Dottoressa Maria Montessori the enthusiasm, the
patience, and the constructive insight of the scientist and the friend
of humanity.
HENRY W. HOLMES.
HARVARD UNIVERSITY,
February 22, 1912.
THE MONTESSORI METHOD
CHAPTER I
A CRITICAL CONSIDERATION OF THE NEW PEDAGOGY IN ITS RELATION TO MODERN
SCIENCE
It is not my intention to present a treatise on Scientific Pedagogy. The
modest design of these incomplete notes is to give the results of an
experiment that apparently opens the way for putting into practice those
new principles of science which in these last years are tending to
revolutionise the work of education.
Much has been said in the past decade concerning the tendency of
pedagogy, following in the footsteps of medicine, to pass beyond the
purely speculative stage and base its conclusions on the positive
results of experimentation. Physiological or experimental psychology
which, from Weber and Fechner to Wundt, has become organised into a new
science, seems destined to furnish to the new pedagogy that fundamental
preparation which the old-time metaphysical psychology furnished to
philosophical pedagogy. Morphological anthropology applied to the
physical study of children, is also a strong element in the growth of
the new pedagogy.
But in spite of all these tendencies, Scientific Pedagogy has never yet
been definitely constructed nor defined. It is something vague of which
we speak, but which does not, in reality, exist. We might say that it
has been, up to the present time, the mere intuition or suggestion of a
science which, by the aid of the positive and experimental sciences that
have renewed the thought of the nineteenth century, must emerge from the
mist and clouds that have surrounded it. For man, who has formed a new
world through scientific progress, must himself be prepared and
developed through a new pedagogy. But I will not attempt to speak of
this more fully here.
Several years ago, a well-known physician established in Italy a _School
of Scientific Pedagogy_, the object of which was to prepare teachers to
follow the new movement which had begun to be felt in the pedagogical
world. This school had, for two or three years, a great success, so
great, indeed, that teachers from all over Italy flocked to it, and it
was endowed by the City of Milan with a splendid equipment of scientific
material. Indeed, its beginnings were most propitious, and liberal help
was afforded it in the hope that it might be possible to establish,
through the experiments carried on there, "the science of forming man."
The enthusiasm which welcomed this school was, in a large measure, due
to the warm support given it by the distinguished anthropologist,
Giuseppe Sergi, who for more than thirty years had earnestly laboured to
spread among the teachers of Italy the principles of a new civilisation
based upon education. "To-day in the social world," said Sergi, "an
imperative need makes itself felt--the reconstruction of educational
methods; and he who fights for this cause, fights for human
regeneration." In his pedagogical writings collected in a volume under
the title of "_Educazione ed Istruzione_" (Pensieri),[1] he gives a
resume of the lectures in which he encouraged this new movement, and
says that he believes the way to this desired regeneration lies in a
methodical study of the one to be educated, carried on under the
guidance of pedagogical anthropology and of experimental psychology.
[1] Trevisini, 1892.
"For several years I have done battle for an idea concerning the
instruction and education of man, which appeared the more just and
useful the more deeply I thought upon it. My idea was that in order to
establish natural, rational methods, it was essential that we make
numerous, exact, and rational observations of man as an individual,
principally during infancy, which is the age at which the foundations of
education and culture must be laid.
"To measure the head, the height, etc., does not indeed mean that we are
establishing a system of pedagogy, but it indicates the road which we
may follow to arrive at such a system, since if we are to educate an
individual, we must have a definite and direct knowledge of him."
The authority of Sergi was enough to convince many that, given such a
knowledge of the individual, the art of educating him would develop
naturally. This, as often happens, led to a confusion of ideas among his
followers, arising now from a too literal interpretation, now from an
exaggeration, of the master's ideas. The chief trouble lay in confusing
the experimental study of the pupil, with his education. And since the
one was the road leading to the other, which should have grown from it
naturally and rationally, they straightway gave the name of Scientific
Pedagogy to what was in truth pedagogical anthropology. These new
converts carried as their banner, the "Biographical Chart," believing
that once this ensign was firmly planted upon the battle-field of the
school, the victory would be won.
The so-called School of Scientific Pedagogy, therefore, instructed the
teachers in the taking of anthropometric measurements, in the use of
esthesiometric instruments, in the gathering of Psychological Data--and
the army of new scientific teachers was formed.
It should be said that in this movement Italy showed herself to be
abreast of the times. In France, in England, and especially in America,
experiments have been made in the elementary schools, based upon a study
of anthropology and psychological pedagogy, in the hope of finding in
anthropometry and psychometry, the regeneration of the school. In these
attempts it has rarely been the _teachers_ who have carried on the
research; the experiments have been, in most cases, in the hands of
physicians who have taken more interest in their especial science than
in education. They have usually sought to get from their experiments
some contribution to psychology, or anthropology, rather than to attempt
to organise their work and their results toward the formation of the
long-sought Scientific Pedagogy. To sum up the situation briefly,
anthropology and psychology have never devoted themselves to the
question of educating children in the schools, nor have the
scientifically trained teachers ever measured up to the standards of
genuine scientists.
The truth is that the practical progress of the school demands a genuine
_fusion_ of these modern tendencies, in practice and thought; such a
fusion as shall bring scientists directly into the important field of
the school and at the same time raise teachers from the inferior
intellectual level to which they are limited to-day. Toward this
eminently practical ideal the University School of Pedagogy, founded in
Italy by Credaro, is definitely working. It is the intention of this
school to raise Pedagogy from the inferior position it has occupied as a
secondary branch of philosophy, to the dignity of a definite science,
which shall, as does Medicine, cover a broad and varied field of
comparative study.
And among the branches affiliated with it will most certainly be found
Pedagogical Hygiene, Pedagogical Anthropology, and Experimental
Psychology.
Truly, Italy, the country of Lombroso, of De-Giovanni, and of Sergi, may
claim the honour of being pre-eminent in the organisation of such a
movement. In fact, these three scientists may be called the founders of
the new tendency in Anthropology: the first leading the way in criminal
anthropology, the second in medical anthropology, and the third in
pedagogical anthropology. For the good fortune of science, all three of
them have been the recognised leaders of their special lines of thought,
and have been so prominent in the scientific world that they have not
only made courageous and valuable disciples, but have also prepared the
minds of the masses to receive the scientific regeneration which they
have encouraged. (For reference, see my treatise "Pedagogical
Anthropology.")[2]
[2] Montessori: "L'Antropologia Pedagogica." Vallardi.
Surely all this is something of which our country may be justly proud.
To-day, however, those things which occupy us in the field of education
are the interests of humanity at large, and of civilisation, and before
such great forces we can recognise only one country--the entire world.
And in a cause of such great importance, all those who have given any
contribution, even though it be only an attempt not crowned with
success, are worthy of the respect of humanity throughout the civilised
world. So, in Italy, the schools of Scientific Pedagogy and the
Anthropological Laboratories, which have sprung up in the various cities
through the efforts of elementary teachers and scholarly inspectors, and
which have been abandoned almost before they became definitely
organised, have nevertheless a great value by reason of the faith which
inspired them, and because of the doors they have opened to thinking
people.
It is needless to say that such attempts were premature and sprang from
too slight a comprehension of new sciences still in the process of
development. Every great cause is born from repeated failures and from
imperfect achievements. When St. Francis of Assisi saw his Lord in a
vision, and received from the Divine lips the command--"Francis, rebuild
my Church!"--he believed that the Master spoke of the little church
within which he knelt at that moment. And he immediately set about the
task, carrying upon his shoulders the stones with which he meant to
rebuild the fallen walls. It was not until later that he became aware of
the fact that his mission was to renew the Catholic Church through the
spirit of poverty. But the St. Francis who so ingenuously carried the
stones, and the great reformer who so miraculously led the people to a
triumph of the spirit, are one and the same person in different stages
of development. So we, who work toward one great end, are members of one
and the same body; and those who come after us will reach the goal only
because there were those who believed and laboured before them. And,
like St. Francis, we have believed that by carrying the hard and barren
stones of the experimental laboratory to the old and crumbling walls of
the school, we might rebuild it. We have looked upon the aids offered by
the materialistic and mechanical sciences with the same hopefulness with
which St. Francis looked upon the squares of granite, which he must
carry upon his shoulders.
Thus we have been drawn into a false and narrow way, from which we must
free ourselves, if we are to establish true and living methods for the
training of future generations.
To prepare teachers in the method of the experimental sciences is not an
easy matter. When we shall have instructed them in anthropometry and
psychometry in the most minute manner possible, we shall have only
created machines, whose usefulness will be most doubtful. Indeed, if it
is after this fashion that we are to initiate our teachers into
experiment, we shall remain forever in the field of theory. The teachers
of the old school, prepared according to the principles of metaphysical
philosophy, understood the ideas of certain men regarded as authorities,
and moved the muscles of speech in talking of them, and the muscles of
the eye in reading their theories. Our scientific teachers, instead, are
familiar with certain instruments and know how to move the muscles of
the hand and arm in order to use these instruments; besides this, they
have an intellectual preparation which consists of a series of typical
tests, which they have, in a barren and mechanical way, learned how to
apply.
The difference is not substantial, for profound differences cannot exist
in exterior technique alone, but lie rather within the inner man. Not
with all our initiation into scientific experiment have we prepared _new
masters_, for, after all, we have left them standing without the door
of real experimental science; we have not admitted them to the noblest
and most profound phase of such study,--to that experience which makes
real scientists.
And, indeed, what is a scientist? Not, certainly, he who knows how to
manipulate all the instruments in the physical laboratory, or who in the
laboratory of the chemist handles the various reactives with deftness
and security, or who in biology knows how to make ready the specimens
for the microscope. Indeed, it is often the case that an assistant has a
greater dexterity in experimental technique than the master scientist
himself. We give the name scientist to the type of man who has felt
experiment to be a means guiding him to search out the deep truth of
life, to lift a veil from its fascinating secrets, and who, in this
pursuit, has felt arising within him a love for the mysteries of nature,
so passionate as to annihilate the thought of himself. The scientist is
not the clever manipulator of instruments, he is the worshipper of
nature and he bears the external symbols of his passion as does the
follower of some religious order. To this body of real scientists belong
those who, forgetting, like the Trappists of the Middle Ages, the world
about them, live only in the laboratory, careless often in matters of
food and dress because they no longer think of themselves; those who,
through years of unwearied use of the microscope, become blind; those
who in their scientific ardour inoculate themselves with tuberculosis
germs; those who handle the excrement of cholera patients in their
eagerness to learn the vehicle through which the diseases are
transmitted; and those who, knowing that a certain chemical preparation
may be an explosive, still persist in testing their theories at the risk
of their lives. This is the spirit of the men of science, to whom
nature freely reveals her secrets, crowning their labours with the glory
of discovery.
There exists, then, the "spirit" of the scientist, a thing far above his
mere "mechanical skill," and the scientist is at the height of his
achievement when the spirit has triumphed over the mechanism. When he
has reached this point, science will receive from him not only new
revelations of nature, but philosophic syntheses of pure thought.
It is my belief that the thing which we should cultivate in our teachers
is more the _spirit_ than the mechanical skill of the scientist; that
is, the _direction_ of the _preparation_ should be toward the spirit
rather than toward the mechanism. For example, when we considered the
scientific preparation of teachers to be simply the acquiring of the
technique of science, we did not attempt to make these elementary
teachers perfect anthropologists, expert experimental psychologists, or
masters of infant hygiene; we wished only to _direct them_ toward the
field of experimental science, teaching them to manage the various
instruments with a certain degree of skill. So now, we wish to _direct_
the teacher, trying to awaken in him, in connection with his own
particular field, the school, that scientific _spirit_ which opens the
door for him to broader and bigger possibilities. In other words, we
wish to awaken in the mind and heart of the educator an _interest in
natural phenomena_ to such an extent that, loving nature, he shall
understand the anxious and expectant attitude of one who has prepared an
experiment and who awaits a revelation from it.[3]
[3] See in my treatise on Pedagogical Anthropology the chapter
on "The Method Used In Experimental Sciences."
The instruments are like the alphabet, and we must know how to manage
them if we are to read nature; but as the book, which contains the
revelation of the greatest thoughts of an author, uses in the alphabet
the means of composing the external symbols or words, so nature, through
the mechanism of the experiment, gives us an infinite series of
revelations, unfolding for us her secrets.
Now one who has learned to spell mechanically all the words in his
spelling-book, would be able to read in the same mechanical way the
words in one of Shakespeare's plays, provided the print were
sufficiently clear. He who is initiated solely into the making of the
bare experiment, is like one who spells out the literal sense of the
words in the spelling-book; it is on such a level that we leave the
teachers if we limit their preparation to technique alone.
We must, instead, make of them worshippers and interpreters of the
spirit of nature. They must be like him who, having learned to spell,
finds himself, one day, able to read behind the written symbols the
_thought_ of Shakespeare, or Goethe, or Dante. As may be seen, the
difference is great, and the road long. Our first error was, however, a
natural one. The child who has mastered the spelling-book gives the
impression of knowing how to read. Indeed, he does read the signs over
the shop doors, the names of newspapers, and every word that comes under
his eyes. It would be very natural if, entering a library, this child
should be deluded into thinking that he knew how to read the sense of
all the books he saw there. But attempting to do this, he would soon
feel that "to know how to read mechanically" is nothing, and that he
needs to go back to school. So it is with the teachers whom we have
thought to prepare for scientific pedagogy by teaching them
anthropometry and psychometry.
But let us put aside the difficulty of preparing scientific masters in
the accepted sense of the word. We will not even attempt to outline a
programme of such preparation, since this would lead us into a
discussion which has no place here. Let us suppose, instead, that we
have already prepared teachers through long and patient exercises for
the _observation_ of _nature_, and that we have led them, for example,
to the point attained by those students of natural sciences who rise at
night and go into the woods and fields that they may surprise the
awakening and the early activities of some family of insects in which
they are interested. Here we have the scientist who, though he may be
sleepy and tired with walking, is full of watchfulness, who is not aware
that he is muddy or dusty, that the mist wets him, or the sun burns him;
but is intent only upon not revealing in the least degree his presence,
in order that the insects may, hour after hour, carry on peacefully
those natural functions which he wishes to observe. Let us suppose these
teachers to have reached the standpoint of the scientist who, half
blind, still watches through his microscope the spontaneous movements of
some particular infusory animalcule. These creatures seem to this
scientific watcher, in their manner of avoiding each other and in their
way of selecting their food, to possess a dim intelligence. He then
disturbs this sluggish life by an electric stimulus, observing how some
group themselves about the positive pole, and others about the negative.
Experimenting further, with a luminous stimulus, he notices how some run
toward the light, while others fly from it. He investigates these and
like phenomena; having always in mind this question: whether the fleeing
from or running to the stimulus be of the same character as the
avoidance of one another or the selection of food--that is, whether such
differences are the result of choice and are due to that dim
consciousness, rather than to physical attraction or repulsion similar
to that of the magnet. And let us suppose that this scientist, finding
it to be four o'clock in the afternoon, and that he has not yet lunched,
is conscious, with a feeling of pleasure, of the fact that he has been
at work in his laboratory instead of in his own home, where they would
have called him hours ago, interrupting his interesting observation, in
order that he might eat.
Let us imagine, I say, that the teacher has arrived, independently of
his scientific training, at such an attitude of interest in the
observation of natural phenomena. Very well, but such a preparation is
not enough. The master, indeed, is destined in his particular mission
not to the observation of insects or of bacteria, but of man. He is not
to make a study of man in the manifestations of his daily physical
habits as one studies some family of insects, following their movements
from the hour of _their morning awakening_. _The master is to study man
in_ the awakening of his intellectual life.
The interest in humanity to which we wish to educate the teacher must be
characterised by the intimate relationship between the observer and the
individual to be observed; a relationship which does not exist between
the student of zoology or botany and that form of nature which he
studies. Man cannot love the insect or the chemical reaction which he
studies, without sacrificing a part of himself. This self-sacrifice
seems to one who looks at it from the standpoint of the world, a
veritable renunciation of life itself, almost a martyrdom.
But the love of man for man in a far more tender thing, and so simple
that it is universal. To love in this way is not the privilege of any
especially prepared intellectual class, but lies within the reach of all
men.
To give an idea of this second form of preparation, that of the spirit,
let us try to enter into the minds and hearts of those first followers
of Christ Jesus as they heard Him speak of a Kingdom not of this world,
greater far than any earthly kingdom, no matter how royally conceived.
In their simplicity they asked of Him, "Master, tell us who shall be
greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven!" To which Christ, caressing the head
of a little child who, with reverent, wondering eyes, looked into His
face, replied, "Whosoever shall become as one of these little ones, he
shall be greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven." Now let us picture among
those to whom these words were spoken, an ardent, worshipping soul, who
takes them into his heart. With a mixture of respect and love, of sacred
curiosity and of a desire to achieve this spiritual greatness, he sets
himself to observe every manifestation of this little child. Even such
an observer placed in a classroom filled with little children will not
be the new educator whom we wish to form. But let us seek to implant in
the soul the self-sacrificing spirit of the scientist with the reverent
love of the disciple of Christ, and we shall have prepared the _spirit_
of the teacher. From the child itself he will learn how to perfect
himself as an educator.
Let us consider the attitude of the teacher in the light of another
example. Picture to yourself one of our botanists or zoologists
experienced in the technique of observation and experimentation; one who
has travelled in order to study "certain fungi" in their native
environment. This scientist has made his observations in open country
and, then, by the aid of his microscope and of all his laboratory
appliances, has carried on the later research work in the most minute
way possible. He is, in fact, a scientist who understands what it is to
study nature, and who is conversant with all the means which modern
experimental science offers for this study.
Now let us imagine such a man appointed, by reason of the original work
he has done, to a chair of science in some university, with the task
before him of doing further original research work with hymenoptera. Let
us suppose that, arrived at his post, he is shown a glass-covered case
containing a number of beautiful butterflies, mounted by means of pins,
their outspread wings motionless. The student will say that this is some
child's play, not material for scientific study, that these specimens in
the box are more fitly a part of the game which the little boys play,
chasing butterflies and catching them in a net. With such material as
this the experimental scientist can do nothing.
The situation would be very much the same if we should place a teacher
who, according to our conception of the term, is scientifically
prepared, in one of the public schools where the children are repressed
in the spontaneous expression of their personality till they are almost
like dead beings. In such a school the children, like butterflies
mounted on pins, are fastened each to his place, the desk, spreading the
useless wings of barren and meaningless knowledge which they have
acquired.
It is not enough, then, to prepare in our Masters the scientific spirit.
We must also make ready the _school_ for their observation. The school
must permit the _free_, _natural manifestations_ of the _child_ if in
the school scientific pedagogy is to be born. This is the essential
reform.
No one may affirm that such a principle already exists in pedagogy and
in the school. It is true that some pedagogues, led by Rousseau, have
given voice to impracticable principles and vague aspirations for the
liberty of the child, but the true concept of liberty is practically
unknown to educators. They often have the same concept of liberty which
animates a people in the hour of rebellion from slavery, or perhaps, the
conception of _social liberty_, which although it is a more elevated
idea is still invariably restricted. "Social liberty" signifies always
one more round of Jacob's ladder. In other words it signifies a partial
liberation, the liberation of a country, of a class, or of thought.
That concept of liberty which must inspire pedagogy is, instead,
universal. The biological sciences of the nineteenth century have shown
it to us when they have offered us the means for studying life. If,
therefore, the old-time pedagogy foresaw or vaguely expressed the
principle of studying the pupil before educating him, and of leaving him
free in his spontaneous manifestations, such an intuition, indefinite
and barely expressed, was made possible of practical attainment only
after the contribution of the experimental sciences during the last
century. This is not a case for sophistry or discussion, it is enough
that we state our point. He who would say that the principle of liberty
informs the pedagogy of to-day, would make us smile as at a child who,
before the box of mounted butterflies, should insist that they were
alive and could fly. The principle of slavery still pervades pedagogy,
and, therefore, the same principle pervades the school. I need only give
one proof--the stationary desks and chairs. Here we have, for example, a
striking evidence of the errors of the early materialistic scientific
pedagogy which, with mistaken zeal and energy, carried the barren stones
of science to the rebuilding of the crumbling walls of the school. The
schools were at first furnished with the long, narrow benches upon which
the children were crowded together. Then came science and perfected the
bench. In this work much attention was paid to the recent contributions
of anthropology. The age of the child and the length of his limbs were
considered in placing the seat at the right height. The distance between
the seat and the desk was calculated with infinite care, in order that
the child's back should not become deformed, and, finally, the seats
were separated and the width so closely calculated that the child could
barely seat himself upon it, while to stretch himself by making any
lateral movements was impossible. This was done in order that he might
be separated from his neighbour. These desks are constructed in such a
way as to render the child visible in all his immobility. One of the
ends sought through this separation is the prevention of immoral acts in
the schoolroom. What shall we say of such prudence in a state of society
where it would be considered scandalous to give voice to principles of
sex morality in education, for fear we might thus contaminate innocence?
And, yet, here we have science lending itself to this hypocrisy,
fabricating machines! Not only this; obliging science goes farther
still, perfecting the benches in such a way as to permit to the greatest
possible extent the immobility of the child, or, if you wish, to repress
every movement of the child.
It is all so arranged that, when the child is well-fitted into his
place, the desk and chair themselves force him to assume the position
considered to be hygienically comfortable. The seat, the foot-rest, the
desks are arranged in such a way that the child can never stand at his
work. He is allotted only sufficient space for sitting in an erect
position. It is in such ways that schoolroom desks and benches have
advanced toward perfection. Every cult of the so-called scientific
pedagogy has designed a model scientific desk. Not a few nations have
become proud of their "national desk,"--and in the struggle of
competition these various machines have been patented.
Undoubtedly there is much that is scientific underlying the construction
of these benches. Anthropology has been drawn upon in the measuring of
the body and the diagnosis of the age; physiology, in the study of
muscular movements; psychology, in regard to perversion of instincts;
and, above all, hygiene, in the effort to prevent curvature of the
spine. These desks were indeed scientific, following in their
construction the anthropological study of the child. We have here, as I
have said, an example of the literal application of science to the
schools.
I believe that before very long we shall all be struck with great
surprise by this attitude. It will seem incomprehensible that the
fundamental error of the desk should not have been revealed earlier
through the attention given to the study of infant hygiene,
anthropology, and sociology, and through the general progress of
thought. The marvel is greater when we consider that during the past
years there has been stirring in almost every nation a movement toward
the protection of the child.
I believe that it will not be many years before the public, scarcely
believing the descriptions of these scientific benches, will come to
touch with wondering bands the amazing seats that were constructed for
the purpose of preventing among our school children curvature of the
spine!
The development of these scientific benches means that the pupils were
subjected to a regime, which, even though they were born strong and
straight, made it possible for them to become humpbacked! The vertebral
column, biologically the most primitive, fundamental, and oldest part of
the skeleton, the most fixed portion, of our body, since the skeleton is
the most solid portion of the organism--the vertebral column, which
resisted and was strong through the desperate struggles of primitive man
when he fought against the desert-lion, when he conquered the mammoth,
when he quarried the solid rock and shaped the iron to his uses, bends,
and cannot resist, under the yoke of the school.
It is incomprehensible that so-called _science_ should have worked to
perfect an instrument of slavery in the school without being enlightened
by one ray from the movement of social liberation, growing and
developing throughout the world. For the age of scientific benches was
also the age of the redemption of the working classes from the yoke of
unjust labor.
The tendency toward social liberty is most evident, and manifests itself
on every hand. The leaders of the people make it their slogan, the
labouring masses repeat the cry, scientific and socialistic publications
voice the same movement, our journals are full of it. The underfed
workman does not ask for a tonic, but for better economic conditions
which shall prevent malnutrition. The miner who, through the stooping
position maintained during many hours of the day, is subject to inguinal
rupture, does not ask for an abdominal support, but demands shorter
hours and bettor working conditions, in order that he may be able to
lead a healthy life like other men.
And when, during this same social epoch, we find that the children in
our schoolrooms are working amid unhygienic conditions, so poorly
adapted to normal development that even the skeleton becomes deformed,
our response to this terrible revelation is an orthopedic bench. It is
much as if we offered to the miner the abdominal brace, or arsenic to
the underfed workman.
Some time ago a woman, believing me to be in sympathy with all
scientific innovations concerning the school, showed me with evident
satisfaction _a corset or brace for pupils_. She had invented this and
felt that it would complete the work of the bench.
Surgery has still other means for the treatment of spinal curvature. I
might mention orthopedic instruments, braces, and a method of
periodically suspending the child, by the head or shoulders, in such a
fashion that the weight of the body stretches and thus straightens the
vertebral column. In the school, the orthopedic instrument in the shape
of the desk is in great favour to-day; someone proposes the brace--one
step farther and it will be suggested that we give the scholars a
systematic course in the suspension method!
All this is the logical consequence of a material application of the
methods of science to the decadent school. Evidently the rational method
of combating spinal curvature in the pupils, is to change the form of
their work--so that they shall no longer be obliged to remain for so
many hours a day in a harmful position. It is a conquest of liberty
which the school needs, not the mechanism of a bench.
Even were the stationary seat helpful to the child's body, it would
still be a dangerous and unhygienic feature of the environment, through
the difficulty of cleaning the room perfectly when the furniture cannot
be moved. The foot-rests, which cannot be removed, accumulate the dirt
carried in daily from the street by the many little feet. To-day there
is a general transformation in the matter of house furnishings. They are
made lighter and simpler so that they may be easily moved, dusted, and
even washed. But the school seems blind to the transformation of the
social environment.
It behooves us to think of what may happen to the _spirit_ of the child
who is condemned to grow in conditions so artificial that his very bones
may become deformed. When we speak of the redemption of the workingman,
it is always understood that beneath the most apparent form of
suffering, such as poverty of the blood, or ruptures, there exists that
other wound from which the soul of the man who is subjected to any form
of slavery must suffer. It is at this deeper wrong that we aim when we
say that the workman must be redeemed through liberty. We know only too
well that when a man's very blood has been consumed or his intestines
wasted away through his work, his soul must have lain oppressed in
darkness, rendered insensible, or, it may be, killed within him. The
_moral_ degradation of the slave is, above all things, the weight that
opposes the progress of humanity--humanity striving to rise and held
back by this great burden. The cry of redemption speaks far more clearly
for the souls of men than for their bodies.
What shall we say then, when the question before us is that of
_educating children_?
We know only too well the sorry spectacle of the teacher who, in the
ordinary schoolroom, must pour certain cut and dried facts into the
heads of the scholars. In order to succeed in this barren task, she
finds it necessary to discipline her pupils into immobility and to force
their attention. Prizes and punishments are every-ready and efficient
aids to the master who must force into a given attitude of mind and body
those who are condemned to be his listeners.
It is true that to-day it is deemed expedient to abolish official
whippings and habitual blows, just as the awarding of prizes has become
less ceremonious. These partial reforms are another prop approved of by
science, and offered to the support of the decadent school. Such prizes
and punishments are, if I may be allowed the expression, the _bench_ of
the soul, the instrument of slavery for the spirit. Here, however, these
are not applied to lessen deformities, but to provoke them. The prize
and the punishment are incentives toward unnatural or forced effort,
and, therefore we certainly cannot speak of the natural development of
the child in connection with them. The jockey offers a piece of sugar to
his horse before jumping into the saddle, the coachman beats his horse
that he may respond to the signs given by the reins; and, yet, neither
of these runs so superbly as the free horse of the plains.
And here, in the case of education, shall man place the yoke upon man?
True, we say that social man is natural man yoked to society. But if we
give a comprehensive glance to the moral progress of society, we shall
see that little by little, the yoke is being made easier, in other
words, we shall see that nature, or life, moves gradually toward
triumph. The yoke of the slave yields to that of the servant, and the
yoke of the servant to that of the workman.
All forms of slavery tend little by little to weaken and disappear, even
the sexual slavery of woman. The history of civilisation is a history of
conquest and of liberation. We should ask in what stage of civilisation
we find ourselves and if, in truth, the good of prizes and of
punishments be necessary to our advancement. If we have indeed gone
beyond this point, then to apply such a form of education would be to
draw the new generation back to a lower level, not to lead them into
their true heritage of progress.
Something very like this condition of the school exists in society, in
the relation between the government and the great numbers of the men
employed in its administrative departments. These clerks work day after
day for the general national good, yet they do not feel or see the
advantage of their work in any immediate reward. That is, they do not
realise that the state carries on its great business through their daily
tasks, and that the whole nation is benefited by their work. For them
the immediate good is promotion, as passing to a higher class is for the
child in school. The man who loses sight of the really big aim of his
work is like a child who has been placed in a class below his real
standing: like a slave, he is cheated of something which is his right.
His dignity as a man is reduced to the limits of the dignity of a
machine which must be oiled if it is to be kept going, because it does
not have within itself the impulse of life. All those petty things such
as the desire for decorations or medals, are but artificial stimuli,
lightening for the moment the dark, barren path in which he treads.
In the same way we give prizes to school children. And the fear of not
achieving promotion, withholds the clerk from running away, and binds
him to his monotonous work, even as the fear of not passing into the
next class drives the pupil to his book. The reproof of the superior is
in every way similar to the scolding of the teacher. The correction of
badly executed clerical work is equivalent to the bad mark placed by the
teacher upon the scholar's poor composition. The parallel is almost
perfect.
But if the administrative departments are not carried on in a way which
would seem suitable to a nation's greatness; if corruption too easily
finds a place; it is the result of having extinguished the true
greatness of man in the mind of the employee, and of having restricted
his vision to those petty, immediate facts, which he has come to look
upon as prizes and punishments. The country stands, because the
rectitude of the greater number of its employees is such that they
resist the corruption of the prizes and punishments, and follow an
irresistible current of honesty. Even as life in the social environment
triumphs against every cause of poverty and death, and proceeds to new
conquests, so the instinct of liberty conquers all obstacles, going from
victory to victory.
It is this personal and yet universal force of life, a force often
latent within the soul, that sends the world forward.
But he who accomplishes a truly human work, he who does something really
great and victorious, is never spurred to his task by those trifling
attractions called by the name of "prizes," nor by the fear of those
petty ills which we call "punishments." If in a war a great army of
giants should fight with no inspiration beyond the desire to win
promotion, epaulets, or medals, or through fear of being shot, if these
men were to oppose a handful of pygmies who were inflamed by love of
country, the victory would go to the latter. When real heroism has died
within an army, prizes and punishments cannot do more than finish the
work of deterioration, bringing in corruption and cowardice.
All human victories, all human progress, stand upon the inner force.
Thus a young student may become a great doctor if he is spurred to his
study by an interest which makes medicine his real vocation. But if he
works in the hope of an inheritance, or of making a desirable marriage,
or if indeed he is inspired by any material advantage, he will never
become a true master or a great doctor, and the world will never make
one step forward because of his work. He to whom such stimuli are
necessary, had far better never become a physician. Everyone has a
special tendency, a special vocation, modest, perhaps, but certainly
useful. The system of prizes may turn an individual aside from this
vocation, may make him choose a false road, for him a vain one, and
forced to follow it, the natural activity of a human being may be
warped, lessened, even annihilated.
We repeat always that the world _progresses_ and that we must urge men
forward to obtain progress. But progress comes from the _new things that
are born_, and these, not being foreseen, are not rewarded with prizes:
rather, they often carry the leader to martyrdom. God forbid that poems
should ever be born of the desire to be crowned in the Capitol! Such a
vision need only come into the heart of the poet and the muse will
vanish. The poem must spring from the soul of the poet, when he thinks
neither of himself nor of the prize. And if he does win the laurel, he
will feel the vanity of such a prize. The true reward lies in the
revelation through the poem of his own triumphant inner force.
There does exist, however, an external prize for man; when, for example,
the orator sees the faces of his listeners change with the emotions he
has awakened, he experiences something so great that it can only be
likened to the intense joy with which one discovers that he is loved.
Our joy is to touch, and conquer souls, and this is the one prize which
can bring us a true compensation.
Sometimes there is given to us a moment when we fancy ourselves to be
among the great ones of the world. These are moments of happiness given
to man that he may continue his existence in peace. It may be through
love attained or because of the gift of a son, through a glorious
discovery or the publication of a book; in some such moment we feel that
there exists no man who is above us. If, in such a moment, someone
vested with authority comes forward to offer us a medal or a prize, he
is the important destroyer of our real reward--"And who are you?" our
vanished illusion shall cry, "Who are you that recalls me to the fact
that I am not the first among men? Who stands so far above me that he
may give me a prize?" The prize of such a man in such a moment can only
be Divine.
As for punishments, the soul of the normal man grows perfect through
expanding, and punishment as commonly understood is always a form of
_repression_. It may bring results with those inferior natures who grow
in evil, but these are very few, and social progress is not affected by
them. The penal code threatens us with punishment if we are dishonest
within the limits indicated by the laws. But we are not honest through
fear of the laws; if we do not rob, if we do not kill, it is because we
love peace, because the natural trend of our lives leads us forward,
leading us ever farther and more definitely away from the peril of low
and evil acts.
Without going into the ethical or metaphysical aspects of the question,
we may safely affirm that the delinquent before he transgresses the law,
has, _if he knows of the existence of a punishment_, felt the
threatening weight of the criminal code upon him. He has defined it, or
he has been lured into the crime, deluding himself with the idea that he
would be able to avoid the punishment of the law. But there has occurred
within his mind, a _struggle between the crime and the punishment_.
Whether it be efficacious in hindering crime or not, this penal code is
undoubtedly made for a very limited class of individuals; namely,
criminals. The enormous majority of citizens are honest without any
regard whatever to the threats of the law.
The real punishment of normal man is the loss of the consciousness of
that individual power and greatness which are the sources of his inner
life. Such a punishment often falls upon men in the fullness of success.
A man whom we would consider crowned by happiness and fortune may be
suffering from this form of punishment. Far too often man does not see
the real punishment which threatens him.
And it is just here that education may help.
To-day we hold the pupils in school, restricted by those instruments so
degrading to body and spirit, the desk--and material prizes and
punishments. Our aim in all this is to reduce them to the discipline of
immobility and silence,--to lead them,--where? Far too often toward no
definite end.
Often the education of children consists in pouring into their
intelligence the intellectual contents of school programmes. And often
these programmes have been compiled in the official department of
education, and their use is imposed by law upon the teacher and the
child.
Ah, before such dense and wilful disregard of the life which is growing
within these children, we should hide our heads in shame and cover our
guilty faces with our hands!
Sergi says truly: "To-day an urgent need imposes itself upon society:
the reconstruction of methods in education and instruction, and he who
fights for this cause, fights for human regeneration."