she felt for her toes, that she might assure herself of her own identity
as represented in those wriggling lumps of flesh. But Joanina’s mother
bound the little limbs in swaddling bands and the _bambino_ lost her
toes temporarily. When she was a bit older, and was allowed to bask,
kitten-like, on a rug in the garden path, she was charmed to hold her
flower-like baby hands up to the light, watching the Roman sunshine
trickle through outstretched fingers as she tried to count them.
But, always, her emotional, kindly intentioned _madre_ would toss a
bright-colored ball into the reaching hands or, bending over the baby,
would play pat-a-cake with her, or she would suggest a romp up and
down the garden. Her self-imposed quiet was always interrupted by her
mother’s unrest.
As Joanina grew to a slim little girl of Italy, whose great, wistful
brown eyes reflected a large curiosity and awe at the surprises of the
world in which she found herself, she was daily surrounded by forces that
drew her away from herself. Her home was full of glaring colored pictures
hung on vividly dyed wall paper. Her mother and father talked together
in high-pitched, shrill voices, and through the wide casement windows
came the harsh sounds of traveling street musicians and brawling venders.
Always, as a treat on Sunday or a _festa_, Joanina was taken to see a
procession or to a band concert in one of the parks. The crowded, hot
stone streets, the noisy cracking of the cab-drivers’ whips, the struggle
to make her own short legs keep up with the longer steps of the _madre_,
wearied and excited the little maid.
But she grew accustomed to noise and boisterousness in her days; she grew
to expect them as well. Then she came to depend upon _outside_ forces
for keeping the motor of her baby spirit going. She begged for new toys,
exhausting quickly the pleasure to be found in old playthings. She asked
for new frocks, aping the vanity of her mother and the other women she
saw on the _Corso_ on feast days. She allowed her child playmates to
plan her games. She cried to be taken into the turbid streets. From a
placid, reposeful baby, Joanina developed into a restless, passionate,
distraction-seeking little girl. Germs of discontent, disquiet, hysteria
were planted in her child soul.
When Joanina found herself one morning in the Trionfale Children’s House,
she experienced an unconscious feeling of peace. The very wide spaces of
the two rooms where the little ones busily and happily worked; the cool
gray walls unbroken in their sweep save by a blue and white terra-cotta
bas-relief here and there; the plain brown linen curtains that softened
and toned the yellow sunlight and rippled with a flower-scented
breeze—these helped to make Joanina’s peace. Dropping into one of the
little white chairs, she looked about her with eyes that again melted
into the calm wonder of her babyhood. She could not have explained it,
but there was already at home in her life a new, quiet repose.
Surrounding her was a child republic that opened its heart to her. Some
of the children, in groups, were sorting and grading with quiet skill
scores of the silk-wound color spools. Others, alone, were testing their
knowledge of dimension and form with the solid and geometric insets. In a
corner, a determined baby was trying to button the apron of another baby.
All were entertained, yet no one was entertaining them. They were making
their own content.
Without warning, the directress turned from the child whom she had been
giving a lesson in numbers with the counting case, moved to the front
of the room, and wrote upon the blackboard one word, Silence. Then she
waited, herself silent and facing the little ones. Joanina, too, waited.
She did not understand; she was curious.
The children, recognizing the written word, one by one laid down their
work, dropped into positions of quiet repose, their eyes closed. Some
laid their heads upon their folded arms. The room became so hushed
that such faint sounds as the low ticking of the clock, the hum of a
buzzing fly, the gentle rise and fall of breathing, became vibrant. The
children’s faces were full of calm joy, their bodies were completely
motionless. They had gone away from their small republic of work and
play for a space. Who could tell where they were? Each child was feeling
himself; for the time being he was listening to the call of his own
personality.
Joanina, interested in the game of silence, closed her eyes. She folded
her restless fingers. She waited, rapt, immobile as a little chiseled
cherub. It was perhaps the first time in her four years’ apprenticeship
to Life that she had been given an opportunity to listen to her own
heart throbs, feel the grip of her own personality. The experience was
satisfying to her. She heard and felt a great many inner voices and
mental forces that she had never listened to or obeyed before. She heard
the voices of happiness in her new, peaceful environment and love for the
other children and joy at the complete freedom that surrounded her. She
felt the impulse to _do_ and _learn_ as she had seen the other children
doing and learning.
For several minutes, the silence held the children in its spell. Then,
out of the stillness the whispered voice of the directress floated. As a
singing wind of a far-away forest, a mountain echo, or the low voice of
a mother as it first makes itself audible to a new-born babe, came the
voice: “Joanina.”
The little girl opened her eyes, meeting the smiling ones of the
directress, who made a gesture indicating that Joanina should go to her
quietly. Poised on tiptoe, Joanina crossed the room noiselessly, threw
herself into the outstretched arms of the directress.
“Mario, Otello,” softly the other children were called until all had, as
silently as Joanina, left their places and surrounded the directress.
Their eyes shone, their faces glowed as if they had been refreshed by an
elixir bath. Yet the Montessori silence game which had brought about this
inspiration and refreshing in the life of soul-starved little Joanina
might have been a part of her home life.
Your child needs it; _you_ need it.
There is, perhaps, no more significant phase of the Montessori system
of education than the calm, quiet habit of self-contemplation aroused
by the game of silence. The self-control, the poise, the power of long
concentration that one sees in the Montessori children at Rome amazes the
world. They are completely lacking in self-consciousness; they ask for
help in their work only when it is absolutely necessary; they are _sure_
of themselves.
In writing about the game of silence, it has been suggested that the game
has an hypnotic quality; that the calm, beautifully poised directress
imposes her own personality upon the children, controls them as the
hypnotist controls his subject. This is not true. As the didactic
materials furnish the right means for the child’s mental development, so
the opportunity given by the game of silence makes possible the child’s
moral and spiritual development. It gives him a chance to listen to the
“still, small voice” that is a speaking voice in childhood but which is
drowned by the babel of world tongues that we allow to make our song of
life in adult years.
The story of Joanina, the little Roman girl, is retold in almost every
American home. As we, ourselves, depend upon public opinion, outside
amusements, entertaining friends, the judgment of the press, the
fashions of the day for filling our lives, so we make our children,
also, dependent upon similar forces for forming their characters. We
surround children with gossip, we teach them to depend upon excitement
for their pleasure; we build their ideals of conduct upon what the world
will think instead of what their conscience dictates. We make of our
little ones modern Babes in the Woods who lose themselves in a forest of
bewildering, overgrown paths. We give them no chance to blaze their own
trails.
What is the application to the American home of the Montessori game of
silence?
It begins with the American mother who must cultivate a habit of quiet
self-contemplation. She must be able to shut out the world as did the
stoics, listening to the good voice of her own soul. It means, also, that
she will be less dependent upon her environment for her daily thinking
and happiness and more adept at creating her own joys. We are very
restless, to-day, discontented unless we are surrounded by friends or
obsessed by passion of some sort, or we must go somewhere. We will try
to slip back into the simple living of our great-grandmothers, who had
resources in themselves and could be radiantly happy, pottering over the
lavender in their gardens or reading their Bibles in the candlelight of
some long-ago evening—alone.
The mother who cultivates in herself a habit of repose will have
reposeful children.
The game of silence, as it may be put into practice in the training of
children, begins with ear-training. Shut out harsh sounds from the home
where there are little children. To command a child in a loud voice
often results in disobedience; it makes him mentally deaf for the time
being. He does not hear what is said to him; it dulls his senses. We all
know how the memory of some gentle voice that either sang or spoke to
us in childhood comes back to us, now, as a forceful memory. It was the
softness of that voice that made the lasting record in our minds.
Often a mother may whisper a sentence to a child, or call softly from
different parts of the house, asking the little one to locate her by the
sense of hearing. This will quicken and cultivate the child’s power to
listen and concentrate upon the use of one sense. And we should eliminate
all unnecessary noises from our homes; the slamming of doors, the
crashing of dishes, harsh popular music, and crude songs.
As the children’s sense of hearing is refined, we will lead them to
listen to the very small sounds in the world about them, the soft
breathing of the sleeping baby, the far-away ticking of a clock, the hum
of insects, distant footsteps, the patter of rain, the song of the wind.
Then when this fine power of listening has been cultivated, we may
introduce the game of silence itself. The mother may show the child that
she is able to sit quietly, immobile, relaxed for a short period of
time—only thinking. Then the little ones may be encouraged to attempt the
game, waiting in perfect silence, with closed eyes, until mother calls
them in a soft whisper to “come back” to the world again. To darken the
room a little during the game adds to its power. Gradually the periods of
the silence may be lengthened, and results will show in the child’s life
in greater control, quiet, and life balance. In this repose and silence,
Dr. Montessori tells us, both adults and children gather strength and
newness of life.
A little maid of three had been having her first birthday party. Light
and music and romping games and many gifts had filled the afternoon with
unexperienced delights for the child. She was trembling with delight, on
tiptoe with excitement when the children marched out to the dining-room
and were seated about the beautifully laid, rose-strewn table. At a
signal the curtains were drawn and the children were told to be silent
and close their eyes for a space. There was a vibrant hush, a space of
time passed, then one child after another raised her head and opened
her eyes. The room was still darkened, but in the center of the table
had been placed the huge, white birthday cake surrounded by a wreath of
flowers; the only light was the starry shining of three white candles on
the top. The little birthday child looked in wonder. Then she drew a long
breath and said in a whisper, “Nearer, my God, to Thee.”
No one quite understood the little one. It seemed to have been a vagary,
a precocity on her part. It _was_ an unusual manifestation, but quite
explainable as we grew to realize the inspirational possibilities of the
Montessori silence.
When it is not possible, because we are dealing with an isolated child,
to put into practice the game of silence as it is used in the Children’s
Houses, we can still lead the child to know and feel silence. A quiet
hour in the twilight after the work and play of the daytime are over, a
trip to some still, lovely spot in the woods, a few moments spent in the
hushed interior of a church, will remain as reposeful memories in the
life of the child. More than repose, even, they may be inspirational, as,
shut away from the noise and activity of the world, the child is able to
hear the call of his own spirit.
We all know and love Bastien-Lepage’s painting of the maid, Jeanne d’Arc,
listening to the voices in her garden. The grass dotted with flowers, the
bending apple tree, the other homely surroundings of the humble home that
were all Jeanne had known, fade away as the voice of the prophetic soul
speaks to her; as she sees the vision of herself, the saviour of France.
Jeanne d’Arc was only thirteen when she began to hear the voice of her
spirit.
Millet, as a boy, saw nature with his spirit eyes. He showed his father
colors playing over the rough sod of his home fields which no one else
could see. Rousseau, in boyhood, declared that he was able to converse
with his beloved trees and they told him the secrets of their beauty.
Samuel was only a very little boy when he heard and interpreted his
Master’s voice. The boy Christ heard a message that he was able to carry
to the doctors.
May we not give our little ones an opportunity to step across the
threshold of the present into that great silence which begins life and
also ends it, and which is melodious for those who are trained to listen?
THE END
By DOROTHY CANFIELD FISHER
Author of _The Squirrel-Cage_, _Hillsboro People_, etc.
A MONTESSORI MOTHER
_Illustrated, 8th printing, $1.25 net_
This authoritative book, by a trained writer who has been most intimately
associated with Dr. Montessori, tells just what American mothers, and
most teachers, want to know about this system.
A simple, untechnical account of the apparatus, the method of its
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“Fascinating reading and likely to be the most interesting
to the average mother of all the many books on the
subject.”—_Primary Plans._
“What would I not give to have had at the beginning of
my children’s upbringing such a guide to the fundamental
principles underlying their best growth and development.”—MRS.
ROBERT M. LA FOLLETTE in _La Follette’s Magazine_.
MOTHERS AND CHILDREN
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After the publication of _A Montessori Mother_ two years ago, Mrs.
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“The Tarnishing Eye of Relations” is the title of one chapter. Some other
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34 WEST 33RD STREET (11’14) NEW YORK
BOOKS ON AND OF SCHOOL PLAYS
By Constance D’Arcy Mackay
HOW TO PRODUCE CHILDREN’S PLAYS
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The portions marked with a star (*) are one-act plays suitable for
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_BOOKS TO MAKE ELDERS YOUNG AGAIN_
By INEZ HAYNES GILLMORE
PHOEBE AND ERNEST
With 30 illustrations by R. F. SCHABELITZ. $1.35 net.
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End of Project Gutenberg's Montessori children, by Carolyn Sherwin Bailey