CONCLUSIONS AND IMPRESSIONS
In the "Children's Houses," the old-time teacher, who wore herself out
maintaining discipline of immobility, and who wasted her breath in loud
and continual discourse, has disappeared.
For this teacher we have substituted the _didactic material_, which
contains within itself the control of errors and which makes
auto-education possible to each child. The teacher has thus become a
_director_ of the spontaneous work of the children. She is not a
_passive_ force, a _silent_ presence.
The children are occupied each one in a different way, and the
directress, watching them, can make psychological observations which, if
collected in an orderly way and according to scientific standards,
should do much toward the reconstruction of child psychology and the
development of experimental psychology. I believe that I have by my
method established the conditions necessary to the development of
scientific pedagogy; and whoever adopts this method opens, in doing so,
a laboratory of experimental pedagogy.
From such work, we must await the positive solution of all those
pedagogical problems of which we talk to-day. For through such work
there has already come the solution of some of these very questions:
that of the liberty of the pupils; auto-education; the establishment of
harmony between the work and activities of home life and school tasks,
making both work together for the education of the child.
The problem of religious education, the importance of which we do not
fully realise, should also be solved by positive pedagogy. If religion
is born with civilisation, its roots must lie deep in human nature. We
have had most beautiful proof of an instinctive love of knowledge in the
child, who has too often been misjudged in that he has been considered
addicted to meaningless play, and games void of thought. The child who
left the game in his eagerness for knowledge, has revealed himself as a
true son of that humanity which has been throughout centuries the
creator of scientific and civil progress. We have belittled the son of
man by giving him foolish and degrading toys, a world of idleness where
he is suffocated by a badly conceived discipline. Now, in his liberty,
the child should show us, as well, whether man is by nature a religious
creature.
To deny, _a priori_, the religions sentiment in man, and to deprive
humanity of the education of this sentiment, is to commit a pedagogical
error similar to that of denying, _a priori_, to the child, the love of
learning for learning's sake. This ignorant assumption led us to
dominate the scholar, to subject him to a species of slavery, in order
to render him apparently disciplined.
The fact that we assume that religions education is only adapted to the
adult, may be akin to another profound error existing in education
to-day, namely, that of overlooking the education of the senses at the
very period when this education is possible. The life of the adult is
practically an application of the senses to the gathering of sensations
from the environment. A lack of preparation for this, often results in
inadequacy in practical life, in that lack of poise which causes so many
individuals to waste their energies in purposeless effort. Not to form a
parallel between the education of the senses as a guide to practical
life, and religious education as a guide to the moral life, but for the
sake of illustration, let me call attention to how often we find
inefficiency, instability, among irreligious persons, and how much
precious individual power is miserably wasted.
How many men have had this experience! And when that spiritual awakening
comes late, as it sometimes does, through the softening power of sorrow,
the mind is unable to establish an equilibrium, because it has grown too
much accustomed to a life deprived of spirituality. We see equally
piteous cases of religious fanaticism, or we look upon intimate dramatic
struggles between the heart, ever seeking its own safe and quiet port,
and the mind that constantly draws it back to the sea of conflicting
ideas and emotions, where peace is unknown. These are all psychological
phenomena of the highest importance; they present, perhaps, the gravest
of all our human problems. We Europeans are still filled with prejudices
and hedged about with preconceptions in regard to these matters. We are
very slaves of thought. We believe that liberty of conscience and of
thought consists in denying certain sentimental beliefs, while liberty
never can exist where one struggles to stifle some other thing, but only
where unlimited expansion is granted; where life is left free and
untrammelled. He who really does not believe, does not fear that which
he does not believe, and does not combat that which for him does not
exist. If he believes and fights, he then becomes an enemy to liberty.
In America, the great positive scientist, William James, who expounds
the physiological theory of emotions, is also the man who illustrates
the psychological importance of religious "conscience." We cannot know
the future of the progress of thought: here, for example, in the
"Children's Houses" the triumph of _discipline_ through the conquest of
liberty and independence marks the foundation of the progress which the
future will see in the matter of pedagogical methods. To me it offers
the greatest hope for human redemption through education.
Perhaps, in the same way, through the conquest of liberty of thought and
of conscience, we are making our way toward a great religious triumph.
Experience will show, and the psychological observations made along this
line in the "Children's Houses" will undoubtedly be of the greatest
interest.
This book of methods compiled by one person alone, must be followed by
many others. It is my hope that, starting from the _individual study of
the child_ educated with our method, other educators will set forth the
results of their experiments. These are the pedagogical books which
await us in the future.
From the practical side of the school, we have with our methods the
advantage of being able to teach in one room, children of very different
ages. In our "Children's Houses" we have little ones of two years and a
half, who cannot as yet make use of the most simple of the sense
exercises, and children of five and a half who because of their
development might easily pass into the third elementary. Each one of
them perfects himself through his own powers, and goes forward guided by
that inner force which distinguishes him as an individual.
One great advantage of such a method is that it will make instruction in
the rural schools easier, and will be of great advantage in the schools
in the small provincial towns where there are few children, yet where
all the various grades are represented. Such schools are not able to
employ more than one teacher. Our experience shows that one directress
may guide a group of children varying in development from little ones of
three years old to the third elementary. Another great advantage lies in
the extreme facility with which written language may be taught, making
it possible to combat illiteracy and to cultivate the national tongue.
As to the teacher, she may remain for a whole day among children in the
most varying stages of development, just as the mother remains in the
house with children of all ages, without becoming tired.
The children work by themselves, and, in doing so, make a conquest of
active discipline, and independence in all the acts of daily life, just
as through daily conquests they progress in intellectual development.
Directed by an intelligent teacher, who watches over their physical
development as well as over their intellectual and moral progress,
children are able with our methods to arrive at a splendid physical
development, and, in addition to this, there unfolds within them, in all
its perfection, the soul, which distinguishes the human being.
We have been mistaken in thinking that the natural education of children
should be purely physical; the soul, too, has its nature, which it was
intended to perfect in the spiritual life,--the dominating power of
human existence throughout all time. Our methods take into consideration
the spontaneous psychic development of the child, and help this in ways
that observation and experience have shown us to be wise.
If physical care leads the child to take pleasure in bodily health,
intellectual and moral care make possible for him the highest spiritual
joy, and send him forward into a world where continual surprises and
discoveries await him; not only in the external environment, but in the
intimate recesses of his own soul.
It is through such pleasures as these that the ideal man grows, and only
such pleasures are worthy of a place in the education of the infancy of
humanity.
Our children are noticeably different from those others who have grown
up within the grey walls of the common schools. Our little pupils have
the serene and happy aspect and the frank and open friendliness of the
person who feels himself to be master of his own actions. When they run
to gather about our visitors, speaking to them with sweet frankness,
extending their little hands with gentle gravity and well-bred
cordiality, when they thank these visitors for the courtesy they have
paid us in coming, the bright eyes and the happy voices make us feel
that they are, indeed, unusual little men. When they display their work
and their ability, in a confidential and simple way, it is almost as if
they called for a maternal approbation from all those who watch them.
Often, a little one will seat himself on the floor beside some visitor
silently writing his name, and adding a gentle word of thanks. It is as
if they wished to make the visitor feel the affectionate gratitude which
is in their hearts.
When we see all these things and when, above all, we pass with these
children from the busy activity of the schoolroom at work, into the
absolute and profound silence which they have learned to enjoy so
deeply, we are moved in spite of ourselves and feel that we have come in
touch with the very souls of these little pupils.
The "Children's House" seems to exert a spiritual influence upon
everyone. I have seen here, men of affairs, great politicians
preoccupied with problems of trade and of state, cast off like an
uncomfortable garment the burden of the world, and fall into a simple
forgetfulness of self. They are affected by this vision of the human
soul growing in its true nature, and I believe that this is what they
mean when they call our little ones, wonderful children, happy
children--the infancy of humanity in a higher stage of evolution than
our own. I understand how the great English poet Wordsworth, enamoured
as he was of nature, demanded the secret of all her peace and beauty. It
was at last revealed to him--the secret of all nature lies in the soul
of a little child. He holds there the true meaning of that life which
exists throughout humanity. But this beauty which "lies about us in our
infancy" becomes obscured; "shades of the prison house, begin to close
about the growing boy ... at last the man perceives it die away, and
fade into the light of common day."
Truly our social life is too often only the darkening and the death of
the natural life that is in us. These methods tend to guard that
spiritual fire within man, to keep his real nature unspoiled and to set
it free from the oppressive and degrading yoke of society. It is a
pedagogical method informed by the high concept of Immanuel Kant:
"Perfect art returns to nature."
THE END
End of Project Gutenberg's The Montessori Method, by Maria Montessori