A guide to the Montessori method

Preface

It is more than twelve years ago that an illuminating course in Educational Psychology which I took under Professor John Dewey, then of the University of Chicago, directed what had until that time been on my part only a general interest in psychology, toward the specific question of the relation of various educational theories to the truths of child psychology. The interest so directed was further stimulated by my relations with Professor Thorndike of the Teacher's College in connection with his courses in methods there. The subsequent years of experience as principal of a school which includes a kindergarten and primary department in its curriculum, and as a teacher of elementary psychology to the older pupils, have given concrete opportunities for putting theories into practice.

The last fifteen months have been largely devoted as time permitted to an intensive study of Dr. Montessori and her principles of education including not only her book, "Pedagogica Scientifica," and its translation into English, "The Montessori Method of [vii]

PREFACE

Scientific Pedagogy/' 1 but a three months' trip to Italy where I had the advantages of personal conferences with Dr. Montessori and the best exponents of her "method," and also of extended visits to all the schools in Rome where her methods have been introduced. My belief in the value of her theories and methods is based upon a conviction which this study and observation has deepened, that her educational principles have a firm philosophical and psychological foundation; a belief which my experiments with American children since my return, have still more intensified.

My only excuse, therefore, for adding one more to the books which have already been published as a result of the growing interest in England and America in this remarkable woman and her theories, is that in none of them have I found such a testing of these theories and methods by the principles of modern child psychology as to me seems necessary for an accurate estimate of their value. Neither have I found in them a sufficient emphasis placed on the spirit which animates the "method."

1 The Montessori Method of Scientific Pedagogy, translated by Anne E. George, New York: Frederick A. Stokes Company.

[viii]

PREFACE

There are always two dangers threatening any new movement which awakens such popular enthusiasm as this has: either that it will be crystallised into a hard and fast system; or, because too thoughtlessly exploited and too over-praised at first, that it will suffer the fate of many earlier methods, which, unable to meet the expectations aroused in the public mind by uncritical enthusiasts, have been loudly hailed only later to sink into oblivion. From the beginning of my interest in this Italian doctor and teacher I have deprecated the word "method" in connection with her, for nothing so fixed can properly describe anything so fluid as her own attitude of mind. I have also deprecated the hasty adoption of these methods before there is in this country a body of teachers who have been trained under Dr. Montessori, for I feel that we should emulate her patience, her untiring devotion, her readiness to give up years of her life in order to test her beliefs by experience.

It is therefore with a genuine desire to

make clear what seems to me to be the

psychological basis of her methods as well

as to summarise and interpret the principles

[ix]

PREFACE

underlying them, so that the spirit which animates them may become a living force in America, that I offer this study of these principles and of their concrete embodiment in the material now so familiar to the American public. I also make some suggestions for possible amplification and adaptation to the pressing needs of our own country which are the outcome of an experiment made last summer in using the material with a group of American children.

I also venture to hope that such an interpretation of Dr. Montessori's educational theories and practice will disabuse the minds of its readers of many misconceptions which have arisen since the first introduction into America of the "Montessori Method."

Acknowledgments are due to Miss Anne E. George, first Montessori directress in America and translator of "The Montessori Method/' who by her enthusiastic and practical help changed my first general interest in the subject into a keen desire to go to Italy and study Dr. Montessori and her work. My thanks are due, also, to several others who have read the manuscript and proofs and helped me with their suggestions and criticisms.

W

Contents

CHAPTER PAGE

PREFACE . . •. . . vii

I THE FOUNDER AND THE SCHOOL . 1

Chapter I

THE FOUNDER AND THE SCHOOL " A socialised school in a socialised home."

No one who has not visited Rome within the last decade and studied with more than a tourist's ephemeral interest the modern city which overshadows the ruins of the past can have any idea of the social, political and educational renaissance which has come to it. , I beg any reader of this book to put away at once that conception of Rome as "The Mother of Races," "The Eternal City," "The Niobe of Nations," which has grown up in his mind as a result of the emphasis usually given to Rome in her relation to the past in history and art, and obtain instead a vivid impression of her as the capital of a strong, young nation, full of vitality and enthusiasm, ready to play a leading part in the world drama.

If Rome is eternal it is because she is ever young; her Janus gate is open to the East and she must be thought of as in the van of the forward movement of our time. Unless one has such an attitude of mind, the first sight of the enormous monument to Vittorio Emmanuele comes as a rude shock for it seems an example of vandalism as it haughtily usurps the first place in any view of the city and almost rudely shoves into the background those famous relics of medieval and ancient times, the Capitol, the Forum and the Colosseum. But to one who studies Rome as she really is, this magnificent expression of gratitude, this tribute to Vittorio as her emancipator is suggestive. United Italy, a city saved from fever by the dyking of the Tiber, the Campagna freed from malaria, are some of the gifts of that great soldier and patriot, gifts which make possible the clean, hygienic, expanding Rome of to-day.

There are many men and women who are making this city what she is rapidly becoming, the real capital of modern Italy; but to those who are interested in the education and welfare of children, Maria Montessori stands out pre-eminently as a noble example [2]

of the New Woman, one whose genius and wonderfully sympathetic insight into the heart and mind of a child have awakened the interest of the whole world in her theory for the education of children.

The great engineering feats which resulted in the dyking of the Tiber and the draining of the Campagna in the last quarter of the 19th century made possible not only the expansion of Rome beyond the walls which had confined it so long, but the utilisation for building purposes of land along the banks of the Tiber within the city gates which heretofore had been plague spots of disease due to the overflowing of this river. As so often happens the first effect of these two engineering feats was a feverish activity in real estate transactions followed by the hasty erection of poorly planned and cheaply built blocks of buildings in all parts of the city and its new suburbs, until the "boom" so thoughtlessly created caused about twenty years ago a panic and a complete collapse of building activities. At this moment Edoardo Talamo, seeing the possibilities of expansion, seized his opportunity and by the establishment of the Real Estate Association of the "Beni Stabili" and by his [3]

design for model apartments which he calls the "Casa Moderna" not only did much to help solve the great housing problem, but turned the tide of ruin into a wave of prosperity, which has not yet run its course.

About twenty years ago Dr. Montessori was a young girl of great beauty and charm who had recently been graduated as a Doctor of Medicine, the first woman to receive that degree from the University of Rome. Her first medical practice was in a clinic and hospital for deficient children connected with the University of Rome where she had an opportunity to test upon these children the theories she already possessed as to the possibilities of education. Her belief that mental deficiency was a pedagogical rather than a medical problem was justified by the results obtained, and a course of lectures on the education of the feeble-minded which she gave to teachers resulted in the establishment of the state schools for defectives which she directed for over two years.

After visits to London and Paris, where she studied in the hospitals for the feeble-minded, she gave herself up with her usual whole-hearted enthusiasm to teaching deficients and training their teachers. Her basic [4]

principle of setting free the personality of each deficient child by methods adapted to him became such a controlling idea that she reached the conclusion that similar methods applied to normal children would have equally marvelous results. She then began a more thorough study both of remedial and normal pedagogy, registering as a student of philosophy in the University, where she made a most exhaustive study of the works of her great predecessors Itard and Seguin, and the Italian masters of pedagogical anthropology, Sergi and Di Giovanni. These studies, combined with other researches into pedagogical anthropology in the schools, resulted in her appointment as lecturer on anthropology in the University of Rome. The course of lectures she gave there was later published and has now been translated into English. 1

The year 1907 is an important one in the history of the Montessori movement for it marks the moment Dr. Montessori, who had up to this time worked along separate lines, was invited to form the first "Casa dei Bambini" or " Children's House" in the

1 Pedagogical Anthropology, translated by Frederic Taber Cooper. New York: Frederick A. Stokes Co.

model tenement built by the Beni Stabili Association in the quarter of San Lorenzo. This quarter of the city, just outside the gate of that name, was one of the poorest in Rome and had suffered most from the collapse of the building scheme spoken of above. The poorly built and badly planned dwellings erected at the time the speculative fever was at its height had been diverted from their original purpose and were now occupied by the poorest and most vicious of the people, who herded together in defiance of all sanitary and moral laws. This association had bought up many such blocks and by judicious demolition and reconstruction had transformed them into neat, hygienic apartments, which could be rented at a low cost. It was Talamo's brilliant idea to make the child the central thought in these new homes, to plan for his health, education and care during the * long day while his parents were absent as wage earners; and to develop in these parents, as residents, through their love for their children, respect for and care of the property. The psychological moment that saw the opening of the first model tenement of the Beni Stabili was that of the completion of [6]

Montessori's long years of study and teaching; and the invitation to her to direct the schools of this association in these buildings was an inspired act which made possible the spread of her ideas all over the world. For in the various Case dei Bambini or Children's Houses which quickly followed that first one in the quarter of San Lorenzo, Montessori again had an opportunity to test her basic principle of freeing the personality and latent energy of the child and helping his self education through materials and methods scientifically adapted to his individual needs. The fifteen years that had elapsed since her initial effort with deficient children had trained a remarkable creative genius able to mold together into one rational system of education the best that had been discovered in the past. She herself says that fifty years of medico-pedagogical study by Itard, Seguin and herself are embodied in her system. It is also an evolution from the work of her great forerunners in education, Rousseau, Pestalozzi, Herbart and Froebel.

It is because I believe so strongly in the value of this experiment as a social movement that I am desirous that American [7]

students of Montessori should understand the practical, philanthropic work of the Beni Stabili Association as well as the educational principles of Montessori. During the six or seven years since the formation of this company, not only has the practical foresight of its promoters been justified (for I was told that dividends of 7% were paid on its stock) , but the social necessity for co-operation in modern city life has been proved, as each new block provides more and more for the common life of its tenants. The school in each block, which was open to the children of all the tenants, had resident teachers ready to advise with each parent and was supported by the fund originally set aside for repairs, which the new interest and thrift of the tenants made unnecessary. It was only a succession of logical steps which led to the addition of baths, infirmaries, rooms for the storage of bicycles and baby-carriages, a laundry open to each tenant in turn, a room with sewing-machines free to all and finally a common kitchen where most of the cooking could be done. The officers of this association realise that conditions differ in various parts of Rome where the populace is [8]

grouped into separate classes more than with us, and have planned three or four types of blocks : one for the very poor, where both parents are wage earners; one for the lower middle class where the father is a constant and the mother an occasional wage earner; one also for the upper class whose members can afford apartments with every luxury and perfection of detail. They have thus avoided the mistake made twenty years ago when large and expensive structures were erected in portions of the city where the poor congregate, which had proved to be unsuited to their needs and therefore were subdivided and sub-let until they became centers of congestion, disease, and even vice and crime. In all these blocks whether for the poor or the rich I found the welfare of the child had been the central thought in their construction and in each a large measure of co-operation was provided for. Although it is not possible in a great city like New York or London, where the area is so limited and the population so immense, to afford the ground space which is used in Rome for one of these ideal tenements, it would be quite feasible to plan a socialised school on the "sky " [9]

scraper" order with two or three floors in it set aside for the school, teacher's apartments, library, bath and infirmary and with a garden or out-of-door school on the roof. There are, however, many cities in this country and in England, like the " Garden Cities," that can with profit study their own housing problem in the light of what this association has accomplished.

At the time of this writing, Dr. Montessori has unfortunately no connection with the Case dei Bambini of the Beni Stabili or with the Municipal schools. She has therefore no voice in the selection of teachers and should not be held responsible for faulty methods which have been allowed to creep in. The Convent School in Via Giusti and her own school in Via Principessa Clotilde are the only ones at present under her direct supervision. Before these words are in print, I trust that plans now maturing which will give her control over other schools will have gone into effect. The Convent School has been so often described that its main features are familiar to Americans. It is a most interesting and significant fact that among the most loyal supporters and enthusiastic followers of La Dottoressa are [103 numbered these missionary sisters of St. Frances who have opened their convent to her, given part of their buildings and ground over for a school, and harboured visiting sisters from many lands who are learning the method with a view of introducing it all over the world. Many of the children in this school are orphans from the Messina earthquake; others come from poor families in the neighbourhood. The high vaulted schoolroom, the beautiful cloisters enclosing two quadrangles attractively laid out with trees, shrubs and flower beds, the high enclosing walls, create an ideal environment to which the children seem to respond.

In strong contrast to this school is the one which the Doctor herself directs in her own beautiful apartment near the Piazza del Populo. Here the group is small, selected from amongst the children of personal friends and admirers, and the children are older than those in the other schools. Before long it is to be hoped that a record of the result of this experiment as it carries the principles up into the elementary school, will be published.

Maria Montessori so far in her life has gone steadily on, giving in turn to each [11]

problem as it was presented to her that concentrated, absorbed attention which is so characteristic of her. In addition to a wonderful, magnetic personality, she possesses creative genius, an almost religious consecration to her life work, and a practical ability to embody her ideas in concrete form. That her principles are universal and general is shown, I think, in the variety of forms in which they have found expression as well as in their adaptation to manifold needs. Not only the feeble-minded, not only the children brought together for care and training from the homes of poor wage earners, but those from well-to-do or luxurious homes respond to her teaching and develop most wonderfully in self-control and liberty of thought and action. I therefore believe that although America cannot, at present anyway, have the direct inspiration of Maria Montessori's personality, the universal appeal found in her spirit and controlling ideas will be responded to by our parents as well as our educators.

Since these words were written the opportunity has been provided for our American and English teachers to obtain training in Rome under Dr. Montessori and to observe [12]

and practise in the Montessori schools there.

The psychological moment is here and now in the United States as well as in England as it was in Rome in 1907. A wave of unrest has spread over the whole country. Our system of education from the kindergarten up through the university is open to attack as never before. The chapter from the book of Ezekiel, so aptly quoted by Dr. Montessori in her book, has its application to us also. Our dry bones of educational practice need the breath of the spirit to pass over them and cause them to arise and unite into a new and living organism. Destructive criticism is always unwise because it only creates a feeling of dissatisfaction without suggesting any remedy. Our books, newspapers and magazine articles have been full of such destructive criticism until, if one reads widely, the conclusion seems unavoidable that educationally we are rapidly going to the dogs. These problems and doubts, once confined to the teachers alone, are now shared by the tremendous reading public of our day, and parents as well as teachers are asking what is to be done. Much has already been [13]

accomplished in our country; more than in Italy we have our classes for deficients, our vocational schools, our "intelligence tests" for entering pupils, our trained educational psychologists whose alert minds are seeking the answer. But as yet it is all somewhat chaotic and disorganised. We need just at the moment a uniform principle of universal application to which psychologists, educators and parents will alike respond. If Maria Montessori can give us such a principle and such an object lesson in its demonstration as her didactic material, so called, provides for, let us send our best to sit at her feet in Rome open-minded and sympathetic, that they may absorb some of her spirit, her insight and her wisdom. Then let them return to us able to point out the proper application of this spirit to our own problem, the American child.

Let us avoid if we can a repetition of the history of the kindergarten movement. The genius of Froebel was after his death curbed and fettered by devotees who held blindly to a system which seemed on the surface so simple. The games, gifts and occupations he devised appeared to have in the minds of his disciples a kind of sanctity, so that it seemed to them a desecration to make any changes, and the portrait of Froebel himself that as a necessary feature of each kindergarten was supposed to inspire both teacher and children, was really a symbol of the slavish adherence of his followers to the letter rather than the spirit of his doctrines. Then when "all had found the seed, " the system instead of the genius of Froebel was seized upon by halftaught young girls, and the whole movement fell into disrepute until it was rescued by the educational psychologist and real educator and given back to us as Froebel would wish, not fixed in the dress he gave it, but garbed in a manner suited to the children of our own time.

Let us take warning from this history and protect the Montessori method from a like fate by guarding it from hasty, unconsidered, too literal adoption. Let us study Dr. Montessori' s spirit and controlling ideas and then test them by modern child psychology. Let us use her wonderful material as not abusing it but with flexibility and freedom while keeping fast hold of the principles it embodies. In this way educators and parents can work together, in the [15]

school and home alike, to give our children their birthright of freedom in this century of democracy and, by setting free their personality and leading them to self-control, self-training and many-sided development, teach them how to utilise the tremendous fund of nervous energy latent in every child.

Chapter II Controlling Ideas; Liberty Through

DISCIPLINED ACTIVITY AND

INDEPENDENCE

"The triumph of discipline is through the conquest of liberty and independence."

The previous chapter contains frequent allusions to the controlling ideas or principles which have inspired Dr. Montessori in the invention and construction of her didactic material, but a fuller study of them should precede any discussion of this material. In her book, "The Montessori Method of Scientific Pedagogy/' these principles are, of course, fully set forth, but it may prove helpful if they are here brought together in orderly fashion and studied by themselves. It is always much easier to follow a method blindly than to make our very own the principles which it illustrates, and this material in its very appeal to the parent and teacher on account of its simplicity, practicality and concreteness may, in the minds of many, take the first place [17]

and be adopted without thought of the spirit behind it.

Dr. Montessori emphasises over and over again these ideas: that the personality of the child must be liberated by methods adapted to his individual needs; that his inherent nervous energy must be conducted into channels of organised activity; that liberty through activity must be the ideal for discipline; that the child's natural love of work for the work's sake and the very joy of doing it should be given a free field for its development; that true education involves self-training and is to that extent auto-education; that the part of the teacher is to suggest, to guide, but not to dictate; that reward comes from the work itself and not from anything extraneous: that true self-discipline makes our so-called prizes and punishments unnecessary; that before any group work with children, there should come the complete understanding between each individual of the group and its director so that each responds; that fundamental training in righteousness begins when the child spontaneously and happily follows the laws of his own development; that obedience, instead of being the breaking of the child's [18]

will to subject it to that of another, is really the complete expansion of his whole nature when he not only desires but knows how to follow a command. Children "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."

Dr. Montessori would not for a moment wish us to believe all these ideas are original with her, for of course many of them are implied or expressed in all educational theories, but I think she can claim to be the first one to give to the world a rational theory of education based upon true biological, anthropological and sociological laws, together with the concrete embodiment of this theory in a set of material which has been tested by years of study and experience.

Physicians, psychologists and educators are alike interested in the right development of child life from, differing points of view and usually each sees the problem from [19]

his own particular angle of vision; but in Dr. Montessori we have the rare combination of a physician of wide experience, a psychologist and anthropologist of deserved reputation, and an educator who has devoted years of her life to the education of children and the training of teachers. This remarkable threefold experience has come to a woman of creative and inventive genius and of tireless enthusiasm, capable of devoting all her energies with intense concentration to the special problem she is seeking to solve. If we compare her life history with what we know of that of Rousseau, Pestalozzi or Froebel, we appreciate its breadth. Rousseau, the brilliant theorist whose ideas startled and moulded the thoughts not only of the France of his day, but of our own country, could not put his own theories into practice. Pestalozzi's genius was confined to a little German village and hampered by poverty and ill health. Froebel, probably the greatest genius of the three, had intuitive understanding of child life, but living as he did a century ago could not benefit by the scientific expansion of knowledge which the twentieth century has inaugurated. To Dr. Montessori then, who [20]

has enjoyed the opportunities lacking to her predecessors, we can listen with respect as we do to any specialist who has by genius and experience placed himself at the head of his profession. Let us study in detail the principles underlying her system of education with sympathetic, respectful attention, with an open mind and with no spirit of carping criticism.

The key-note is liberty, in the broadest, fullest meaning of that often misunderstood term. Liberty to her means the liberation of the life power within the child to untrammelled, spontaneous, manifestation within the limitations of its biological and social conditions; a universal principle which as yet has only been partially apprehended or applied by us in our system of education. As long as the teacher is the dominating force in the school so long will there be some form of slavery rather than liberty. When, as in this method, the teacher takes a secondary place in order to observe and experiment, then true liberty for the child really begins. This idea of liberty is biological, for it is based on the nature of the child as a human being rather than as a plant or an animal. The child is not only born help- [21]

less but comes into the world as a social individual, a member of society, so his activity is limited both by his characteristic helplessness and by his relation to other human beings as that of a flower or an insect is not. A system of education which has this watchword of liberty as its basis must help the child conquer these obstacles and lead him towards independence, and must seek to surround him with those conditions best adapted to the perfect development of his whole personality, including his physical, mental and spiritual life. Biologically speaking, there is only one real manifestation, the living individual, not the class or race, which are abstract classifications ; therefore education should concern itself more and more with the observation and training of single individuals. Education thus conceived includes the active help given to assist the normal expansion of the complete life of the child, both in soul and body, the care not to stifle the individual manifestations of this life force, and the patient waiting for the gradual flowering of each personality.

Again, the biological conception of liberty, as the freeing of the life force, regards envi- [22]

ronment as a secondary rather than a primary factor. Dr. Montessori acknowledges her debt to De Vries, the brilliant botanist, whose theory of mutation or change as opposed to variation of species has guided her thought along parallel lines. Environment can modify because it can help or hinder development, but it cannot create. It can hold life within a certain limit and control it by fixed laws, but it cannot originate. Therefore, biologically considered, education is limited as it works on the life force through environment. We can act on the variation but not on the mutation; we can modify but not create. The stronger the life force, the less it is affected by environment; on the other hand, the feebler the native power and capacity, the greater is the opportunity for modification by its environment. Such a theory helps us to understand the anomalies and the apparent paradoxes in education. It explains not only Shakespeare but the many men of history of whom we learn in our schools who have apparently succeeded in spite of their schooling. We understand also how human progress persists in spite of error and wrong forms of education and religion. Envi- [23]