GENERAL REVIEW OF DISCIPLINE
The accumulated experience we have had since the publication of the
Italian version has repeatedly proved to us that in our classes of
little children, numbering forty and even fifty, the discipline is much
better than in ordinary schools. For this reason I have thought that an
analysis of the discipline obtained by our method--which is based upon
liberty,--would interest my American readers.
Whoever visits a well kept school (such as, for instance, the one in
Rome directed by my pupil Anna Maccheroni) is struck by the discipline
of the children. There are forty little beings--from three to seven
years old, each one intent on his own work; one is going through one of
the exercises for the senses, one is doing an arithmetical exercise; one
is handling the letters, one is drawing, one is fastening and
unfastening the pieces of cloth on one of our little wooden frames,
still another is dusting. Some are seated at the tables, some on rugs on
the floor. There are muffled sounds of objects lightly moved about, of
children tiptoeing. Once in a while comes a cry of joy only partly
repressed, "Teacher! Teacher!" an eager call, "Look! see what I've
done." But as a rule, there is entire absorption in the work in hand.
The teacher moves quietly about, goes to any child who calls her,
supervising operations in such a way that anyone who needs her finds
her at his elbow, and whoever does not need her is not reminded of her
existence. Sometimes, hours go by without a word. They seem "little
men," as they were called by some visitors to the "Children's House";
or, as another suggested, "judges in deliberation."
In the midst of such intense interest in work it never happens that
quarrels arise over the possession of an object. If one accomplishes
something especially fine, his achievement is a source of admiration and
joy to others: no heart suffers from another's wealth, but the triumph
of one is a delight to all. Very often he finds ready imitators. They
all seem happy and satisfied to do what they can, without feeling
jealous of the deeds of others. The little fellow of three works
peaceably beside the boy of seven, just as he is satisfied with his own
height and does not envy the older boy's stature. Everything is growing
in the most profound peace.
If the teacher wishes the whole assembly to do something, for instance,
leave the work which interests them so much, all she needs to do is to
speak a word in a low tone, or make a gesture, and they are all
attention, they look toward her with eagerness, anxious to know how to
obey. Many visitors have seen the teacher write orders on the
blackboard, which were obeyed joyously by the children. Not only the
teachers, but anyone who asks the pupils to do something is astonished
to see them obey in the minutest detail and with obliging cheerfulness.
Often a visitor wishes to hear how a child, now painting, can sing. The
child leaves his painting to be obliging, but the instant his courteous
action is completed, he returns to his interrupted work. Sometimes the
smaller children finish their work before they obey.
A very surprising result of this discipline came to our notice during
the examinations of the teachers who had followed my course of lectures.
These examinations were practical, and, accordingly, groups of children
were put at the disposition of the teachers being examined, who,
according to the subject drawn by lot, took the children through a given
exercise. While the children were waiting their turn, they were allowed
to do just as they pleased. _They worked incessantly_, and returned to
their undertakings as soon as the interruption caused by the examination
was over. Every once in a while, one of them came to show us a drawing
made during the interval. Miss George of Chicago was present many times
when this happened, and Madame Pujols, who founded the first "Children's
House" in Paris, was astonished at the patience, the perseverance, and
the inexhaustible amiability of the children.
One might think that such children had been severely repressed were it
not for their lack of timidity, for their bright eyes, for their happy,
free aspect, for the cordiality of their invitations to look at their
work, for the way in which they take visitors about and explain matters
to them. These things make us feel that we are in the presence of the
masters of the house; and the fervour with which they throw their arms
around the teacher's knees, with which they pull her down to kiss her
face, shows that their little hearts are free to expand as they will.
Anyone who has watched them setting the table must have passed from one
surprise to another. Little four-year-old waiters take the knives and
forks and spoons and distribute them to the different places; they carry
trays holding as many as five water-glasses, and finally they go from
table to table, carrying big tureens full of hot soup. Not a mistake is
made, not a glass is broken, not a drop of soup is spilled. All during
the meal unobtrusive little waiters watch the table assiduously; not a
child empties his soup-plate without being offered more; if he is ready
for the next course a waiter briskly carries off his soup-plate. Not a
child is forced to ask for more soup, or to announce that he has
finished.
[Illustration: MONTESSORI CHILDREN AT DINNER
The tables are set in the grounds of the school of the Franciscan Nuns,
in Rome.]
[Illustration: SCHOOL AT TARRYTOWN, N. Y.
The two girls at the left are constructing the big stair and the tower.
The boy in the center has constructed the long stair, and is placing the
figures beside the corresponding rods. The child to the right is tracing
sandpaper letters.]
Remembering the usual condition of four-year-old children, who cry, who
break whatever they touch, who need to be waited on, everyone is deeply
moved by the sight I have just described, which evidently results from
the development of energies latent in the depths of the human soul. I
have often seen the spectators at this banquet of little ones, moved to
tears.
But such discipline could never be obtained by commands, by
sermonizings, in short, through any of the disciplinary devices
universally known. Not only were the actions of those children set in an
orderly condition, but their very lives were deepened and enlarged. In
fact, such discipline is on the same plane with school-exercises
extraordinary for the age of the children; and it certainly does not
depend upon the teacher but upon a sort of miracle, occurring in the
inner life of each child.
If we try to think of parallels in the life of adults, we are reminded
of the phenomenon of conversion, of the superhuman heightening of the
strength of martyrs and apostles, of the constancy of missionaries, of
the obedience of monks. Nothing else in the world, except such things,
is on a spiritual height equal to the discipline of the "Children's
Houses."
To obtain such discipline it is quite useless to count on reprimands or
spoken exhortations. Such means might perhaps at the beginning have an
appearance of efficacy: but very soon, the instant that real discipline
appears, all of this falls miserably to the earth, an illusion
confronted with reality--"night gives way to day."
The first dawning of real discipline comes through work. At a given
moment it happens that a child becomes keenly interested in a piece of
work, showing it by the expression of his face, by his intense
attention, by his perseverance in the same exercise. That child has set
foot upon the road leading to discipline. Whatever be his
undertaking--an exercise for the senses, an exercise in buttoning up or
lacing together, or washing dishes--it is all one and the same.
On our side, we can have some influence upon the permanence of this
phenomenon, by means of repeated "Lessons of Silence." The perfect
immobility, the attention alert to catch the sound of the names
whispered from a distance, then the carefully co-ordinated movements
executed so as not to strike against chair or table, so as barely to
touch the floor with the feet--all this is a most efficacious
preparation for the task of setting in order the whole personality, the
motor forces and the psychical.
Once the habit of work is formed, we must supervise it with scrupulous
accuracy, graduating the exercises as experience has taught us. In our
effort to establish discipline, we must rigorously apply the principles
of the method. It is not to be obtained by words; no man learns
self-discipline "through hearing another man speak." The phenomenon of
discipline needs as preparation a series of complete actions, such as
are presupposed in the genuine application of a really educative method.
Discipline is reached always by indirect means. The end is obtained, not
by attacking the mistake and fighting it, but by developing activity in
spontaneous work.
This work cannot be arbitrarily offered, and it is precisely here that
our method enters; it must be work which the human being instinctively
desires to do, work towards which the latent tendencies of life
naturally turn, or towards which the individual step by step ascends.
Such is the work which sets the personality in order and opens wide
before it infinite possibilities of growth. Take, for instance, the lack
of control shown by a baby; it is fundamentally a lack of muscular
discipline. The child is in a constant state of disorderly movement: he
throws himself down, he makes queer gestures, he cries. What underlies
all this is a latent tendency to seek that co-ordination of movement
which will be established later. The baby is a man not yet sure of the
movements of the various muscles of the body; not yet master of the
organs of speech. He will eventually establish these various movements,
but for the present he is abandoned to a period of experimentation full
of mistakes, and of fatiguing efforts towards a desirable end latent in
his instinct, but not clear in his consciousness. To say to the baby,
"Stand still as I do," brings no light into his darkness; commands
cannot aid in the process of bringing order into the complex
psycho-muscular system of an individual in process of evolution. We are
confused at this point by the example of the adult who through a wicked
impulse _prefers_ disorder, and who may (granted that he can) obey a
sharp admonishment which turns his will in another direction, towards
that order which he recognises and which it is within his capacity to
achieve. In the case of the little child it is a question of aiding the
natural evolution of voluntary action. Hence it is necessary to teach
all the co-ordinated movements, analysing them as much as possible and
developing them bit by bit.
Thus, for instance, it is necessary to teach the child the various
degrees of immobility leading to silence; the movements connected with
rising from a chair and sitting down, with walking, with tiptoeing, with
following a line drawn on the floor keeping an upright equilibrium. The
child is taught to move objects about, to set them down more or less
carefully, and finally the complex movements connected with dressing and
undressing himself (analysed on the lacing and buttoning frames at
school), and for even each of these exercises, the different parts of
the movement must be analysed. Perfect immobility and the successive
perfectioning of action, is what takes the place of the customary
command, "Be quiet! Be still!" It is not astonishing but very natural
that the child by means of such exercises should acquire
self-discipline, so far as regards the lack of muscular discipline
natural to his age. In short, he responds to nature because he is in
action; but these actions being directed towards an end, have no longer
the appearance of disorder but of work. This is discipline which
represents an end to be attained by means of a number of conquests. The
child disciplined in this way, is no longer the child he was at first,
who knows how to _be_ good passively; but he is an individual who has
made himself better, who has overcome the usual limits of his age, who
has made a great step forward, who has conquered his future in his
present.
He has therefore enlarged his dominion. He will not need to have someone
always at hand, to tell him vainly (confusing two opposing conceptions),
"Be quiet! Be good!" The goodness he has conquered cannot be summed up
by inertia: his goodness is now all made up of action. As a matter of
fact, good people are those who advance towards the good--that good
which is made up of their own self-development and of external acts of
order and usefulness.
In our efforts with the child, external acts are the means which
stimulate internal development, and they again appear as its
manifestation, the two elements being inextricably intertwined. Work
develops the child spiritually; but the child with a fuller spiritual
development works better, and his improved work delights him,--hence he
continues to develop spiritually. Discipline is, therefore, not a fact
but a path, a path in following which the child grasps the abstract
conception of goodness with an exactitude which is fairly scientific.
But beyond everything else he savours the supreme delights of that
spiritual _order_ which is attained indirectly through conquests
directed towards determinate ends. In that long preparation, the child
experiences joys, spiritual awakenings and pleasures which form his
inner treasure-house--the treasure-house in which he is steadily storing
up the sweetness and strength which will be the sources of
righteousness.
In short, the child has not only learned to move about and to perform
useful acts; he has acquired a special grace of action which makes his
gestures more correct and attractive, and which beautifies his hands and
indeed his entire body now so balanced and so sure of itself; a grace
which refines the expression of his face and of his serenely brilliant
eyes, and which shows us that the flame of spiritual life has been
lighted in another human being.
It is obviously true that co-ordinated actions, developed spontaneously
little by little (that is, chosen and carried out in the exercises by
the child himself), must call for less effort than the disorderly
actions performed by the child who is left to his own devices. True
rest for muscles, intended by nature for action, is in orderly action;
just as true rest for the lungs is the normal rhythm of respiration
taken in pure air. To take action away from the muscles is to force them
away from their natural motor impulse, and hence, besides tiring them,
means forcing them into a state of degeneration; just as the lungs
forced into immobility, would die instantly and the whole organism with
them.
It is therefore necessary to keep clearly in mind the fact that rest for
whatever naturally acts, lies in some specified form of action,
corresponding to its nature.
To act in obedience to the hidden precepts of nature--that is rest; and
in this special case, since man is meant to be an intelligent creature,
the more intelligent his acts are the more he finds repose in them. When
a child acts only in a disorderly, disconnected manner, his nervous
force is under a great strain; while on the other hand his nervous
energy is positively increased and multiplied by intelligent actions
which give him real satisfaction, and a feeling of pride that he has
overcome himself, that he finds himself in a world beyond the frontiers
formerly set up as insurmountable, surrounded by the silent respect of
the one who has guided him without making his presence felt.
This "multiplication of nervous energy" represents a process which can
be physiologically analysed, and which comes from the development of the
organs by rational exercise, from better circulation of the blood, from
the quickened activity of all the tissues--all factors favourable to the
development of the body and guaranteeing physical health. The spirit
aids the body in its growth; the heart, the nerves and the muscles are
helpful in their evolution by the activity of the spirit, since the
upward path for soul and body is one and the same.
By analogy, it can be said of the intellectual development of the child,
that the mind of infancy, although characteristically disorderly, is
also "a means searching for its end," which goes through exhausting
experiments, left, as it frequently is, to its own resources, and too
often really persecuted. Once in our public park in Rome, the Pincian
Gardens, I saw a baby of about a year and a half, a beautiful smiling
child, who was working away trying to fill a little pail by shoveling
gravel into it. Beside him was a smartly dressed nurse evidently very
fond of him, the sort of nurse who would consider that she gave the
child the most affectionate and intelligent care. It was time to go home
and the nurse was patiently exhorting the baby to leave his work and let
her put him into the baby-carriage. Seeing that her exhortations made no
impression on the little fellow's firmness, she herself filled the pail
with gravel and set pail and baby into the carriage with the fixed
conviction that she had given him what he wanted.
I was struck by the loud cries of the child and by the expression of
protest against violence and injustice which wrote itself on his little
face. What an accumulation of wrongs weighed down that nascent
intelligence! The little boy did not wish to have the pail full of
gravel; he wished to go through the motions necessary to fill it, thus
satisfying a need of his vigorous organism. The child's unconscious aim
was his own self-development; not the external fact of a pail full of
little stones. The vivid attractions of the external world were only
empty apparitions; the need of his life was a reality. As a matter of
fact, if he had filled his pail he would probably have emptied it out
again in order to keep on filling it up until his inner self was
satisfied. It was the feeling of working towards this satisfaction
which, a few moments before, had made his face so rosy and smiling;
spiritual joy, exercise, and sunshine, were the three rays of light
ministering to his splendid life.
This commonplace episode in the life of that child, is a detail of what
happens to all children, even the best and most cherished. They are not
understood, because the adult judges them by his own measure: he thinks
that the child's wish is to obtain some tangible object, and lovingly
helps him to do this: whereas the child as a rule has for his
unconscious desire, his own self-development. Hence he despises
everything already attained, and yearns for that which is still to be
sought for. For instance, he prefers the action of dressing himself to
the state of being dressed, even finely dressed. He prefers the act of
washing himself to the satisfaction of being clean: he prefers to make a
little house for himself, rather than merely to own it. His own
self-development is his true and almost his only pleasure. The
self-development of the little baby up to the end of his first year
consists to a large degree in taking in nutrition; but afterwards it
consists in aiding the orderly establishment of the psycho-physiological
functions of his organism.
That beautiful baby in the Pincian Gardens is the symbol of this: he
wished to co-ordinate his voluntary actions; to exercise his muscles by
lifting; to train his eye to estimate distances; to exercise his
intelligence in the reasoning connected with his undertaking; to
stimulate his will-power by deciding his own actions; whilst she who
loved him, believing that his aim was to possess some pebbles, made him
wretched.
A similar error is that which we repeat so frequently when we fancy that
the desire of the student is to possess a piece of information. We aid
him to grasp intellectually this detached piece of knowledge, and,
preventing by this means his self-development, we make him wretched. It
is generally believed in schools that the way to attain, satisfaction is
"to learn something." But by leaving the children in our schools in
liberty we have been able with great clearness to follow them in their
natural method of spontaneous self-development.
To have learned something is for the child only a point of departure.
When he has learned the meaning of an exercise, then he begins to enjoy
repeating it, and he does repeat it an infinite number of times, with
the most evident satisfaction. He enjoys executing that act because by
means of it he is developing his psychic activities.
There results from the observation of this fact a criticism of what is
done to-day in many schools. Often, for instance when the pupils are
questioned, the teacher says to someone who is eager to answer, "No, not
you, because you know it" and puts her question specially to the pupils
who she thinks are uncertain of the answer. Those who do not know are
made to speak, those who do know to be silent. This happens because of
the general habit of considering the act of knowing something as final.
And yet how many times it happens to us in ordinary life to _repeat_ the
very thing we know best, the thing we care most for, the thing to which
some living force in us responds. We love to sing musical phrases very
familiar, hence enjoyed and become a part of the fabric of our lives. We
love to repeat stories of things which please us, which we know very
well, even though we are quite aware that we are saying nothing new. No
matter how many times we repeat the Lord's Prayer, it is always new. No
two persons could be more convinced of mutual love than sweethearts and
yet they are the very ones who repeat endlessly that they love each
other.
But in order to repeat in this manner, there must first exist the idea
to be repeated. A mental grasp of the idea, is indispensable to the
beginning of _repetition_. The exercise which develops life, consists
_in the repetition, not in the mere grasp of the idea_. When a child has
attained this stage, of repeating an exercise, he is on the way to
self-development, and the external sign of this condition is his
self-discipline.
This phenomenon does not always occur. The same exercises are not
repeated by children of all ages. In fact, repetition corresponds to a
_need_. Here steps in the experimental method of education. It is
necessary to offer those exercises which correspond to the need of
development felt by an organism, and if the child's age has carried him
past a certain need, it is never possible to obtain, in its fulness, a
development which missed its proper moment. Hence children grow up,
often fatally and irrevocably, imperfectly developed.
Another very interesting observation is that which relates to the length
of time needed for the execution of actions. Children, who are
undertaking something for the first time are extremely slow. Their life
is governed in this respect by laws especially different from ours.
Little children accomplish slowly and perseveringly, various complicated
operations agreeable to them, such as dressing, undressing, cleaning the
room, washing themselves, setting the table, eating, etc. In all this
they are extremely patient, overcoming all the difficulties presented
by an organism still in process of formation. But we, on the other hand,
noticing that they are "tiring themselves out" or "wasting time" in
accomplishing something which we would do in a moment and without the
least effort, put ourselves in the child's place and do it ourselves.
Always with the same erroneous idea, that the end to be obtained is the
completion of the action, we dress and wash the child, we snatch out of
his hands objects which he loves to handle, we pour the soup into his
bowl, we feed him, we set the table for him. And after such services, we
consider him with that injustice always practised by those who domineer
over others even with benevolent intentions, to be incapable and inept.
We often speak of him as "impatient" simply because we are not patient
enough to allow his actions to follow laws of time differing from our
own; we call him "tyrannical" exactly because we employ tyranny towards
him. This stain, this false imputation, this calumny on childhood has
become an integral part of the theories concerning childhood, in reality
so patient and gentle.
The child, like every strong creature fighting for the right to live,
rebels against whatever offends that occult impulse within him which is
the voice of nature, and which he ought to obey; and he shows by violent
actions, by screaming and weeping that he has been overborne and forced
away from his mission in life. He shows himself to be a rebel, a
revolutionist, an iconoclast, against those who do not understand him
and who, fancying that they are helping him, are really pushing him
backward in the highway of life. Thus even the adult who loves him,
rivets about his neck another calumny, confusing his defence of his
molested life with a form of innate naughtiness characteristic of little
children.
What would become of us if we fell into the midst of a population of
jugglers, or of lightning-change impersonators of the variety-hall? What
should we do if, as we continued to act in our usual way, we saw
ourselves assailed by these sleight-of-hand performers, hustled into our
clothes, fed so rapidly that we could scarcely swallow, if everything we
tried to do was snatched from our hands and completed in a twinkling and
we ourselves reduced to impotence and to a humiliating inertia? Not
knowing how else to express our confusion we would defend ourselves with
blows and yells from these madmen, and they having only the best will in
the world to serve us, would call us haughty, rebellious, and incapable
of doing anything. We, who know our own _milieu_, would say to those
people, "Come into our countries and you will see the splendid
civilisation we have established, you will see our wonderful
achievements." These jugglers would admire us infinitely, hardly able to
believe their eyes, as they observed our world, so full of beauty and
activity, so well regulated, so peaceful, so kindly, but all so much
slower than theirs.
Something of this sort occurs between children and adults.
It is exactly in the repetition of the exercises that the education of
the senses consists; their aim is not that the child shall _know_
colours, forms and the different qualities of objects, but that he
refine his senses through an exercise of attention, of comparison, of
judgment. These exercises are true intellectual gymnastics. Such
gymnastics, reasonably directed by means of various devices, aid in the
formation of the intellect, just as physical exercises fortify the
general health and quicken the growth of the body. The child who trains
his various senses separately, by means of external stimuli,
concentrates his attention and develops, piece by piece, his mental
activities, just as with separately prepared movements he trains his
muscular activities. These mental gymnastics are not merely
psycho-sensory, but they prepare the way for spontaneous association of
ideas, for ratiocination developing out of definite knowledge, for a
harmoniously balanced intellect. They are the powder-trains that bring
about those mental explosions which delight the child so intensely when
he makes discoveries in the world about him, when he, at the same time,
ponders over and glories in the new things which are revealed to him in
the outside world, and in the exquisite emotions of his own growing
consciousness; and finally when there spring up within him, almost by a
process of spontaneous ripening, like the internal phenomena of growth,
the external products of learning--writing and reading.
I happened once to see a two-year-old child, son of a medical colleague
of mine, who, fairly fleeing away from his mother who had brought him to
me, threw himself on the litter of things covering his father's desk,
the rectangular writing-pad, the round cover of the ink-well. I was
touched to see the intelligent little creature trying his best to go
through the exercises which our children repeat with such endless
pleasure till they have fully committed them to memory. The father and
the mother pulled the child away, reproving him, and explaining that
there was no use trying to keep that child from handling his father's
desk-furniture, "The child is restless and naughty." How often we see
all children reproved because, though they are told not to, they will
"take hold of everything." Now, it is precisely by means of guiding and
developing this natural instinct "to take hold of everything," and to
recognise the relations of geometrical figures, that we prepare our
little four-year-old men for the joy and triumph they experience later
over the phenomenon of spontaneous writing.
The child who throws himself on the writing-pad, the cover to the
ink-well, and such objects, always struggling in vain to attain his
desire, always hindered and thwarted by people stronger than he, always
excited and weeping over the failure of his desperate efforts, _is
wasting_ nervous force. His parents are mistaken if they think that such
a child ever gets any real rest, just as they are mistaken when they
call "naughty" the little man longing for the foundations of his
intellectual edifice. The children in our schools are the ones who are
really at rest, ardently and blessedly free to take out and put back in
their right places or grooves, the geometric figures offered to their
instinct for higher self-development; and they, rejoicing in the most
entire spiritual calm, have no notion that their eyes and hands are
initiating them into the mysteries of a new language.
The majority of our children become calm as they go through such
exercises, because their nervous system is at rest. Then we say that
such children are quiet and good; external discipline, so eagerly sought
after in ordinary schools is more than achieved.
However, as a calm man and a self-disciplined man are not one and the
same, so here the fact which manifests itself externally by the calm of
the children is in reality a phenomenon merely physical and partial
compared to the real _self-discipline_ which is being developed in them.
Often (and this is another misconception) we think all we need to do, to
obtain a voluntary action from a child, is to order him to do it. We
pretend that this phenomenon of a forced voluntary action exists, and we
call this pretext, "the obedience of the child." We find little children
specially disobedient, or rather their resistance, by the time they are
four or five years old, has become so great that we are in despair and
are almost tempted to give up trying to make them obey. We force
ourselves to praise to little children "the virtue of obedience" a
virtue which, according to our accepted prejudices, should belong
specially to infancy, should be the "infantile virtue" yet we fail to
learn anything from the fact that we are led to emphasize it so strongly
because we can only with the greatest difficulty make children practise
it.
It is a very common mistake, this of trying to obtain by means of
prayers, or orders, or violence, what is difficult, or impossible to
get. Thus, for instance, we ask little children to be obedient, and
little children in their turn ask for the moon.
We need only reflect that this "obedience" which we treat so lightly,
occurs later, as a natural tendency in older children, and then as an
instinct in the adult to realise that it springs spontaneously into
being, and that it is one of the strongest instincts of humanity. We
find that society rests on a foundation of marvellous obedience, and
that civilisation goes forward on a road made by obedience. Human
organisations are often founded on an abuse of obedience, associations
of criminals have obedience as their key-stone.
How many times social problems centre about the necessity of rousing man
from a state of "obedience" which has led him to be exploited and
brutalised!
Obedience naturally is _sacrifice_. We are so accustomed to an infinity
of obedience in the world, to a condition of self-sacrifice, to a
readiness for renunciation, that we call matrimony the "blessed
condition," although it is made up of obedience and self-sacrifice. The
soldier, whose lot in life is to obey if it kills him is envied by the
common people, while we consider anyone who tries to escape from
obedience as a malefactor or a madman. Besides, how many people have had
the deeply spiritual experience of an ardent desire to obey something or
some person leading them along the path of life--more than this, a
desire to sacrifice something for the sake of this obedience.
It is therefore entirely natural that, loving the child, we should point
out to him that obedience is the law of life, and there is nothing
surprising in the anxiety felt by nearly everyone who is confronted with
the characteristic disobedience of little children. But obedience can
only be reached through a complex formation of the psychic personality.
To obey, it is necessary not only to wish to obey, but also to know how
to. Since, when a command to do a certain thing is given, we presuppose
a corresponding active or inhibitive power of the child, it is plain
that obedience must follow the formation of the will and of the mind. To
prepare, in detail, this formation by means of detached exercises is
therefore indirectly, to urge the child towards obedience. The method
which is the subject of this book contains in every part an exercise for
the will-power, when the child completes co-ordinated actions directed
towards a given end, when he achieves something he set out to do, when
he repeats patiently his exercises, he is training his positive
will-power. Similarly, in a very complicated series of exercises he is
establishing through activity his powers of inhibition; for instance in
the "lesson of silence," which calls for a long continued inhibition of
many actions, while the child is waiting to be called and later for a
rigorous self-control when he is called and would like to answer
joyously and run to his teacher, but instead is perfectly silent, moves
very carefully, taking the greatest pains not to knock against chair or
table or to make a noise.
Other inhibitive exercises are the arithmetical ones, when the child
having drawn a number by lot, must take from the great mass of objects
before him, apparently entirely at his disposition, only the quantity
corresponding to the number in his hand, whereas (as experience has
proved) he would _like_ to take the greatest number possible.
Furthermore if he chances to draw the zero he sits patiently with empty
hands. Still another training for the inhibitive will-power is in "the
lesson of zero" when the child, called upon to come up zero times and
give zero kisses, stands quiet, conquering with a visible effort the
instinct which would lead him to "obey" the call. The child at our
school dinners who carries the big tureen full of hot soup, isolates
himself from every external stimulant which might disturb him, resists
his childish impulse to run and jump, does not yield to the temptation
to brush away the fly on his face, and is entirely concentrated on the
great responsibility of not dropping or tipping the tureen. A little
thing of four and a half, every time he set the tureen down on a table
so that the little guests might help themselves, gave a hop and a skip,
then took up the tureen again to carry it to another table, repressing
himself to a sober walk. In spite of his desire to play he never left
his task before he had passed soup to the twenty tables, and he never
forgot the vigilance necessary to control his actions.
Will-power, like all other activities is invigorated and developed
through methodical exercises, and all our exercises for will-power are
also mental and practical. To the casual onlooker the child seems to be
learning exactitude and grace of action, to be refining his senses, to
be learning how to read and write; but much more profoundly he is
learning how to become his own master, how to be a man of prompt and
resolute will.
We often hear it said that a child's will should be "broken" that the
best education for the will of the child is to learn to give it up to
the will of adults. Leaving out of the question the injustice which is
at the root of every act of tyranny, this idea is irrational because the
child cannot give up what he does not possess. We prevent him in this
way from forming his own will-power, and we commit the greatest and most
blameworthy mistake. He never has time or opportunity to test himself,
to estimate his own force and his own limitations because he is always
interrupted and subjected to our tyranny, and languishes in injustice
because he is always being bitterly reproached for not having what
adults are perpetually destroying.
There springs up as a consequence of this, childish timidity, which is a
moral malady acquired by a will which could not develop; and which with
the usual calumny with which the tyrant consciously or not, covers up
his own mistakes, we consider as an inherent trait of childhood. The
children in our schools are never timid. One of their most fascinating
qualities is the frankness with which they treat people, with which they
go on working in the presence of others, and showing their work frankly,
calling for sympathy. That moral monstrosity, a repressed and timid
child, who is at his ease nowhere except alone with his playmates, or
with street urchins, because his will-power was allowed to grow only
in the shade, disappears in our schools. He presents an example of
thoughtless barbarism, which resembles the artificial compression of the
bodies of those children intended for "court dwarfs," museum
monstrosities or buffoons. Yet this is the treatment under which nearly
all the children of our time are growing up spiritually.
As a matter of fact in all the pedagogical congresses one hears that the
great peril of our time is the lack of individual character in the
scholars; yet these alarmists do not point out that this condition is
due to the way in which education is managed, to scholastic slavery,
which has for its specialty the repression of will-power and of force of
character. The remedy is simply to enfranchise human development.
Besides the exercises it offers for developing will-power, the other
factor in obedience is the capacity to perform the act it becomes
necessary to obey. One of the most interesting observations made by my
pupil Anna Maccheroni (at first in the school in Milan and then in that
in the Via Guisti in Rome), relates to the connection between obedience
in a child and his "knowing how." Obedience appears in the child as a
latent instinct as soon as his personality begins to take form. For
instance, a child begins to try a certain exercise and suddenly some
time he goes through it perfectly; he is delighted, stares at it, and
wishes to do it over again, but for some time the exercise is not a
success. Then comes a time when he can do it nearly every time he tries
voluntarily but makes mistakes if someone else asks him to do it. The
external command does not as yet produce the voluntary act. When,
however, the exercise always succeeds, with absolute certainty, then an
order from someone else brings about on the child's part, orderly
adequate action; that is, the child _is able_ each time to execute the
command received. That these facts (with variations in individual cases)
are laws of psychical development is apparent from everyone's experience
with children in school or at home.
One often hears a child say, "I did do such and such a thing but now I
can't!" and a teacher disappointed by the incompetence of a pupil will
say, "Yet that child was doing it all right--and now he can't!"
Finally there is the period of complete development in which the
capacity to perform some operation is permanently acquired. There are,
therefore, three periods: a first, subconscious one, when in the
confused mind of the child, order produces itself by a mysterious inner
impulse from out the midst of disorder, producing as an external result
a completed act, which, however, being outside the field of
consciousness, cannot be reproduced at will; a second, conscious period,
when there is some action on the part of the will which is present
during the process of the development and establishing of the acts; and
a third period when the will can direct and cause the acts, thus
answering the command from someone else.
Now, obedience follows a similar sequence. When in the first period of
spiritual disorder, the child does not obey it is exactly as if he were
psychically deaf, and out of hearing of commands. In the second period
he would like to obey, he looks as though he understood the command and
would like to respond to it, but cannot,--or at least does not always
succeed in doing it, is not "quick to mind" and shows no pleasure when
he does. In the third period he obeys at once, with enthusiasm, and as
he becomes more and more perfect in the exercises he is proud that he
knows how to obey. This is the period in which he runs joyously to obey,
and leaves at the most imperceptible request whatever is interesting him
so that he may quit the solitude of his own life and enter, with the act
of obedience into the spiritual existence of another.
To this order, established in a consciousness formerly chaotic, are due
all the phenomena of discipline and of mental development, which open
out like a new Creation. From minds thus set in order, when "night is
separated from day" come sudden emotions and mental feats which recall
the Biblical story of Creation. The child has in his mind not only what
he has laboriously acquired, but the free gifts which flow from
spiritual life, the first flowers of affection, of gentleness, of
spontaneous love for righteousness which perfume the souls of such
children and give promise of the "fruits of the spirit" of St.
Paul--"The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering
gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness."
They are virtuous because they exercise patience in repeating their
exercises, long-suffering in yielding to the commands and desires of
others, good in rejoicing in the well-being of others without jealousy
or rivalry; they live, doing good in joyousness of heart and in peace,
and they are eminently, marvellously industrious. But they are not proud
of such righteousness because they were not conscious of acquiring it as
a moral superiority. They have set their feet in the path leading to
righteousness, simply because it was the only way to attain true
self-development and learning; and they enjoy with simple hearts the
fruits of peace that are to be gathered along that path.
These are the first outlines of an experiment which shows a form of
indirect discipline in which there is substituted for the critical and
sermonizing teacher a rational organisation of work and of liberty for
the child. It involves a conception of life more usual in religious
fields than in those of academic pedagogy, inasmuch as it has recourse
to the spiritual energies of mankind, but it is founded on work and on
liberty which are the two paths to all civic progress.