THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

 THE
DISCOVERY
OF THE CHILD
Revised and Enlarged Edition of The Montessori Method

BY

MARIA MONTESSORI

TRANSLATED BY
MARY A. JOHNSTONE

KALAKSHETRA PUBLICATIONS
ADYAR, MADRAS 20, INDIA
 @ Kaiakshetra Publications, 1966

First Published in 1948

Reprinted 1958
5>
1962
1966

Printed in India
At the Vasanta Press, The Theosophical Society, Adyar, Madras 20.
 INTRODUCTION TO THE THIRD ITALIAN
EDITION

On the reprinting of the third Italian edition of this work, I found

myself faced with the grave dijBBiciilty of having to retain a book
which announces a work wMlst that work has for some time been
carried out and accepted in use. Another book ought to have been
substituted for this, yet it is difficult to discard the first document
which has laid the foundation of schools in all parts of the world.
The title of the book gained for the work historical importance
after Pope Benedict XV copied it in his own hand in its entirety, :as
a proof of his benevolent approbation of this method of education.

‘‘ May the apostolic benediction . . . bring those blessings

from heaven which I pray may make fruitful of good The-
Method of Scientific Pedagogy applied to Child Education in
the Children''s HousesT
Benedictus S.S. XV.
21st November, 1918.

For this reason, and because this educational work has found
so many admirers, I have not thought it right to let it disappear..
This book, which today exists in so many languages and which
in so many countries has more editions than in Italy, could not be:
allowed to disappear from the country of its origin owing to the
action of its author.
The Method of Scientific Pedagogy Applied to Child Education
in the Children's Houses exists under other and simpler titles, and
Vi THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

where it is most widely read it is called The Montessori Method, It

has’ been translated not only into English, but into German,
French, Spanish (Castilian), Dutch, Swedish, Roumanian, Polish,
Russian, Portuguese, Chinese, Arabian, Japanese, Gujarati, etc.
In every country this has been accompanied by the founding of
schools, and has excited more or less lively comments; enthusiasm
has led to the creation of societies and periodicals and of centres
for the training of teachers; in various places it has roused the
interest of Governments, some of which, after discussions in
Parliament, have officially adopted the method for public schools.
In distant countries, even in those which we would least suspect of
being interested in Italian matters, there sometimes exist most
important and effective centres, as in the various states of Australia
and New Zealand, or in the countries of Central America, like
Colombia and Panama; or in the islands extending from the
Philippines to Java. There is not one great continent iu which
schools have not been distributed—in Asia: from Syria to
the Indies, China and Japan; in Africa: from Egypt and
Morocco in the north to Cape Town in the extreme south;
in the two Americas: the United States and Canada, and Latin
America. Even in the small islands scattered throughout the
great oceans, like Honolulu, half-way between California and
China, there exist schools which reproduce the spirit and the
essential appearance of the Italian school. A vast literature has
accumulated in the course of about twenty years; it is enough to
mention the numerous books which exist in the English, Spanish
and Russian languages. Some are written by university professors;
others by novelists who have found in the new life of the children
a theme more interesting than creations of the imagination; others
by Catholic priests, by teachers and by mothers, and among these
last I may mention, as a mark of gratitude, Tatiana Sukotine
Tolstoi, the beloved daughter of Leo Tolstoi, who was pleased to
see in the Children’s Houses the realization of a dream which her
^eat father had cherished so fervently. The famous Indian
poet, Rabindranath Tagore, has been kind enough to add his
 INTRODUCTION vii

poetical ideas to my practical effort, and tliere are scattered

throughout India and the island of Java Tagore-Montessori
Schools.
To what has the spread of this educational method be due?
It is certainly not because of the science which figures so promi¬
nently in the Italian title of the book; nor is it because an attempt
is made to link up with experimental psychology many of the
experiments on cliildren which have made such extraordinary pro¬
gress possible for them. Anyone who is really willing to read these
efforts will find that through these new experiments an attempt is
made to show (a truth which official science had already under¬
stood between the second and third editions, by its own efforts,
without any help from this book) that experimental psychology
has been one of the many fleeting and changeable tendencies of
human thought. As it was, however, at the height of its develop¬
ment and success when this book was published for the first time,
it is directed to opposing this erroneous idea—that it is possible to
reform the school merely by studying the child in that manner.
The reactions provoked instantaneously by material stimuli which
■are applied to the mind for a few short seconds are more illusory
than can be imagined by anyone who is trying to uncover by this
means some truth hidden in the human mind. It is still more
illusory to suppose that not only psychology but education may
be reformed by a similar theory. In fact, in the United States of
:America, experimental ■ psychology applied to the study of pupils
with the Binet tests and their derivatives, or with sense reactions
•derived from the first German experiments of Fechner and Wundt,
have not led to a reform of education but to the reform of exami¬
nation tests. Instead of basing the final, or State examinations,
on what the child had learnt, it was proposed to base them on his
human value, on his mental attitudes, as ascertained by means of
mental tests. Such a substitution is the logical consequence of
the application of instantaneous and stimulating reagents.
My idea of experimenting differs from this in two ways. First,
because it refrains from inciting reactions depending on the wEl of
Tiii THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD'

the experimenter, and offers instead activity freely chosen by the

subject; it follows that in this very choice there is manifested
spontaneously the individual mental needs. Second, because the
stimuli, although they are the means analogous to those of experi¬
mental psychology, have, however, as their object the stabilization
in the subject of reactions which are enduring, that is, which are
capable of modifying his personality. Education cannot exist
other than in a dynamic state, in a continuous transformation of
the individual who is to be raised to a higher level; and this process-
must develop in accordance with the inner dictates of life. It is
the creative forces which must develop, and we must not make
ourselves substitutes, in an arbitrary manner, for the divine work
which is accomplished in every living being. Indeed we cannot
be more than co-operators in educational work with creation; we
cannot, therefore, force the child to follow^ our promptings, but we
must provide the means best adapted to help the child in his
voluntary w^ork.
®In the first edition of my book, I not only explained the
dynamic idea of a material for development,” in place of that
of the stimuli of experimental psychology, but I propounded a
simple theory about the value of the voluntary activity of the
child. I set forth a series of facts and an experiment carried out,
sufficiently extensive to deduce from it a whole practical method
of education.*
^ My experiences, however, far from being rigid, were logical
conclusions corresponding to the application of an exact and
positive method. The behaviour of the children, being uncon¬
trolled by rigid research, gave new evidence, something living,
which issued from my experiments as a spring of water gushes
from a rock.,. In good faith, like the simple Aladdin, I thought
that I held in my hand a lamp which at the most could lead
me into a place hitherto unexplored, but what I discovered
unexpectedly was the treasure hidden in the depths of a child’s
soul, and it is this new, surprising revelation, and not what
might be callol “the importance of my contribution to official
 INTRODUCTION lx.-

science,” which has spread my method so far over the world, so-
far from the land of its birth.
Professor Godefroy, lecturer in psycho-pathology in the Uni¬
versity of Amsterdam, has expressed in the following manner
his opinion of the experiment:
‘"In the history of culture the Montessori movement seems-
to me to be an almost unique example of the development and
extremely rapid propagation of an attitude of life, and of a
method of developing the mind and the intelligence of the young,
generation. This fact is explicable only when one understands
that the doctrine of Madame Montessori has aw^akened in man
a sentiment which up till now had lain unknown and still latent:
in hearts, and which was only waiting for the stimulant necessary
to make it rapidly and powerfully conscious of itself, in order
to give birth to new tendencies which seem suddenly to disclose-
themselves both in education and in our personal life.
“ When we try to find out to what social classes the followers
of Madame Montessori belong, it becomes clear that the most:
dissimilar currents of thought and the most diverse races have
representatives among them. There are to be found Christians
and Hindus, Catholics and Protestants, Radicals, Socialists, Con¬
servatives, Javanese, Chinese, Australians, Europeans—^peoples
showing very different characters. When one asks any one of’
these what has been the attraction to the Montessori Method,
it seems most frequently to be that in it they find the realization
of some one or other of their own intimate, personal aspirations,
of their own favourite ideas. The fact that each one finds in it
what he seeks for his own soul proves that the ideas of Madame
Montessori make an appeal to the universal needs of the
soul.
“This, however, does not mean that the experience from
which this method originates is divorced from scientific exactitude*
In this respect also the Children’s Houses are the results due to
true work in psychology.” (V. Ferriere, Geneva, Dernieres (mvres
pedagogiques.)
:x THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

The mentai revelations of little cliildren placed to live in

.an enviromneiit created to meet their inner needs have revealed
forms of work, a capacity .for perseverance, qualities of obedience
.and calmness, and an intellectual progress which have not been met
with before. Because of this the environment of our children,
which was not prepared in order to mould them by the sugges¬
tion of the example or the will of teachers but was meant to
leave them free to express themselves, is called the revealing
. environment.
From it w^ere removed the obstacles to profound ex¬
pression, that is, the many causes of repression, which lead
to permanent deformations in the child’s character, were taken
...away. Many children’s doctors who have been interested in
our schools have noticed the cure of diseases of nervous character
-or of physiological disturbances in cliildren, as soon as these,
having come to our schools and having been removed from the
causes of repression to which they had been subjected to in the
family without the parents and particularly the mothers being
...aware of it.
To keep within the field of psychological observations, I will
.again quote the opinion of Professor Godefroy, expressed after
he had observed for many years the Montessori Schools in
Amsterdam.
‘‘ It is necessary above all to make ourselves familiar with
facts, to make, observations in the places where the minds of the
children can actually develop without their faculties being limited,
where wq see displayed freely and more amply than elsewhere, not
only the intellectual functions, but above all the subtle aesthetic
tendencies of character, emotional and social. It will then be
seen clearly that the Montessori School is the place, par excellence^
where, more and more, there will be obtained intimate and intense
contact with the depths of the child’s mind, and hence, as an
ultimate consequence, with the mind of every man.”
Rather than to the attainment of a scientific purpose, it must
be recognized that our experiments made with certain scientific
 INTRODUCTION XI

means and methods scientifically applied, have led to the discovery

of human values which up till then had remained hidden.
The child, in his elevation, has helped us to understand a
'Gospel truth which was obscure: He who would become great
in the Kingdom of Heaven must become as a little child.”

JRome, 1929, Maria Montessori

INTRODUCTION TO THE PRESENT EDITION

If at the publicatioa of the third Italian edition I felt compelled

to justify the reprinting of a book written at the beginning of my
work, I must do so even with greater reason at the publication of
the present edition, 42 years later. My motives are still the same,
but the development of my work and the conclusions drawn from
the revelations given by the children in our schools far exceed our
most legitimate expectations. It was impossible to bring this
book up-to-date without re-wniting it completely, not only as far
as its contents, but also as far as the wording is concerned. Cir¬
cumstances did not permit this and what would be needed is a
complete series of specialized publications dealing with the various
psychological and didactic aspects of our extensive experience all
over the world. Some works have already been published (cf. The
Secret of Childhood, The Absorbent Mind, Education for a New
World, Educating the Human Potential, Psycho-Arithmetic, Psycho-
Geometry, etc.), others are in preparation.
In the present edition I have tried merely to clarify certain
matters and especially to stress the fact that the result of our
work has been more than the creation of a new method of educa¬
tion. The conclusions reached are expressed in the new title:
The Discovery of the Child. After some chapters I have given
a short survey of more recent developments. The reader is
requested, therefore, to bear in mind that the greater portion of
this book was written at the very beginning of our experiments
and often refers to scientific theories and experiments then preva¬
lent or to situations of those days. The times have changed.
XIV THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

science lias made great progress and so has our work, but our
principles have only been confirmed and also our conviction that
humanit}^ can hope for a solution of its problems, the most urgent
of which are those of peace and unity, only by turning its attention
and energies to the discovery of the child and the development
of the great potentialities of the human personality in course of
construction.

Foma, November, 1948, Maria Montessori

 CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE
Introduction to the Third Italian Edition V
Introduction to the Present Edition xiii
I. Critical Considerations 1
II. The History of Methods . 21
m. Inaugural Address . 42'
IV. Teaching Methods Used in Children’s Houses . 67
V. Nature in Education . . 95
VI. Education in Movement . 109
VII. The Material for Development . . 143
VIII. The Exercises . 151
IX. Visual and Auditory Distinctions . 170
X. Generalizations on the Education of the Senses . 187
XI. The Teacher . 195
XIL The Technique of Lessons . 200
XIII. Observations on Prejudices . 212
XIV. Elevation .... . 224
XV. Written Language . 237
XVI. The Mechanism of Writing . 257
XVII. Reading .... . 287
XVIII. The Speech of the Child . 301
XIX. The Teaching of Numeration and the Approach
to Arithmetic . 326
XX. Later Developments in Arithmetic . 340
XXI. Drawing and Representative Art . 344
XXII. The Beginning of Musical Art . . 350'
XVI
THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD
PAGE
■CHAPTER
Religious Education . . 358
xxni.
Discipline in the Children’s House . 367
XXIV.
Conclusions and Impressions . . 386
XXV.
The Triumphal Chariot . 390
XXVL
XXVII. Sequence and Grades in the Presentation of

Material . 396
 ILLUSTRATIONS
Facing

Dr. Maria Montessori Title page

A Municipal Montessori School in Amsterdam, Holland . 76
Exercises of Practical Life . 92
Preparing and Serving Meals . 94
Nature Study .... . 100
Polishing Brass .... . 120
The Buttoning Frames . 122
Walking on the Line . . . - . 124
Apparatus for the Baric Sense . . 159
Concentrated Balancing of the Baric Tablets . 162
Comparison of Sound Boxes . 162
Materials for the Training of Visual Discriminations . 170
Exercises with the Apparatus for Visual Discrimination . 172
Materials for the Chromatic Sense . 174
Exercises with the Apparatus for the Chromatic Sense . 176
Geometrical Insets . • • • . 180
Exercises with Geometrical Figures . 182
Foundation for Musical Education . 186
Exercises with Geometrical Figures . 258
Sand Paper Letters and Movable Alphabet . 266
The Exercises Leading to Writing . 276
Experiments in Physics . 324
Materials for Number Work . 328
Advanced Apparatus in Arithmetic . 332
First Exercises in Number Work . 334
Exercises with the Apparatus for Arithmetic . 342
An Exhibition of Drawings Made by Children . 344
Materials for Geography and Botany . 390
. 397
The Globe • • •
C H A P T E R" I

CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS ON SCIENCE

APPLIED TO THE SCHOOL ^

I HAVE no intention of producing a treatise on Scientific Pedagogy;

these preliminary notes have the modest aim of making known
the rather interesting results of a teaching experience which wnuld
seem to open up a way for the practical application of new
methods, capable of giving to teaching a wider application of
scientific experiments without depriving it of its natural bases
on theoritical principles. It is asserted in an exaggerated
manner, and has been talked of for. many years, that pedagogy^
as has already been done in medicine, should tend to forsake
the purely theoritical fields in order to set its bases on the
positive findings of experiments. The physiological or experi¬
mental psychology which, from Weber and Fechner to Wundt
and Binet, has come to be organized into a new science, would
seem to be destined to furnish for it that substratum of pre¬
paration which the old psychology furnished to philosophic
pedagogy. And morphological anthropology also, when ap¬
plied to the physical study of the pupils, appears to furnish
another link with the new pedagogy. But the truth is that the

^ The reader must keep in mind that these notes form part of the text of
this book when it first appeared in 1909.
 2 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

S0“Caiied scientific pedagogy has never yet been either worked out
' or defined. It is something vague about which one talks, but
■ which, in reality, does not exist.
■ Some years ago, there arose in Italy, under the directions of
practical doctors, some so-called Schools of Scientific Pedagogy
which had for their object the' training of teachers in the new
trend of pedagogy. These schools were a great success, and gathered
together, it may be said, all Italian teachers. The teachers,
before the new ideas had come to us from Germany and France,
had already been interested by the Italian schools of anthropology
in the methodical observation of children during the various
periods of growth and in measurements made with exact instru¬
ments. Sergi, for example, for about thirty years had been
spreading assiduously among the teachers the idea of seeking through
scientifically directed observation a source for reforming educa¬
tion. ‘‘Today in social life,” said Sergi, “there exists an urgent
need—that of reforming methods of education and instruction,
and whoever strives to reach this goal is striving for the regene¬
ration of man.”
In his pedagogical writings collected in one volume—
cazione de Istmzione^ (Pensieri)—in which he gathers together
his propaganda lessons and lectures, he indicates as a path leading
to the desired reform the methodical study of the person being
educated, conducted under the guidance of pedagogic anthropo¬
logy and experimental psychology.
“For several years I have struggled with an idea which, the
more I think of it, the more do I find right and useful for human
instruction and education; it is that, if we are to have natural
methods to attain these objects, it is necessary that we have
numerous exact and reasoned observations made about man,
and particularly about the stage of infancy, in which there must
■be laid the foundations of education and culture. ,
“Measuring the head, the height, etc. does not, it is true,
constitute pedagogy, but it means following the way which leads
^ Trevesini Publishers,' 1892.
 CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS 3

to it, for we cannot educate anyone unless w^e possess direct

knowledge of them.”
The authority of Sergi gave rise to the conviction that once
the individual was known through the medium of experiments
the an of education would come into existence almost naturally,
and, as often happens, that gave rise in his follow^ers to con¬
fusion of ideas, namely of confusing the experimental study
of the pupil with his education. And since the one w^'as made to
appear as the way to reach the other, which ought to spring from
it naturally, pedagogic anthropology founded by Sergi was there¬
fore called in Italy Scientific Pedagogy. The converts to the
new term carried as their standard the “ Biographical Chart,”
supposing that once the flag was boldly raised on the school
battlefield, the victory would be w’^on.
Hence the school of Scientific Pedagogy taught the teachers
to make anthropometric measurements, to use instruments
for ascertaining tactile sensibility, to, collect data for case histories.
In this way the body of scientific masters was formed.
Certainly, in other countries, nothing better or more extensive
was done.
In France, in England and especially in America, there
were attempted studies in anthropology and pedagogic psycho¬
logy in the, elementary schools, inspired by the illusion,, of ex¬
tracting from anthropometry and from psychometry the reform of
the school. Following this came the study of the individual,
extending from the psychology of Wundt to the tests of Binet,
but all the theories were vitiated by the same mistake. Besides,
scaroely ever was it the teacher who carried out such research,
but doctors who were more interested in their own special science
than in education, and who sought to make experimental con¬
tributions to psychology and anthropometry rather than to organize
their work and their objects for the building up of . scientific peda¬
gogy. Finally, the anthropology and the psychology were never
applied to educating the children in the schools; never did the
teachers in their practice rise to the level of the theoritical scientist.
4 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD
Instead of that, practical progress in the school required
real co-ordination between the guidance of study and of
thought, such as is required directly in the most important
branches of science which would raise the teachers’ level of culture
from the state to which they are confined today. To make provi¬
sion for this eminently practical idea there was founded in Rome
University a Faculty for Pedagogy, with the intention of raising
Pedagogy from being merely a secondary branch of the Faculty
of Philosophy, as it had been hitherto in Italy, to being an inde¬
pendent Faculty, which like that of Medicine would include
various subjects, among which would be Pedagogic Hygiene,
Pedagogic Anthropology and Experimental Psychology.
Nevertheless these sciences continued to move along their
own ways, and Pedagogy itself remained in the old philosophic
obscurity in which it had been born, without letting itself be
touched, far less be transformed.
It was a mistake to suppose that by carrying the stones of
hard, dry experiments from the laboratory into the old, ruinous
school one could rebuild it; this narrow way could not lead to
renovation in the art of preparing new generations.
Furthermore, to train teachers in the principles of experi¬
mental science is not easy in practice. Teaching them in the
most painstaking fashion anthropometry and psychometry only
resulted in our producing machines, the utility of which became
very problematical. By teaching them to experiment, new teachers
were certainly not created. And above all the educators were left
on the threshold of experimental sciences, and were not admitted
to their noblest and most intimate precincts, where the scientists
are created.
What in fact is a scientist?
Certainly it is not the man who is capable of manipula¬
ting all the physical apparatus in a laboratory,, or who can
carry out with complete confidence the reactions in a chemical
laboratory, or who knows how to prepare microscopic sections in
biology. It is very often persons much below the standing of
 CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS 5

scientists, sucIi as assistants and laboratory staff, who,, rather

than the scientists, are the greatest experts in experimental tech¬
nique.
He is a scientist who has found out a way leading to an
understanding of the profound truths of life and has learnt how
to raise the veil covering its fascinating secrets. He is one who
through such research has felt coming to life within him so passion¬
ate a love for the mysteries of nature that he forgets himself. The
scientist is not the man who knows the instruments thoroughly;
he is the man who knows nature. This sublime lover displays,
as does a monk, the external signs of his passion. We call him
a scientist who lives his life in his study quite oblivious of the out¬
side world; who sometimes dees eccentric things such as being
careless about his dress, because he gives no thought to himself;
who" works so unremittingly with a microscope that he loses his
eyesight; who inoculates himself with mberculosis and who infects
himself with cholera, in his anxiety to learn the carriers by which,
diseases are transmitted; and who knowing that a certain chemical
substance may be explosive, yet carries out the preparation of it
and is blown up.
That is the spirit of the man of science to whom nature reveals
her secrets, crowning him with the glory of discovery.
There exists then a spirit in a scientist, surpassing any mechan¬
ism belonging to science. And a scientist has reached the^^
height of his glory when the spirit has triumphed over the mechan¬
ism. For him science will not only have new revelations of nature,
but also philosophic theories of thought,
I consider that, we ought to infuse in teachers the spirit rather
than the mechanism of the scientist; that is, the aim of training,
ought to be directed towards the spirit instead of towards the
machinery. We must create in the soul of the teacher interest
in the phenomena of nature in general, till he becomes'one of
those who love nature, and realizes the anxious expectation of the
man who makes experiments and waits for the revelation which
they may give.
 6 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Instruments are like the alphabet, and one must know how¬
to use them in order to be able to read in nature. But as the book
which contains the revelation of the greatest thoughts of a writer
derives from the alphabets the means for composing words from
letters, so nature, through the mechanism of experiments, reveals
the infinite series of her secrets.
Anyone who could spell might be able to read laboriously
the words in a spelling-book, as well as those in a work of Shakes¬
peare, provided that in the last case the print was clear enough.
The person who is initiated only into the crudity of experimenting
is like the person who spells out the letter-sense of the words in
a spelhng book, and it is at such a stage that we leave teachers
if we limit their training to mechanical methods.
Instead of that we must make them interpreters of the spirit
of nature, just as the man who, having once learnt to spell, may
learn to read by means of graphic symbols the thoughts of Shakes¬
peare, Goethe or Dante.
As we see, the difference is great and the way is long.
Yet our first mistake was natural. The child who has finished
the spelling-book imagines that he can read; indeed he reads the
shop-signs, the titles of newspapers and every word or sentence
which comes under his eye. He would make a very simple mistake.
If, on entenng a library, he imagined that he could read the meaning
of the books in it. If he tried, he would feel that he could only
read mechanically, and would leave the library to go to school
again.
The illusion is the same when it is attempted to train teachers
for a new system of education by teaching them anthropometry
and experimental psychology.
^

_ Let us put aside the difficulties of training teacher-scientists

in that accepted sense; let us not even make an attempt at a pro-
g^me, because otherwise we should have to deviate into a subject
which hes outside our purpose. Let us suppose, instead, that we
have already prepared the teachers, through prolonged practice
 CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS 7
in the observation of nature, and have raised them to the level
of those zoologists who get up in the middle of the night to make
tiresome journeys into the woods that they may be present at the
^.wakening and the first doings in the daily life of some family of
insects in 'which they are interested. Here we have the scientist
who may be sleepy or weary of the way, but who is yet unrelaxing
in his vigilance; he is not aware that he is muddy or dusty, he
does not mind when the mists are soaking him or the sun is
scorching him; he is intent solely on keeping Ms presence a dead
secret, that, hour after hour, the insects may quietly perform their
natural functions which he is keen to observe.
Let us suppose that they have reached the stage of that scien¬
tist who, already short-sighted, knowmg how the work will tire
his eyes, yet keeps under observation under the microscope the
natural movements of some infusoria. He comes to the conclusion
that in their mode of separating from one another and of select¬
ing food they are endowed with a shado'wy consciousness or instinct.
He then disturbs this quiet life of theirs with an electric stimulus,
noticing how some group themselves round the positive pole and
some round the negative. Then he experiments with light stimulus
and watches how some hasten towards the light whilst others avoid
it. In this way he studies the phenomena of tropism, always
keeping in the forefront the thought that what has to be decided
is whether or not the attraction, to or the avoidance of stimuli
is of the same character as that of the natural separations
and the choice of food; in other words, he wants to know if the
movements are prompted by choice and a dawning conscious¬
ness, or better by natural instinct, rather than by some physical
attraction and repulsion like that wMch exists between a magnet
and iron. And let us suppose that this scientist, finding that
it is two o’clock in the afternoon and that he has not yet had his
lunch, is delighted to think that he has been working in a labo¬
ratory instead of in his home, where he would have been called
two hours before and interrupted both in Ms interesting obser¬
vations and in his fast.
8 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Let us suppose that the teacher has reached (independently

of his scientific education) a similar feeling of interest, although
in a lesser degree, in the observation of natural psychological
phenomena in children. Well, such preparation would not be
enough.
He is destined for his own special work—not that of observing
insects or infusoria, but man.
And it IS not man in the manifestations of hJs daily life, like
those of a family of insects when they awake in the morning, but
man at the awakening of his mental life.
For him who desires to cultivate it, interest in humanity
must possess a quality which connects more intimately the observer
and the obser\'ed than that which connects the zoologist or the
bot^st with nature; and that which is more intimate is neces¬
sarily more pleasant. Man cannot love the insect or the chemical
reaction without becoming worn out; to anyone watching him
without understanding, such attrition appears as suffering, as the
exhaustion of life itself, as martyrdom. But the love of man for
man may be sweeter, and may be so simple that not only those
pmileged in spirit but the masses may attain it without an

« • rtf’ “ have been sufficiently imbued with the

pmt of the scientists, must comfort themselves with the thought
that \ery scon they will be able to experience happiness when they
become obsenors of humanity.

ofth^J"^?! T preparation
of ?o2 fi Tu interpreting the sincere minds
^ first followers of Jesus Christ who were listening to him

rd began to
asked^im^ greatness would be assessed in this Kingdom, and
KiWr^ f w “Who is the greatest in the
&^dom of Heaven?” Jesus cahed a Uttle child to Him and said-

thr^eirunthe “ little child, the same is

me greatest in the Kingdom of Heaven.”
 CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS 9

Now let us imagine a mind filled witli a mystic ardour which

follows^all the revelations of the little child’s mind, in order that,
with mingled feelings of respect and love, of sacred curiosity and
of aspiration after , the highest places in heaven, he may learn the
way to his own perfecting, that he may carry his perfection into
the beautiful work-room of a classroom peopled with little
children.
Weil, this would not he the new educator whom we wish to
create!
Let us try to combine in one single mind the keen spirit of
sacrifice which animates the scientist with the inefiable ecstasy of
a mystic, and we shall have prepared completely the spirit of
the teacher.
He will really learn from the child himself both the. means
and the manner of Ms own education; that is, he will learn from the
cMld how to improve himself as a teacher.
Let us picture to ourselves one of our botanists or zoologists,
skilled in the technique of observing and experimenting, who for
example has made journeys to study the Peronospora in their natural
surroundings, and who has followed up Ms operations in the field
by microscopic and general work in the laboratory, conducting
experiments in culture as part of his final research . Or let us tMnk
of another worker who has gone into the stables to study the ticks
breeding in the excrements of animals.. Or, finally, take one who
understands what is meant by nature study, and who is familiar with
all the means which modern experimental science offers for such
work. Let us suppose that one of these men, selected because of
Ms successful research, is given a scientist’s post where he is re¬
quired to carry out research work on the Hymenoptera. What
would he feel if, when he took up Ms new post, there was placed
in front of him a box, covered with clear glass, at the bottom
of wMch were fastened with pins beautiful, preserved, dead
butterflies, their wings outspread? The young student would say
that tMs was a game for cMldren and not material for study by
scientists, that those preparations in the box were what followed
^ THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

1^, |)erfoniiaiice of boys in the pEblic garden when they caught

butterflies with a net fastened to a stick. The experimentalist

confronted with such material can do nothing.
The case would be the same if we placed a master who was a
scientist according to our definition in our present day schools,
where the children are repressed in all the spontaneous expres¬
sions of their individuality as if they were dead things, and aie
fixed in their respective places on the benches like butterflies trans¬
fixed with a pin, whilst they spread abroad the wings of the knowledge
acquired in the driest fashion—knowledge which may be symbolized
by those wings which signify vanity.
It is not enough, then, to train the scientific teacher; we must
prepare the school for him.
The school must allow freedom for the development of the
activity of the child, if scientific education is to come into being*
this is the essential reform.
No one will dare to assert that such a principle already exists in
teaching oi in the school. It is quite true that certain pedagogues
like Rousseau set out fantastic principles and vague aspirations
of liberty for the child, but the true conception of liberty is,
m fact, unknown to the pedagogues. Their conception of liberty
is often that which peoples set up for themselves in the hour
of their rebellion against slavei'y; or taking a higher level, people
have an idea of liberty which is always restricted because it means
a step to be mounted on a staircase, that is, it is the liberation of
something in a partial sense—of a country, of a caste, of a form
of thought.
On the contrary, the conception of liberty which ought to
inspire teaching is universal; it is the liberation of life imprisoned
by an infinite number of obstacles which are opposed to its
harmonious development, bodily and spiritual. This is a reality
of supreme importance, neglected up till now by the great crowd
of observers!
It is not merely a question the discussion of which should be
curtailed; it,has to be proved.'
 CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS Ijj.

Anyone who says that the principle of liberty p^rj^a^p^^

teaching and the school would raise a smile, just as if a chM-^^Eo^
saw placed before him a box of transfixed butterflies were to insist
that they were alive and could fly.
A principle of repression which almost approaches slavery
pervades a great part of teaching, and therefore the same principle
animates the school.
One proof of that is the bench. Here is a shining example of
the early scientific, meteriahstic pedagogy which deluded itself
by carrying its scanty stones for the rebuilding of the Uttle, crumb¬
ling edifice of the school. The rough, dreary bench existed wher¬
ever scholars were gathered together; then science comes in and per¬
fects the bench. All the contributions of anthropology are drawn
upon to improve the bench; the age of the child and the length of
his legs are used to make his seat of the right height; with mathe¬
matical precision is calculated the distance between the seat and
the reading desk lest the child’s back be deformed by spinal curv¬
ature; and finally (oh, the depths of insight and adaptation!) they
separate the seats, measuring them in width so that once the child
is seated he cannot stretch himself out to make the slightest lateral
movement, and makes sure that he is separated from his neigh¬
bour; the bench is made in such a way that as far as possible the
child is kept motionless. All this separation has for its hidden
object the prevention of acts of sexual perversion in the class—and
that even in infant schools!
What can one say of such prudence in a society in which it
would be considered scandalous to enunciate principles of sexual
morality in education, lest innocence should be contaminated?
But here is science lending itself to this hypocrisy by making
machines. Not only so; complacency goes further! Science
perfects the benches so as to permit immobility to the child
to the highest degree possible or, one may say, to spare him
every movement; so that the pupil may be firmly fixed in his
bench, so that the bench itself forces him to assume a hygienio
position, with the seat, footrest and desk so arranged that the-
12 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD
^MM can never rise to his feet. But, because the seat falls when
*a certain moveinent is made, the desk rises, the footrest is over¬
turned and behold! the child has the exact space needed for stand¬
ing erect.
Moving along this track the benches progressed towards
perfection. All the followers of the so-called scientific pedagogy
evolved a model one; not a few nations were proud of their
national bench. In the competitive struggle, diplomas were
.awarded and patents were bought.
Undoubtedly this bench was based upon the findings of many
sciences—anthropology, with the measuring of the body and the
diagnosis of age; physiology, involving the study of muscular
movements; psychology, in respect of precosity and perversion
of instincts; and, above all, hygiene, in trying to prevent scoliosis.^
Here, then, was a really scientific bench, showing distinctly
•a morphological study of the child.
Here was an example of the literal application of science to
the school.
But I believe that it will not be long before we shall be struck
with wonder by what seems to be an incomprehensible fact, namely
that so many students of child-hygiene, anthropology and socio¬
logy, in the course of the progress in thought made in the first
decade of the twentieth century, in all nations where a movement
for the protection of the child seems to have been revived, have
failed to recognize the fundamental error of the bench.
I believe that not for long will people run their hands over
those model benches wondering at their perfection, or study about
them in books illustrated with words and figures, scarcely trusting
■their own judgment. ■
The bench ^it was intended to prevent curvature of the spine
in the pupils!
Yet the scholors were subjected to such a regime that, even
if they had been born healthy their vertebral columns would have
l^ecome contorted and they would have become hump-backed!
^ Curvature of the spine. ■
 CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS IT

The vertebral colunin, the fundairieiital, biologically primitivo

part, the oldest part of the skeleton; the most firmly fixed, since
the skeleton is the hardest part of the, organism! The ver¬
tebral column, which was able to resist without yielding in the
fiercest struggle waged by primitive or civilized man, when he fought
with the lions of the forest, when he subdued the mammoth, when,
he dug stone, when he bent , iron, when he subdued the earth—
that vertebral column does not resist but bends under the yoke
of the school!
It is incomprehensible that so-called science should have-
laboured over the perfecting of an instrument of slavery in the
school, without being penetrated in the slightest degree, by at
least one ray of light, from the movement which was taking shape
outside for bringing about social liberation.
The direction of reform is well known and is repeated by
everybody. The underfed workman does, not ask for restoratives,
but for an economic betterment which will prevent under-nutrition.
The miner who, by carrying on his work extended on his stomach
during too many hours of the day, is subject to hernia of the intes¬
tines, does not ask for abdonainal belts which would keep the
intestines in place, but asks for a reduction of hours and better
working conditions that he may live a healthy life like other men.
And when, during this same social epoch we acknowledge-
that in the school the children work in conditions so adverse to
the normal development of life that their skeletons may become-
deformed, then we respond to such a terrible revelation by giving
them an orthopedic bench. It is like offering a hernia belt to the
miner, or arsenic to the underfed man.
Some time ago a lady, imagining that I encouraged scienti¬
fic innovations in the school, submitted for my judgment, with
evident complacency, a corset for pupils, invented by herself, with
which to complete the prophylactic work of the bench. It is true
that we doctors use for the cure of deformities of the vertebral
column means other than medicinal; we use orthopedic instru¬
ments, corsets, and the treatment by suspension—the latter means
14 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

for the rickety child who is suspended periodically by the head and
the top of the shoulders, so that the weight of the body draws
down and thus straightens the spine. In the school the orthopedic
instrument is in full action—the bench; today, some one suggests
the corset; one step more, and we will have the suspension method
advocated for scholars.
All this is the logical consequence of material scientific ap¬
plications in the decadent school. The same might be said of the
applications of anthropology and experimental psychology to
education in our schools of today.
Obviously the rational way to prevent scoliosis among children
is to change the form of their work, so that they are no longer
compelled to remain for many hours in a harmful position.
It is a victory for liberty which is needed, not the mechanism
■of a bench.
Even if the bench did good service to the child’s skeleton,
it would make the room unhygienic, because of the difficulty
of removing it to clean underneath; further, the board on which
the child places his feet is not made to lift up, and so there
accumulates under it the dust brought in by little feet which have
been walking in the dirty streets.
Today the furniture of homes is being transformed so as to
become lighter and simpler, so that it can be moved about easily
and probably cleaned everyday, if not actually washed. But the
school has remained blind to the transformations going on
around it.
One must carefully consider what will happen to the spirit
of the child when he is condemned to grow up in such an arti¬
ficial and vicious manner that his very bones are deformed by it.
When we speak of the redemption of the workers, we always have
in mind that, underneath the surface evil, such as poverty of blood,
hernia, etc. there exists another deeper trouble which attacks the
human soul in the state of slavery, and this we refer to directly
when we say that the labourer must be restored to liberty. We
know very well that, when a man’s blood becomes impoverished
 CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS 15

or his intestines get displaced, his mind gets depressed, stupified

or perhaps killed. The moral degradation of the slave which is
the main hindrance to our progress ought to be raised, and which
cannot be done because of this dead weight. The call for redemp¬
tion comes louder still from souls than from bodies.
What shall we say when it is a matter of educating children ?
Here is a spectacle with which we are very familiar. In the
classroom there is the interfering teacher who pours knowledge
into the heads of the pupils. That his work may succeed, he must
maintain the discipline of immobility, of forced attention on the
part of his students; and the master must have power to use freely
both rewards and punishments by which to restrain those who
are condemned to be his hearers.
These external rewards and punishments, if I may be allowed
the expression, constitute the bench of the soul, that is, the instru¬
ment by which slavery is inflicted on the spirit, except that here
it is applied not to lessen deformities but to give rise to them.
In fact, rewards and punishments are adopted to compel
children to obey the laws of the world rather than those of God.
The laws of the world for the children are dictated almost always by
the will of the adult man, who clothes himself with an exaggerated,
unlimited authority.
Too often he commands because he is strong, and wishes the
child to obey because he is weak. Instead of that, adult man
ought to constitute himself as a loving and enlightened guide to
the child and assist the new man to find ithe ways which lead to the
Kingdom of Heawn. Of quite another character are the rewards
and punishments promised by Jesus—the elevation of the good
and the abyss of perdition into which the wicked must fall. Any¬
one who makes use of his talents may be exalted and the reward
is accessible to all, whether their talents be many or few.
But, in the schools, there is only one reward available for all
those who strive, a fact which gives rise to emulation, greed and
vanity, instead of the upliftment which springs from effort,
humility and love, which all may attain. In this way we create a
16 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

conflict not only between the school and social progress, but also
between the school and religion. Some day the child is bound to
ask himself if the rewards obtained in school had not proved
themselves obstacles to eternal Ufe, or if the punishments which
had humiliated him, when he could not defend himself, had not
made of him the man who hungered and thirsted after justice,
and whom Jesus defended from the summit of the mountain.
In social life, it is true, there do exist rewards and punishments
different from those which are contemplated in a spiritual light,
and the adult sets himself to force the child in a good time to accom¬
modate itself to, and to restrain itself within the require¬
ments of this world. The rewards and the punishments are de¬
signed to accustom him to a ready submission.
But if we bestow a comprehensive glance on social morality
we see the yoke growing gradually less oppressive, that is, we see
the gradual return in triumph of rational nature, of life governed
by thought. The yoke of the slave gives place to that of the ser¬
vant, and this in turn to the yoke of the workman.
All forms of slavery tend to disappear by degrees. The
history of human progress is a history compounded of conquests
and liberations, and we style that which does not come under
these headings as retrogression. Now we must ask ourselves if the
school has to be fixed in a permanent condition which society
would consider retrogressive.
Something very similar to the school corresponds in the great
government administrative departments and their employees.
They also write all day long for some great distant result, the
immediate advantage of which is not apparent. That means that
the State carries on its great undertakings through their agency,
and that the welfare of the people of the whole nation is dependent
on their work. For them, the immediate object is promotion,
as for the pupff it means promotion from class to class. The
man who loses sight of his lofty destiny is like a degraded child
like a slave who has been deceived; the dignity of man is reduced
to the level of the dignity of a machine, which needs to be oiled
 CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS 17

if it is to work, because there is within it no breath of life. All

the very insignificant things like desire for decorations form the
artificial stimulus needed for his dry, dark journey; just so do we
give medals to scholars. The fear of missing promotion
hinders them from flight and binds them to monotonous and
assiduous labour, just as the fear of not passing into a higher class
forces the pupil to stick to his book. The censure of the superior
officer is exactly like the reproof of the teacher; the correction of
badly done letters is the equivalent of a bad mark on the badly
done exercise of the pupil.
If administrations do not adopt the exceUent course which is
necessary for the greatness of the country, if corruption pene¬
trates them with ease, it is because the greatness of the man has
been obliterated in the conscience of the clerk, his vision has
been restricted to the trifling matters which lie close to him and
which are consjdered by him as rewards or punishments. Power
allied with favouritism can do a great deal, because it acts on these
scholars of the State.
But the government of a country survives because the rectitude
of most of its employees is great enough to resist the corruption
of rewards and punishments, and this irresistible force of honesty
prevails. Thus life in social environment triumphs against every
cause of impoverishment and of death and marches on to new vic¬
tories, and like the instinct of liberty it beats down all obstacles,
going from victory to victory.
It is this grand, inner force of life, a force often latent and
unsuspected, which is the driving force of the world.
No man who has really done great, successful work has ever
done it because he was animated by the sole attraction of what
we comprehensively call a reward, or only by the fear of the evil
which we call punishment. If there were a war in which a great
army of giants were fighting with no other motive than the lust
for winning promotion, epaulettes or medals, or were merely
driven by the fear of being shot, and if they were opposed by a
handful of pigmies burning with love of their fatherland, the
2
18 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

¥ictory would smile on the latter. When heroism is absent

from any work rewards and punishments will be able to do no
more than complete the work of destruction, permeating it with
'Corriiptioii.
All victories and all hnniaii progress are dependent on the
.'Strength which comes from within.
Thus a young student may become a great doctor if he is
inspired by the spirit of his vocation; but if he is influenced only
by the hope of a legacy, or of a good match, or of any external
advantage whatever, he will never become a true teacher and a
great doctor, and the world will not move far ahead as the result
of Ms work. If the rewards and punishments of the school
and of ordinary life are essential to making a youth work up to
a university degree, then it would be better that such an individual
•does not become a doctor. Everyone possesses some special
bent, some latent vocation—^modest, perhaps, but yet useful.
Rewards may divert the vocational impulse into the false path
of vanity, and in this way there may be disturbed or destroyed
some human activity.
We are always repeating that the world is making progress,
.and that man must be urged to strive after progress. But progress
is founded on new things which lie hidden, and most frequently
upon things already in existence which are improved or perfected ;
and they not being visible are not prized, but often bring pioneers
to martyrdom.
What a calamity it would be if poems were written solely
from a desire to win laurels on the Campidoghoii It would be
better that the vision should remain buried in the mind of the poet,
and that the muse of poetry should disappear. Poetry must be
born in the mind of the poet when he is not thinking either of reward
or of Mmself; and if he does win laurels, let him not grow vain.
There exists also an exterior reward for man. When the orator
sees the faces of his listeners becoming charged with emotion, he

• Hill in Rome where in the days of the Roman Emnire and

m the Renaissance poets-iaureate were created. ^
 CRITICAL CONSIDERATIONS 19

experiences a feeling so great that it can be compared only with

the intense joy of one who discovers that he is being loved. It
is always in touching and canqueriiig the minds of others that
w^e derive the only reward which is a true recompense.
Sometimes it happens that we pass through some momeiits
of happiness vouchsafed to men that they may continue their
existence in peace. It may be satisfied love, or a son born to us,
or the publication of a book, or a great discovery, which per¬
suades us that no one ever was as happy as we are. But, if at
that moment some legal authority, or one which is vested in
our teacher, comes forward and offers us a medal or a reward,
then he acts as the tiresome destroyer of our true rewurd. “ Who
are you,” our vanished illusion might say, who has reminded
me that I am not superior to all others since some.one is so much
higher than I that he can give me a reward? ” The reward, given
to a man should come only from God.
As for punishment, we do not mean to deny the social
function and the individual efficacy of it, but the moral adequacy
and the universal necessity for it. It is most useful when applied
to inferiors; but those are few, and social progress does not depend
on them. The penal code threatens us with punishment if we are
dishonest within the limits prescribed by the law. But we are not'
honest merely through fear of the law; wq refrain from stealing and
killing because we see the intrinsic sinfulness in doing them, which
perception is intended to make us feel sharply, because the tenure
of our existence influences us towards good conduct and is con¬
stantly and effectively restraining us from the danger of certain sins.
Without entering into psychological questions, it may be
affirmed that a delinquent, before he sins, knows of the existence
of a penalty and has felt the penal code w^eighing down on him. He
has challenged it, or he has entangled himself in it imagining that
he could set himself free; but there has ensued a struggle between
crime and punishment within his conscience. Whether or not this
penal code fulfills the purpose of preventing crime, tmdoubtedly
it has made for a single limited category of individuals—crinainals.
20 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD
The enoimous majority of citizens are honest even when they are
ignorant of the threats of punishment.
The true punishment for the normal man is to lose the con¬
sciousness of his own power and greatness, which constitute his
quality cf manhood; and such punishment often falls upon men
when they are rejoicing in an abundance of what, in common langu¬
age, are styled rewards. Unfortunately, man is not aware of the
real punishment which threatens to overwhelm him.
Here there may be disclosed the remedy—education.
At the present time we keep the pupils in a school com¬
pressed between these instruments which degrade both body and
spirit—the bench and external rewards and punishments—for the
purpose of bringing them under the discipline of immobility and
silence, and in order to lead them—where? Unfortunately, nowhereT
The object is to pour mechanically into their brain’s pro¬
grammes which are often drawn up by ministers and imposed by
laws, alien to the trend of their time.
Confronted with such forgetfulness of life which flows on into-
our posterity, what can we do but hang our heads in confusion
and cover our blushing faces with our hands ?
Truly—“Today there stands forth one urgent need: the
reform of methods in education and instruction; and he who strug¬
gles towards this end is struggUng for the regeneration of man.”
 H A P T E R II

THE HISTORY OF METHODS

In order to build up a scientific pedagogy, it is necessary to strike

out in a direction different from that which has been in vogue.
The training of teachers must go on at the same time as the
transformation of the school. If we have teachers trained in
observing and in experimenting, it is right that they should be able
to observe and experiment in the school.
A fundamental requisite for scientific pedagogy ought there¬
fore to be a school which allows the spontaneous expressions
and the individual vitality of the child to have free play. If a
system of teaching is to be founded on the individual study of
the child, it will have to be understood from the observation of
free children, children who are studied and watched over, but not
repressed.
In vain does one expect educational reform from the methodi¬
cal examination of the children of today according to the
guidance offered by experimental psychology and by anthropology.
Every branch of the experimental sciences has arisen from the
apphcation of its own special method.
Generally speaking, it is important to define the method,
the technique and after its apphcation to wait for the results which
22 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

will be disclosed by the experiment. It is also characteristic

of experimental science that an experiment should be approached
without preconceptions of any kind about the eventual issue of
the experiiTieiit.
Anyone who experiments must for the moment get rid
of ail prejudices, and formal education forms part of these
prejudices*
If then we wish to attempt experimental education, we must
not have recourse to kindred sciences, but must almost forget
them and clear the mind, so that it can proceed without any hind¬
rance which will obscure the search for truth in the field belonging
exclusively to teaching itself.
We must mot, therefore, start from ideas already accepted
about child psychology, but from a method which sets the child
at liberty, so that we may deduce from observation of his
spontaneous manifestations the real child psychology. Perhaps
this method holds great surprises in reserve!
*

This then is the problem—^to establish its own method for

experimental teaching.
■ It cannot be that of other experimental sciences. If to some
extent scientific pedagogy is integrated with hygiene, anthropo¬
logy and psychology, and even adopts in part the relative technique
in method, that is, limited to details in the study of the individ¬
ual to be educated, needing to be kept parallel to the very dijffer-
ent work of education, it can only be a collateral contribution to
pedagogy.
My present study treats of the method of experimental
pedagogy. It is the result of the experience which I have
obtained in infant schools, and in the first classes of elementary
schools.
I offer really only the beginning of the method, as I have
applied it to children between the ages of three and six, but
I believe that this attempt, because of the surprising results
 THE HISTORY OF METHODS 23

which it has given, will be made to continue in an extended

form.^
Although this educational system of which experience has
proved the excellence is not yet definitely completed, nevertheless
it already constitutes an entity sufiiciently organic to be usefully
adopted in infant schools and in the first classes in elementary
schools.
I am not really exact w4en I say that the present work is
founded on a few years’ experience; I do not think that these
last efibrts of mine could have given rise to all that I am about
to describe.
The educational system, of the Children’s Houses did not
come into existence without prolonged preparations, and, though
the present experience with normal children is so short, it has
its origin in previous teaching experience with abnormal children,
and this presents a very long course of thought.
About twelve years ago, when I was an assistant doctor in
the Mental Clinic in the University of Rome, I had occasion to
frequent the asylum to study sick people to be chosen for the pur¬
poses of clinical teaching, and in this way I became interested in
the idiot children miaintained there. At this time medical treat¬
ment of the thyroid was in Ml favour; therefore, in the midst of
the confusion and exaggeration about therapeutic successes, the
interest of doctors, to a greater extent th.an previously, was focussed
on meantally afflicted children.
It was through my interest in deficient children that I came
to know the special method of education devised by Edward
Seguin, and also to investigate in a general way the treatments
for various forms of abnormality such as deafness, paralysis, etc.
The fact that teaching must be linked up with medicine in therapy

^ The method has now been extended, and is largely experimented with
in elementary classes: it is described in the book, UAutmducazione mile
scoule Elementari {Jht Advanced Montessori Method). In more recent times
it has extended backward to birth and forward to adulthood. Several secon¬
dary Montessori schools are in existence and have obtained State recognition.
24 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD
forms the practical victory of the theories of the time, and under
this guidance the treatment of kinesthesia in particular was
extended.
However, thinking differently from my colleagues, I felt
intuitively that the question of the defectives was definitely one of
pedagogy rather than of medicine; and whilst many spoke in
the medical conferences on the medico-pedagogical method for
the cure and education of mentally defective children, I raised the
question of their moral education at the Educational Conference
in Turin in 1898; and I believe that I touched a very vibrant chord,
for the idea, having passed from the doctors to the elementary
teachers, spread in a flash as being a question of keen interest for
the school.
Indeed I was given by the Minister of Education and by
my teacher, Guido Baccelli, the work of conducting for the
common teachers of the elementary schools in Rome a course of
lectures on the education of m^entally defective children. Later
on, there was founded a Pedagogical Institute where gathered the
idiots and mentally defective children who were at that time shelter¬
ed in the lunatic asylum in Rome together with adult lunatics,
without any special care being given to them. In this new institu¬
tion I proposed to carry out an educative experiment with these
children applying the principles of Seguin. I also admitted many
children who lived abandoned on the streets, and who on account
of their miental deficiency had been eliminated from the public
schools. In order, further, to orientate myself practically I stayed
some time at the Salpetriere at Paris where the classes founded
by Seguin himself for defective children were still in existence, and
afterwards I went to London, where some private institutions for
the education of this type of children existed.
Thus my interest in education was born. Nothing in fact
is so facinating as to attend to the mental awakening of these
children, enslaved by their own inferiority; and to witness
this kind of liberation of the soul from extinction through spirit¬
ual poverty; to see them arise, reviving and opening up towards
 THE HISTORY OF METHODS 25

inteiests that give life to their intelligence; to witness the happiness

that comes to them through every activity in which the .hand
becomes capable of achieving something. It is really man arising
from death to the joy of living. This spectacle is so fascinating
that it kept me for almost two years in daily co.ntact with these
•children. I was with them from early morning till evening as if
I were a real teacher, not a physician conducting an experiment.
These two years of practical work were m.y first approach
to pedagogy, because never before had I taken any interest in
education.
From the time when, in 1898-1900, I dedicated myself to the
education of defective children, I had the intuition that the methods
of Seguin were not merely an attempt at helping inferior beings,
the mentally defective children, but that they were based on prin¬
ciples far more reasonable than those in use in ordinary education.
Here indeed the result was not only that the pupils learned some¬
thing,” but one witnessed an awakening of the personality.
It seem.ed to me and to many who took interest in my experi¬
ments that it was a matter of method being different from the
ordinary methods, but not of methods particular to an inferior
mind. On the contrary these different methods contained a
•system of mental treatment that was very logical and supe.rior to
that .bemg' empirically applied to normal children. Slowly I
became convinced that si,milaF methods to normal children would
lead to a mental awakening and a beneficial modifying action in
them also. I had in fact come upon an experiment of scientific
pedagogy!
It was; then that I began a really profound study of the so-
called curative pedagogy, and consequently I wanted to under¬
take the study of normal teaching and the principles on which it'
is founded. Therefore I enrolled myself as a student of philo-
sophy in the university. A great faith animated me. Although
I did not know if I should ever be able to test the truth of my theory,
yet I left every other occupation in order to fathom it, preparing
myself almost as if for an unknown mission.
26 THE DISCOYERY OF THE CHILD

The methods for the education of defectives had their origin

at the time of the French Revolution in the work of doctor
J. M. G. Itard whose medical works have become historical, for
he was the founder of that branch of medical science which
specializes under the name of otiatry (diseases of the ear).
He was the first to attempt the methodical education of the
sense of hearing, in the institute of deaf-mutes founded by Pereire
in Paris; he succeeded in giving back hearing to those partially
deaf. Later, having had in his charge for eight years an idiot boy
who w^as known as the savage of Aveyron, he extended to all the
senses the educational methods which had already given excellent
results in hearing. Itard, a pupil of Pinel, was the first teacher
to practise observation of the pupil, in a way similar to that which
was done in the hospitals in the observation of the sick, especially
of those sufiering from nervous troubles.
The educational works of Itard are most interesting detailed
descriptions of his teaching attempts and experiments, and anyone
who reads them today will agree that they were the first attempts
at “ scientific pedagogy He, in fact, derived from scientific
study a series of exercises capable of modifying the personality, of
healing defects that kept the individual in a state of inferiority.
Itard actually succeeded in rendering semi-deaf children capable
of both hearing and speaking, whilst otherwise they would have
remained deaf and dumb and consequently for ever abnormal.
This is very difierent indeed from a simple study of the individual
carried out by means of the tests of experimental psychology.
They only lead to a statement on the mental personality; they do
not modify it but leave the educational methods unchanged. Here,
instead, the scientific means employed become the means by which
education is given, so that pedagogy itself is changed.
Itard, therefore, may be called the founder of scientific peda¬
gogy, not Wundt or Binet, who are the founders of a physio¬
logical psychology which can easily be applied also in the schools.
This is a fundamental point which well deserves to be made
clear. Whilst Pestalozzi, in Switzerland, became the “father of
 THE HISTORY OF METHODS 27"

a new affective education/’ in Germany half a century later'

Fechner and Wundt founded experimental psychology. The two
currents grew and developed separately in the schools. Academic
pedagogy continued to evolve on the old foundations, whilst side
by side mental tests were given to the students which, however,
did not affect education in the least.
The experiments of Itard on the contrary, carried out only
slightly earlier, were a real beginning of scientific education, capable
of modifying both educational methods and the pupils. As it
came into being among deficient children, however, it was not taken,
into serious consideration in the educational wmrld.
But the merit of having completed a real educational system
for defective children belongs to .Edward Seguin, who was first
a teacher and then a doctor. Beginning with the experiments-,
of Itard, he applied them, modifying and completing the method,
during ten years of experience with children who had been taken
from the asylum and brought together in a little school in the rue'
Pigalle in Paris. This method was published for the first time in
a volume, of about six hundred pages,, published in Paris with, the
title, Traitement Morale Hygiene et Education des Idiots.
Later on, Seguin emigrated, to the United States of America,
where there were founded many institutions for defectives, and
where Seguin, after twenty years more of experience, published a
second edition of his method which bore a different title.
Idiocy and its Treatment , by the Physiological Method. This-
volume was published in New York in 1866. In it Seguin defined
clearly a method of education which he called a physiological
method. He no longer refers in the title to the education of
idiots almost as if it were special to them, but he speaks of
idiocy as being treated by a physiological method.
If we remember that pedagogy had always been, based on.
psychology and that Wundt postulated a physiological psychology,
one must be struck by the coincidence of these conceptions
led TO suspect that the physiological m.ethod may hav
connection with physiological psychology.
26 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

TJie methods for the education of defectives had their origin

at the time of the French Revolution in the work of doctor
I. M. G. Itard whose medical works have become historical, for
he was the founder of that branch of medical science which
specializes under the name of otiatry (diseases of the ear).
He was the first to attempt the methodical education of the
sense of hearing, in the institute of deaf-mutes founded by Pereire
in Paris; he succeeded in giving back hearing to those partially
deaf. Later, having had in his charge for eight years an idiot boy
who was known as the savage of Aveyron, he extended to all the
senses the educational methods which had already given excellent
results in hearing. Itard, a pupil of Pinel, was the first teacher
to practise observation of the pupil, in a way similar to that which
was done in the hospitals in the observation of the sick, especially
of those suffering from nervous troubles.
The educational works of Itard are most interesting detailed
descriptions of his teaching attempts and experiments, and anyone
who reads them today will agree that they were the first attempts
at “scientific pedagogy”. He, in fact, derived from scientific
study a series of exercises capable of modifying the personality^ of
heahng defects that kept the individual in a state of inferiority.
Itard actually succeeded in rendering semi-deaf children capable
of both hearing and speaking, whilst otherwise they would have
remained deaf and dumb and consequently for ever abnormal.
This is very different indeed from a simple study of the individual
carried out by means of the tests of experimental psychology.
They only lead to a statement on the mental personality; they do*
not modify it but leave the educational methods unchanged. Here,
instead, the scientific means employed become the means by which
education is given, so that pedagogy itself is changed.
Itard, therefore, may be called the founder of scientific peda¬
gogy, not Wundt or Binet, who are the founders of a physio¬
logical psychology which can easily be applied also in the schools.
This is a fundamental point which well deserves to be made
clear. Whilst Pestalozzi, in Switzerland, became the “ father of
 THE HISTORY OF METHODS 27
a new afifective education/’ in Germany half a century later'
Fechner and Wundt founded experimental psychology. The iwo
currents grew and developed separately in the schools. Academic-
pedagogy continued to evolve on the old foundations, whilst side
by side mental tests were given to the students which, however,
did not affect education in the least.
The experiments of Itard on the contrary, carried out only
slightly earlier, were a real beginning of scientific education, capable
of modifying both educational methods and the pupils. As it
came into being among deficient children, however, it was not taken,
into serious consideration in the educational world.
But the merit of having completed a real educational system
for defective children belongs to - Edward Seguin, who was first
a teacher and then a doctor. Beginning with the experiments-
of Itard, he applied them, modifying and completing the method,
during ten years of experience with chi,ldren who had been taken
from the asylum and brought together in a little school in the rue''
Pigalle in Paris. This method was published for the first time in
a volume, of about six hundred pages,, published in Paris with the
title, Traitement Moral, Hygiene et Education des Idiots,
Later on, Seguin emigrated to the United, .States of America,
where there were founded many institutions for defectives, and
where Seguin, after twenty 3^ears more of experience, published a.
second edition of his method which bore a different title,
Idiocy and its Treatment by the Physiological Method. This-
volume was published , in New York in 1866. In it Seguin defined
clearly a method of education wLich he called a physiological
method. He no longer refers in the title to the education of
idiots almost as if it were special to them, but he speaks of
idiocy as being treated by a physiological method.
If we remember that pedagogy had always been, based on ■
psychology and that Wundt postulated a physiological psychology,
one must be struck by the coincidence of these conceptions and be-
led TO suspect that the physiological method may have some-
connection with physiological psychology.
28 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD
Whilst I was an assistant in the Mental Clinic, I had read with
.great interest Seguin's French work. But the English book pub¬
lished in New York twenty years later, although it was quoted
in the works of specialized education of Bourneville, did not exist
in any library. To my great astonishment, I could find no trace
of it in Paris, where Bourneville told me that he did not know of
its existence; Seguin’s second book had never entered Europe. I
hoped to find some copies of it in London, but I had to convince
myself that even there the volume did not exist either in the public
or in the private libraries. It w^as in vain that I made enquiries, visit¬
ing home after home of many English doctors who were well known
as specialists for defective children, or who superintended special
schools for them. The fact that this book was unknown even in
England though, it wns published in English made me think that
Seguin’s system had not been understood. Indeed, in the pub¬
lications relating to institutions for defectives, Seguin was constantly
quoted, but the educational applications described w^ere quite
different frcm those advocated in Seguin’s system,. Almost every¬
where there were applied more or less to defectives the methods
used for normal children, and, especially in Germany, a German
friend of mine who had gone there to help me in my researches
noted how special didactic material existed here and there in the
pedagogical museums belonging to schools for defectives. It
was, however, never in practical use, whilst there the principle is
defended that it is a good plan to adopt for slowly developed minds
the same method as for normal, which is, however, more objective
in Germany than with us.
At Bicetre also, where I remained to study for a long time,
I saw that teaching mechanisms were adopted rather than Seguin’s
system; yet the French text was in the hands of the teachers. All
the teaching there was mechanized, and every teacher followed
the same routine to the letter. However, it was noticeable every¬
where, in London and in Paris, that there was a desire to have fresh
advice, to leam new experiments for the fact stated by Seguin that
-he had really succeeded in educating idiots with his methods.
 THE HISTORY OF METHODS 29
remained in practice a delusion. The cause of this lack of success
is easily understood. Everybody only retained the idea that the
deficient children, inferior beings, should ultimately be educated
like normal, superior, children. The conception that a “new
education " was born in the pedagogic world had not penetrated,
neither the fact that it was that new education which could raise
the deficient children to a higher level. Much less was there an
intuition that a method of education which raised defectives could
also raise normal children.
I carried out my experiments on the defectives in Rome and
carried on their education for two years. I followed Seguin’s book
and I also found a treasure in the admirable e-xperiments made
by Itard. Besides that, I had made for myself, following the
guidance of these texts, a rich stock of teaching material.
This material, which I did not see in its entirety in any other
institution, was a marvellous instrument, excellent In the hands of
anyone who knew how to use it, hut by itself could pass unnoticed
among the defectives. I understood why teachers had become
so discouraged, and why the method had been abandoned. The
theory, that the teacher must place himself on the level of the
pupil, plunged the teacher of defectives into a kind of apathy; he
knew that he was educating inferior intellects and therefore he
did not succeed in educating them. So it is with the teachers of
little children who think of educating them by placing themselves
on their level with games and often with nonsensical talk.
Instead of that, what we must aim at doing is to awaken in
the mind of the child the man who is asleep there.
I was possessed by this inspiration, and I believed that at
the start the teaching material had to be associated with the
voice of the teacher which called and roused the children and
induced them to use the material and educate themselves. I
was guided by my great respect for their misfortunes, and the
love which these unhappy children were capable of kindling in
all who came near them. Seguin also expressed himself in a
similar way on the subject; reading his patient attempts I
:30 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

.understood weli that the fi,rst teaching material used by him was
spiritual. Because at the end of the French volume, the author,
ghing a review of his work, sorrow,fuIiy comes to the conclusion
that it will be lost if the teachers are not prepared. He holds an
-entirely original idea about the training of teachers for defectives;
it looks like advice given to a w-’ornan who is preparing herself
to be an enchantress. He would like them to be beautiful, to
have fascinating voices, and thinks that they should take the
utmost pains to make themselves attractive. Their bearing and
the modulations of their voices should be studied with the same
care as that taken by great dramatic artists who prepare themselves
for the stage, because they have to conquer minds which are weak
-and weary,, by stirring up the great emotions of life.
This kind of secret key, which turns upon the action of the
spirit, opened the long series of educational experiments so
•admirably analysed by Edward Seguin and really most efficacious
in the education of idiots. I obtained surprising results from
them, but I must confess that whilst my efforts were producing
intellectual progress, I was prostrated by a kind of exhaustion—
I felt that I was being drained of some of my strength. What
we call encouragement, comfort, love, respect, are drains on the
human mind, and the more lavishly one spends oneself in this
way, the more does one renew and re-invigorate the life around.
Without that, the most perfect external stimulus passes
unnoticed, as did the sun for Saul, when he exclaimed that there
was thick darkness.
I could write more aboui the new experiments, but it is not
opportune here. I will only mention how at this stage I tried
out a system for reading and writing which was quite original;
these subjects of education were not treated at all either by Itard
■or Seguin. ■,
I taught reading and writing, including penmanship, to some
defectives of my institution who became fit to be presented at an
examination for the public schools along with normal children,
and who passed the test
 THE HISTORY OF METHODS 31

These marvellous results seemed to be almost miraculous to

those who observed them. But, in my opinion, the children from
the institution equalled the normal children in the public e.x,ami-
nations only because they had followed a different path. They had
been assisted in their mental development w'hilst the normal
children had been stifled and repressed. I thought that if one day
the specialized education which had so marvellously improved the
idiots could be applied to the development of normal children,
the miracle would disappear from the w'orld, and the abyss betw'een
the inferior mentality of idiots and normals would never be lessened.
Whilst everyone was admiring the progress of my defectives,
I was thinking of the reasons which might have reduced the healthy,
happy pupils of the ordinary schools to a level so low that it could
be reached in intelligence tests by my unhappy pupils.
One day one of my mistresses in the institute for defectives
made me read Ezekiel’s prophecies which had made a deep
impression on her, because it seemed to her a prophecy about
the education of defectives:
“ The hand of the Lord was upon me, and carried me out in
the spirit of the Lord, and set me down in the midst of the valley
which was full of bones,
“ And caused me to pass by them round about: and, behold,
there were very many in the open valley; and lo, they were very dry.
“ And he said unto me. Son of man, can these bones live? And
I answered, O Lord God, thou kncwest.
“ Again he said unto me. Prophesy upon these bones, and say
unto them, O ye dry bones, hear the word of the Lord.
“Thus saith the Lord God unto these bones; Behold, I will
cause breath to enter into you, and ye shall live:
“ And I will lay sinews upon you, and will bring up flesh upon
you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and ye shall
live; and ye shall know that I am the Lord.
“ So I prophesied as I was commanded: and as I prophesied,
there was a noise, and behold a shaking, and the bones came to¬
gether, bone to his bone.
32 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

“ And when I beheld, io, the sinews and the iesl],, came up upon
iheni, and the skin covered them above: but there was no breath,
in them.
“ Then said he unto me, P,rophesy unto the wind, prophesy.
Son cf man, and say to the wind. Thus saith the Lord God;
Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these
slain, that they may
‘‘ So I prophesied as he commanded me, and the breath came^
into them, and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceed¬
ing great army.
‘‘ Then he said unto me. Son of man, these bones are the whole
house of Israel: behold, they say. Our bones are dried, and our
hope is lost: w^e are cut off from our parts.”
Indeed the words, “ I will cause breath to enter into you, and
ye shall live,” seem to refer directly to the individual work of the
teacher, who encourages, incites, and helps the pupil and prepares
him for education.
And the other words—“ I will lay sinews upon you, and will
bring up flesh upon you, and cover you with skin,” recall the funda¬
mental sentences in which is summed up Seguin’s method: ‘‘To
lead the child as it were by the hand of the education of the muscular
system and that of the nervous system and the senses,” with which
Seguin teaches idiots to walk, to keep their balance in the most
difficult movements of the body, like mounting a staircase, jumping,
etc.; and at last, teaching them to feel, beginning with the educa¬
tion of the muscular, tactile and heat sensations, and ending with
those of the special senses. But these are simply made adaptable
to the physical life. “ Prophesy unto the wind,” says the prophet;
and the breath came into them and they lived.” Seguin indeed
led the idiot from the physical hfe to the life of the spirit, “ from
the education of the senses to notions, from notions to ideas,
from ideas to morality”. But when such a marvellous work is
accomplished, and by means of detailed physiological analysis
and a gradually progressive method the idiot has become a man,
he is always only an inferior among other men, an individual
 THE HISTORY OF METHODS 33

wliO' will never be able to adapt bimself to his social siirroimdings.

Our bones are dried, and our hope is lost; we are cut off from
our parts.”
.The principle that the teacher must undergo a spacia.!. training,
wliich touches her sentiment and does not consist merely in an
intellectual study, and again that education is fundamentaliy a
contact of souls ” and that the teacher must feel respect and
sympathy ” for the children she educates, is the characteristic con¬
tribution .given by Pestalozzi in his schools. This, however, is
only a first step essential in order that the child’s, soul be awakened.
Afterwards t.he activity of the child must find means (and scien¬
tific means for that matter) ■ which .lead to development. TMs
second part, is the contribution of scientific pedagogy. That is
w^hy w^e affirm today, in virtue of our experience, that the teacher
is the between the child—^distracted, lulled or re-
pre.ssed—^and the educative environment prepared for his activity.
Very .often this contact between- the child and the-environment.
cannot be established, unless he be delivered first from the burden,
of previous repression and its fatal consequences. In that case
a healing, or as we say, a normalizing process has to be initiated
before the means of development can be offered. Many of our
teachers suffered great disappointment at their lack of success,,
because t,hey, started their work as if this process had taken place,
and overlooked the necessity of this readjustment.
Seguin’s wearisome method, however, was laid aside, because-
this enormous expenditure of effort- wns not justified, by the poverty
in. the final results.
Everyone said the same thing:, there was still,so much to-
be done for normal children!
* ^ . , :ic

Having acquired ,faith in Seguin’s method through my expe¬

rience, after I had retired from active work .among defectives,
I s,et .myself to, study the, works of Itard and Seguin. I felt the
need for meditating over them.. So I did what I had never done,
and what very few perhaps repeat—I copied out in Italian, from
3
 34 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

beginning to end, the writings of these authors by hand, almost

producing books as the Benedictines did before the introduction
of printing. I wrote them by hand in order to have time to weigh
the value of every word and to grasp the spirit of the authors.
I was on the point of finishing the copying of the 600 pages of
Segiiin’s French work, when I received from New York a volume of
the second edition, that is the English book published in 1866.
This old volume had been found among the books discarded from
the private library of a New York doctor and had been readily given
over to the person who sent it to me. I translated it with the
help of an English lady. This volume did not ojffer a great con¬
tribution of later teaching experiments, but rather the philosophy
of the experiments described in the first volume. The man who
had studied abnormal children for thirty years expounded the
idea that the physiological method—a method which had as a
base the individual study of the pupil, and as part of its educa¬
tional procedure, the analysis of physiological and mental charac¬
ters—ought to be applied to normal children, thus leading to the
xegeneration of all humanity. Seguin’s voice seemed to me to be
that of the prophet crying in the wilderness and my mind was
overwhelmed with the immensity of the importance of a work
which might reform the school and education.
At that time, as a student of philosophy at the university,
I was following the course in experimental psychology which had
just been founded in Italian Universities—in Turin, Rome and
Naples. I was also carrying out, at the same time, in elementary
schools research work in pedagogic anthropology and used the
opportunity to study the methods and theories in use for the
education of normal children. These studies led me to the teach¬
ing of Pedagogic Anthropology in the University of Rome.
This then was my preparation. I had grown up intellectually
m contact with the scientific problems of my time and was finding
my way towards new branches which were coming into existence
in the field of mental medicine. I understood, as others did not,
that scientific education cannot be based on studying and measuring
 THE HISTORY OF METHODS
35
the individual to be cdnnatpH
which is canahlp p>f permanent treatment
nicj. IS capable of modifying them. Hence Itard’s education
was scientific, because the measurement of hearing was onlv a
m«„s ,ead.„s ap pf a, p
.nd„.d„als Who coaid hcac. I„ ,he ca,. of ac « Sava"! S Iv^
^ n, scientific methods very similar to those used by the founders
of experimental psychology had succeeded in restoring to social
Me an individual so far removed from society that he leared
Lrd “to a person who
ard and understood language as we speak and write it
Siimlarly Seguin, with analytical methods very 'similar to
2rt studied hu^eX Tf
defective children assembled in the mad house in Paris, but trans-
ormed them into men able to do useful work in the community
fit to assimilate mental and artistic instruction.
^ ^ ™yself, using only what was called the study of the indivi
dual by „eans of scientific instn.™ and ntell ZT Z
tramfomed the defectives expelled from the schools as being
tif Whi !$ “' "ho entered into competi
1 h the normal pupils in the schools. They were changed
mto persons socially useful and educated like intefligent chiMren
Scwntific education, therefore, was that which, while based on
science, modified and improved the individual
Scientific education, depending on objective research on the
fundamentals of psyehology, ought to be capable of transfonu-
.ng normal children. How f Oirtainly by raising them Z
norma level, ^

W • !>« thatof ••tratts-

lorming children.

but T" '^‘^“^tosions I arrived at: not only to observe,

hut to transform. Observation had founded a new psychological
It'had ad? H toe schools nor the scholars.
It had added something to the ordinary schools though it had left
those schools in their original condition, neither the methods of
instiuction nor those of education having varied.
36 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

The new methods, if they were run on scientific liiieSj ought

to change completely both the school and its inethodSy ought, to
give rise to a new form of education.
The central fact in the scientific education of defectives had
been that the idiots and those below normal did not respond to
teaching and could not execute orders. Hence it was necessary to
have recourse to other means which would be adjusted to the
capacity of each individual.
. Education of this type had been a piece of research, a scien¬
tific experiment, an attempt to investigate the possibilities inherent
in the scholar, and to offer him means, stimuli, which might
awaken whatever energy was left in him and employ it in a perma¬
nent fashion, augmenting it with and co-ordinating it by individual
exercises.
The teacher when faced with a deaf person, with an idiot,
as with a new-born child, is powerless. Only experimental science
can point the way to a new practical education.
My desire had been to experiment with the methods elabo¬
rated with so much success by Seguin on children in the first ele¬
mentary classes when they presented themselves in school, un¬
disciplined and illiterate, at the age of six.
But I had never thought of applying them in infant schools.
It was chance which shed a ray of light into my mind. We are
generally hampered by habits and prejudices, and our logical power
is left unused.
Perhaps it was logical to apply methods used for defectives
to little children when these also were regarded as being impossible
to educate, inaccessible to teaching because the mind had not
yet reached a high enough level of maturity.
It is possible to draw comparisons between defectives and
normal children if we consider children of different ages. Com¬
pare those who have not the power to develop (defectives) with
those who have not yet had time to develop (very small children).
Backward children are judged mentally as being children whose
mentality closely resembles that of normal children some years
 THE HISTORY OF-'METHODS 37

younger than them. In spite of the fact that in such a comparison

there is lacking the consideration of initial force innate in such
differing degrees in the two natures, the comparison is not illogical.
Small children have not yet acquired definite co-ordination of
the muscular movements, hence their unsteady walk, their in¬
ability to perform the-usual acts of daily life like putting on
clothes and stockings, fastening up, buttoning, putting on gloves,
etc. The organs of the senses, for -example the power of accom¬
modation in the eye, are not 3^et completely developed. Language
is rudimentary and shows the well-known defects of child-speech.
The difiiculty of concentrating, instability, etc. are other characters
of the same kind.
Prayer, in his studies on infant psychology, has at great length
illustrated the comparison between the pathological defects of
language and those normal to the child who is in the course of
development.
The methods which are eiffective in helping the mental deve¬
lopment of backward children might be of service in helping the
development of all children, thus constituting a healthful course
for the normal human being. . ..
Many defects like those of language, which become permanent,
are acquired because we neglect the child during the most impor¬
tant period of his life—^between three and six years of age when
his principal functions are formed and fixed.
This ambitious idea of being able to assist through scientific
methods of education the actual development of man during the
period of life when intelligence and character are being built
up ^ had not struck me in spite, of the interest which I had in
the question. .
That is why the story of this kind of “ psychological dis¬
covery ” and of this scientific method of education became a story
of interest. ;
Chance played its part, as it had done in so many discoveries,
like that of electricity. In fact, chance, that is the environment,
must almost always apply the spark to intuition; it is the environment
38 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

which reveals what is neW; and after that intuition and awakened
interest are able to pursue a new path of progress.
In my case the story is interesting because, independently
of studies and preconceptions, it offered a complex environment
in which not only the education of the child but the social life
of men and their feelings combined into one whole.

History of the Discovery of a Scientific Education

For Normal Children

It was the end of the year 1906. I was returning from Milan
where I had been elected to take part in the adjudication of prizes
at the International Exhibition, in the section of scientific peda¬
gogy and experimental psychology. I was invited by the Director-
General of the Roman Jnstitiito dei Beni Stabili (Association for
Good Building), to assume the organization of infant schools
in tenement houses.
The magnificent idea was to reform a Quarter like that of Sart
Lorenzo in Rome,wkich was filled with refugees and wretched people^
and where a pcpulation of about 30,000 was crowded together,,
living in conditions beyond all civil control. There were work-people
without work, beggars, prostitutes, convicts just released from
prison, all of whom, had taken refuge within the walls of houses
which had not been completed because of the economic crisis
which had suddenly caused the suspension of building in the whole
Quarter. The project conceived by Engineer Talamo had been
to buy up those walls, those skeletons of houses, and complete
by degrees, making them into permanent homes for the people.
Along with this plan was coupled the truly admirable idea of
gathering together ail the little children under school age (from
three to six years of age) in a kind of'' school in the house ^ v
Every tenement was to possess its own school, and as the
Institute already owned more than four hundred blocks in Rome,,
the work presented magnificent possibilities for development.
Meanwhile the first school was to be opened in January 1907, in
 THE HISTORY OF METHODS 39

a large tenement house in the San Lorenzo Quarter. In the same

Quarter the Institute already possessed fifty-eight buildings, and
the Directors’ plans provided there for coining into existence
soon about sixteen schools in the houses.
This special type of school was christened with the charming
name “ Children’s House The first of them was opened, under
this name, on January 6th, 1907, in the Via dei Marsi, 53, and I was
entrusted with the responsibility of directing it. The social and
pedagogic importance of such an institution became apparent to
me at once in all its greatness and I indulged in what seemed to be
then exaggerated visions of its triumphal future; but today many
are beginning to understand that I foresaw the truth. January
6th, in Italy, is the children’s festal day, corresponding to the
Epiphany in the Catholic calendar. It is exactly like Christmas
Day in Protestant countries, when there is a Christmas tree, and
gifts and toys are given to the children. On the 6th of January
then there assenibled the first group of little children, rather more
than fifty of them. It was interesting to watch these little creatures,
so different from those who are to be found in the usual charity
schools. They were timid and clumsy, apparently stupid and un¬
responsive. They could not walk together and the mistress had to
make each child take hold of the pinafore of the one in front, so
that they walked in a kind of Indian file.
They wept and seemed to be afraid of everything—of the
beautiful ladies present, of the tree and of the objects on it. They
did not take the presents and they did not eat the sweets; they did
not answer when spoken to. They were really like a set of wild
children. They certainly had not lived, like the wild boy of Aveyron,
in a wood with animals, but they had lived in a forest of people,
lost and beyond the bounds of civilized society. At the sight of
this tcuching spectacle m-any ladies said that only by a miracle
cculd Ihese children be educated, and that they would like to see
them again in a year or two.
I was invited to speak, but not being able to enter into the
details of structural and economic work, after a general reference
40 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

to the work which was beginning, I read part of a prophecy which

in the Catholic church forms part of the service of Epiphany on
the 6th of January, because this corresponded to the feast day
chosen for the inauguration of the Children’s House.
Isaiah, Chapter 60. “ Arise, shine; for thy light is, come, and
the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.
“ For, behold, the darkness shall cover the earth, and gross
darkness the people: but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and his
glory shall be seen upon thee.
“ And the Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the
brightness of thy rising,
“ Lift up thine eyes round about, and see: all they gather
themselves together, they come to thee: thy sons shall come from
far, and thy daughters shall be nursed at thy side.
“ Then thou shalt see, and flow together, and thine heart shall
fear, and be enlarged; because the abundance of the sea shall be
converted unto thee, the forces of the Gentiles shall come unto
thee.
“The multitude of camels shall cover thee, the dromedaries
of Midian and Ephah;,all they from Sheba shall come: they shall
bring gold and incense; and they shall show forth the praises of
the Lord.” .
“Perhaps,” I added as a conclusion, “it may be that this
Children’s House may become a new Jerusalem, which, as it is mul¬
tiplied among abandoned people, will bring light into education.”
The newspapers of the day criticized these words as being
an exaggeration when applied to an enterprise^still so small
So it was that when, a year later, there was opened another
tenement with its Children’s House, the Instituto dei Beni Stabili
thought it best to suggest a serious speech which would give the
Italian public a clear idea of the truly valuable character of this
civic work of reform, and of its economic and social foundation.
This speech is reproduced in full in the next chapter, that
it may afford inspiration to those who are engaged in the problem
of the “ Aow.se’’ for those unfortunate people sunk in the misery
 THE HISTORY OF METHODS 41

of exceptional conditions, as these were, for the San Lorenzo

Quarter came into existence as a consequence of the displacement
of population which had followed the War of Independence in
Italy, when crowds flocked unexpectedly into Rome as being the
capital.
Here we have then the meaning of my teaching experiment,
carried on for two years in the Children’s House. It represents
the results of a series of trials made by me in educating young
children according to new methods. It certainly is not a matter
of the pure and simple application of Seguin’s method to infant
schools, such as anyone could find out by consulting that author’s
works; it is nevertheless true that under these two years of experi¬
menting there lies an experimental basis which goes back to the
time of the French Revolution and which includes the assiduous
labours of Seguin and Itard. As for me, thirty years after Seguin’s
second publication, I took up again the ideas, and, if I may venture
to say so, the work of this author, with the same enthusiastic
feeling with which he had inherited the ideas and the work of his
master Itard, who died in his filial care. For ten years I experi¬
mented practically and meditated on the work of these distinguished
men who had sacrificed themselves, leaving to humanity the most
fruitful proofs of their obscure heroism. To my ten years of study
there may also be added the forty years of the work of Itard and
Seguin. There had already been spent fifty years of active pre¬
paration, distributed over more than a century of time, before this
trial was attempted, so short apparently, of only two years; I do
not think that I am making a mistake in saying that it represents
the succession of labours of three doctors who, from Itard to
myself, took the first steps in the paths of psychiatry.

Note—^This group of children not only received an education but they

furnished surprising revelations which roused interest throughout the whole
world, and the Children’s House became a centre of pilgrimage for
people from all countries, especially from America. Today there have been
founded in India Children’s Houses in the desert of Rajputana, where camels
and dromedaries are numerous and still form the only means of communica¬
tion between the villages, and carry visitors to the Children’s Houses.
C H A p T E R III

INAUGURAL ADDRESS
DELIVERED ON THE OPENING OF ONE OF
THE “ CHILDREN’S HOUSES ” IN 1907

It may be that the life lived by the very poor is a thing which some
of you here today have never actually looked upon in all its degra¬
dation. You may have only felt the misery of deep human poverty
through the mediiiin of some great book, or some gifted actor may
have made your soul vibrate with its horror.
Let us suppose that in some such moment a voice should cry
to you: “ Go, look upon these homes of misery and blackest poverty.
For there have sprung up among the terror and the sujfering, oases
of happiness, of cleanliness, of peace. The poor are to have an
ideal house which shall be their own. In Quarters where poverty
and vice ruled, a work of moral redemption is going on. The
soul of the people is being set free from the torpor of vice, from
the shadows of ignorance. The little children, too, have a ‘ House
of their own. The new generation goes forward to meet the era,
the time when misery shall no longer be deplored but destroyed.
They go to meet the time when the dark dens of vice and wretched¬
ness shall have become things of the past, and when no trace of
them shall be found among the living.” What a change of emotions
we should experience! and how we should hasten here, as the wise
men guided by a dream and a star hastened to Bethlehem!
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 43*

I have spoken thus in order that you may understand the

great significance, the real beauty, of this humble room, which,
seems like a bit of the house itself set apart by a mother’s hand
for the use and happiness of the children of the Quarter. This is-
the second Children’s House ” which has been established within
the ill-favoured Quarter of San Lorenzo.
The Quarter of San Lorenzo is celebrated, for every news-
paper in the city is filled with almost daily accounts of its wretched
happenings. Yet there are many who are not familiar with the-
origin of this portion of our city.
It was never intended to build up here a tenement district for'
the people. And indeed San Lorenzo is not the People’s Quarter,,
it is the Quarter of the poor. It is the Quarter where lives the
underpaid, often unemployed, working-man, a common type in a
city which has no factory industries. It is the home of him who
undergoes the period of surveillance to which he is condemned
after his prison sentence is ended. They are all here, mingled,,
huddled together.
The district of San Lorenzo sprang into being between 1884
and 1888 at the time of the great building fever. No standards,
either social or hygienic, guided these new constructions. The aim
in building was simply to cover with walls square foot after square
foot of ground. The more the space covered, the greater the gain
of the interested Banks and Companies. All this with a complete
disregard of the disastrous future Avhich they were preparing. It
was natural that no one should concern himself with the stability
of the building he was creating, since in no case would the property
remain in the possession of him who built it.
When the storm burst, in the shape of the inevitable building,
panic of 1888 to 1890, these unfortunate houses remained for a
long time untenanted. Then, little by little, the need of dwelling-
places began to make itself felt, and these great houses began to
fill. Now, those speculators who had been so unfortunate as to
remain possessors of these buildings could not and did not wish
to add fresh capital to that already lost. So the houses constructed
44 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

in the first place in utter disregard of the laws of hygiene, and

rendered still worse by having been used as temporary habitations,
came to be occupied by the poorest class in the city.
The apartments not being prepared for the working class, were
too large, consisting of five, six, or seven rooms. These were rented
at a price wliich, while exceedingly low in relation to the size, was
yet too high for any one family of very poor people. This led to
the evil of subletting. The tenant who has taken a six-room
apartment at eight dollars a month sublets rooms at one dollar
and a half or two dollars a month to those who can pay so much,
and a corner of a room, or a corridor, to a poorer tenant, thus
making an income of fifteen dollars or more, over and above the
■cost of his own rent.
This m-eans that the problem of existence is in great part
solved for him, and that in every case he adds to his income
through usury. The one who holds the lease traffics in the misery
■of his fellow tenants, lending small sums at a rate which generally
corresponds to tw'enty cents a week for the loan of two dollars,
■equivalent to an annual rate of 500 per cent.
Thus we have in the evil of subletting the most cruel form of
usury: that which only the poor know how to practice upon the
p>oor.
To this we must add the evils of crowded living, promiscuous¬
ness, immorality, crime. Every Mttle while the newspapers uncover
for us one of these inlerieurs: a large family, growing boys and
girls sleep in one room; while one corner of the room is occupied
"by an outsider, a woman who receives the nightly visits of men.
This is seen by the boys and girls; evil passions are kindled that
lead to the crime and bloodshed which unveil for a brief instant
before our eyes, in some lurid paragraph, this little detail of the
Tnass of misery.
Whoever enters, for the first time, one of these apartments is
astonished and horrified. For this spectacle of genuine misery is
not at all hke the garish scene he has imagined. We enter here a
•world of shadows, and that which strikes us first is the darkness
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 45'^

which, even though it is midday, makes it impossible to disting-oish.

any of the details of the room.
When the eye has grown accustomed to the gloom, we per¬
ceive, within, the outlines of a bed upon which lies huddled a figure
—some one ill and suffering. If we had come bringing money
from some society for mutual aid, a candle must be lighted
before the sum can be counted and the receipt signed. Oh, when
w^e talk of social problems, how often we speak vaguely, draw¬
ing upon our fancy for details instead of preparing ourselves to
judge intelligently through a personal investigation of facts and
conditions!
We discuss earnestly the,question of home study for school
children, when for many of them home means a straw pallet thrown
down in the corner of some dark hovel. We wish to establish
circulating libraries that the poor may read at home.. We plan to
send among these people books which shall form their domestic
literature—^books through whose influence they shall come to higher
standards of living. We hope through the printed pages to educate
these poor people in matters of hygiene, of morality, of culture^
and in this we show ourselves profoundly ignorant of their most
crying needs. For many of them have no light by which to read!
There lies before the social crusader of the present day a
problem more profound than that of the intellectual eleyation of
the poor; the problem, indeed, of life.
In speaking of the children born in these places, even the
conventional expressions must be changed, for they do not ‘‘ first
see the light of day”; they come into a world of gloom. They
grow among the poisonous shadows which envelop over-crowded
humanity. These children cannot be other than filthy in body,
since the water-supply in an apartment originally intended to be
occupied by three or four persons, when distributed among twenty
or thirty is scarcely enough for drinking purposes!
We Italians have elevated our word “ casa ” to the almost
sacred significance of the English word “ home,” the enclosed
temple of domestic affection, accessible only to dear ones.
46 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Far removed from this conception is the condition of the many

who have no “ casa,” but only ghastly walls within which the most
intimate acts of life are exposed upon the pillory. Here there can
be no privacy, no modesty, no gentleness; here there is often not
even light, nor air, nor water. It seems a cruel mockery to intro¬
duce here our idea of the home as essential to the education of the
masses, and as furnishing, along with the family, the only solid
basis for the social structure. In doing this we should be not
practical reformers but visionary poets.
Conditions such as I have described make it more decorous,
more hygienic, for these people to take refuge in the street and to
let their children live there. But how often these streets are the
scene of bloodshed, of quarrel, of sights so vile as to be almost
inconceivable. The papers tell us of women pursued and killed
by drunken husbands! Of young girls, with the fear of worse than
death, stoned by low men. Again, we see untellable things—a
wretched woman thrown forth by the drunken men who have
preyed upon her into the gutter. There, when day comes, the
children of the neighbourhood crowd about her like scavengers
about their dead prey, shouting and laughing at the sight of this
wreck of womanhood, kicking her bruised and filthy body as it
lies in the mud of the gutter!
Such spectacles of extreme brutality are possible here at the
very gate of a cosmopolitan city—the mother of civilization and
queen of the fine arts—because of a new fact which was unknown
to past centuries, namely the isolation of the masses of the poor.
In the Middle Ages, leprosy was isolated; the Catholics
isolated the Hebrews in the Ghetto; but poverty was never
considered a peril and an infamy so great that it must be
isolated. The homes of the poor were scattered among those of
the rich, and the contrast between these was a commonplace in
literature up to our own times. Indeed, when I was a child in
the school, teachers, for the purpose of moral education, frequently
resorted to the illustration of the kind princess who sends help to
the poor cottage next door, or of the good children from-the
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 47

great house who carry food to the sick woman in the neighbouring
■attic.
Today, all this would be as unreal and artificial as a fairy
tale. The poor may no longer learn from their more, fortunate
neighbours lessons in courtesy and good breeding, they no longer
have the hope of help from them in cases of extreme need. We
have herded them together far from us, without the walls, leaving
them to learn of each other, in the abandon of desperation, the
cruel lessons of brutality and vice. Any one in whom the social
conscience is awake must see that we have thus created infected
regions that threaten with deadly peril the city which, wishing to
make all beautiful and shining according to an aesthetic and aristo¬
cratic ideal, has thrust without its walls whatever is ugly or diseased.
When I passed for the first time through these streets, it was
as if I found myself in a city upon which some great disaster had
fallen. It seemed to me that the shadow of some recent struggle
still oppressed the unhappy people who, with something very like
terror in their pale faces, passed me in these silent streets. The
very silence seemed to signify the life of a community interrupted,
broken. Not a carriage, not even the cheerful voice of the ever¬
present street vendor, nor the sound of the hand-organ playing in
the hope of a few pennies, not even those things, so characteristic
of poor quarters, enter here to enlighten this sad and.heavy silence.
Observing these streets with their deep holes, the door-steps
broken and tumbling, we might suppose that this disaster had been
in the nature of a great inundation which had carried the very earth
away; but looking about us at the houses stripped of all decora¬
tions, the walls broken and scarred, we are inclined to think that
it was perhaps an earthquake which has afficted this Quarter,
Then, looking still more closely, we see that in all this thickly
settled neighbourhood there is not a shop to be found. So poor
is the community that it has not been possible to establish even
one of those popular bazaars where necessary articles are sold at
so low a price as to put them within the reach of any one. The
only shops of any sort are the low wine-shops which open their
48 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

evil-smelling doors to the passer-by. As we look upon all this, it

is borne upon us that the disaster which has placed its weight of
suffering upon these people is not a convulsion of nature, but
poverty—poverty with its inseparable companion, vice.
This unhappy and dangerous state of tilings, to whieh our
attention is called at intervals by the newspaper accounts of violent
and inamoral crime, stirs the hearts and conscience of many who
come to undertake among these people some work of generous
benevolence. One might almost say that every form of misery
inspires a special remedy and that all have been tried here, from
the attempt to introduce hygienic principles into each house, to the
establishment of creches, “ Children’s Houses,” and dispensaries.
But what indeed is benevolence? Little more than an expres¬
sion of sorrow; it is pity translated into action. The benefits of
such a form of charity cannot be great and, through the absence
of any continued income and the lack of organization, it is
restricted to a small number of persons. The great and widespread
peril of evil demands, on the other hand, a broad and comprehen¬
sive work directed towards the redemption of the entire community.
Only such an organization as, working for the good of others, shall
itself grow and prosper through the general prosperity which it has
made possible, can make a place for itself in this Quarter and
accomplish a permanent good work.
It is to meet this dire necessity that the great and kindly work
of the Roman Association of Good Building has been undertaken.
The advanced and highly modern way in which this work ?s being
carried on is due to Edoardo Talaino, Director-General of the
Association. His plans, so original, so comprehensive, yet so
practical, are without counterpart in Italy or elsewhere.
This Association was incorporated three years ago in Rome,
the plan being to acquire city tenements, remodel them, put theni
into a productive condition, and administer them as a good father
of a family would.
The first property acquired comprised a large portion of the
Quarter _of San Lorenzo, where today the Association possesses
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 49

fifty-eight houses, occupying a ground space of about 30,000 square

metres, and containing, independent of the ground floor, 1 600
small apartments. Thousands of people will in this way receive
the beneficent influence of the protective reforms of the Good
Building Association. Following its beneficent programme, the
Association set about transforming these old houses according to
the most modern standards, paying as much attention to questions
of hy^ene and morals as to those relating to buildings. The con¬
structional changes would make the property of real and lasting
value, while the hygienic and moral transformation would, through
the improved condition of the inmates, make the rent from these
apartments a more definite asset.
The Association of Good Building therefore decided upon a
programme which would permit of a gradual attainment of its
ideal. It is necessary to proceed slowly because it is not easy to
empty a tenement house at a time when houses are scarce and the
humanitarian principles which govern the entire movement make
It impossible to proceed more rapidly in this work of regeneration.
So It IS that the Association has up to the present time transformed
only three houses in the Quarter of San Lorenzo. The plan
followed in this transformation is as follows:
{a) To demolish in every building all portions of the structure
not originally constructed with the idea of making homes, but
from a purely commercial standpoint, of making the rent-roll
larger. In other words, the new management tore down those
parts of the building which encumbered the central court, thus
doing away with dark, ill-ventilated apartments, and giving air
and light to the remaining portion of the tenement. Broad airy
courts took the place of the inadequate air and light shafts
rendering the remaining apartments more valuable and infinitely
more desirable.
(h) To increase the number of stairways, and to divide the
room space in a more practical way. The large six or seven room
suites are reduced to small apartments of one, two, or three rooms
and a kitchen. The importance of such changes may be recognized
 50 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

from the economic point of view of the proprietor as well as from

the standpoint of thennoral and material welfare of the tenant.
Increasing the number of stairways diminishes that inevitable abuse
of wails and stairs where so many persons must pass up and
down. The tenants more readily learn to respect the building and
acquire habits of oleanliness and order. Not only this, but in
reducing the chances of contact among the inhabitants of the
house, especially late at night, a great advance has been made in
the matter of moral hygiene.
The division of the house into small apartments has done
much towards this moral regeneration. Each family is thus set
apart, homes are made possible, while the menacing evil of
subletting, together with all its disastrous consequences of over¬
crowding and immorality, is checked in the most radical way.
On one side this arrangement lessens the burden of the indi¬
vidual lease-holders, and on the other increases the income of the
proprietor, who now receives those earnings which were the unlaw¬
ful gain of the system of subletting. When the proprietor who
originally rented an apartment of six rooms for a monthly rental
of eight dollars, makes such an apartment over into three small,
suimy and airy suites consisting of one room and a kitchen, it is
evident that he increases his income.
The moial importance of this reform as it stands today is
tremendous, for it has done away with those evil influences and
low opportunities which arise from crowding and from promiscuous
contact; and it has brought to life among those people, for the first
time, the gentle sentimient of feeling themselves free within their
own homes, in the intimacy of the family.
But the object of the Association gees beyond even this. The
house which it offers to its tenants is not only sunny and airy, but
in perfect order and repair, almost shining, and as if perfumed
with purity and freshness. These good things, however, carry
with them a responsibility which the tenant must assume if he
wishes to enjoy them. He must pay an actual tax of care and
^ood-wfll. The tenant who receives a clean house must, keep it so,
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 51

must respect the walls from the big general entrance to the interior
of his own little apaitment. He who keeps his house in good
condition receives the recognition and consideration due to such
a tenant. Thus all the tenants unite in the ennobling welfare of
piactical hygiene, an end made possible by the simple task of
conserving the already perfect conditions.
Heie indeed is something new: So far only our great national
buildings have had a continued muintenance fund. Here, in these
houses offered to the people, the maintenance is confided to a
hundred or so working men, that is, to all the occupants of the
building. This care is almost perfect. The people keep the house
in perfect condition, without a single spot. The building in which
we find oui selves today has been for two years under the sole
protection of the tenants, and the work of maintenance has been
left entirely to them. Yet few of our houses can compare in clean¬
liness and freshness with this home of the poor.
The experiment has been tried and the result is remarkable.
The people acquire, together with the love of home-making, that
of cleanliness. They come, moreover, to wish to beautify then-
homes. The Association helps this by placing growing plants and
trees in the courts and about the halls. Out of this honest rivalry
in matters so productive of good, grows a species of pride new to
this Quarter; this is the pride which the entire body of tenants
takes in having the best-cared-for building and in having risen to
a higher and more civiUzed plane of living. They not only live in
a house, but they know how to live, they know how to respect the
house in which they live.
This first impulse has led to other reforms. From the clean
home will come personal cleanliness. Dirty furniture carmot be
tolerated in a clean house, and those persons living in a perma¬
nently clean house will come to desire personal cleanhness.
One of the most important hygienic reforms of the Association
is that of the baths. Each remodelled tenement has a place set
apart for bathrooms, furnished with tubs or shower, and having
hot and cold water. , All the tenants in regular turn may use these
52 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

baths, as for example, in various tenements the occupants go

according to turn, to wash their clothes in the fountain in the
court. This is a great convenience which invites the people to be
clean. These hot and cold baths within the house are a great
improvement upon the general public baths. In this way we make
possible to these people, at one and the same time, health and
refinement, opening not only to the sun, but to progress, those
dark habitations, once the vile caves of misery.
But in striving to realize its ideal of a semi-gratuitous main¬
tenance of its buildings, the Association met with a difficulty in
regard to those children under school age, who must often be left
alone the entire day while their parents went out to work. These
little ones, not being able to understand the educative motives
which taught their parents to respect the house, became ignorant
little vandals, defacing the walls and stairs. And here we have
another reform, the expense of which may be considered as
indirectly borne by the tenants as was the care of the building.
This reform may be considered as the most brilliant transformation
of a tax which progress and civilization have as yet devised. The
“ Children’s House ” is earned by the parents through the care of
the building. Its expenses are met by the sum that the Associa¬
tion would have otherwise been forced to spend upon repairs.
A wonderful climax, this, of moral benefits received: Within the
“ Children’s House,” which belongs exclusively to those children
under school age, working mothers may safely leave their little
ones and may proceed with a feeling of great relief and freedom
to their own work. But this benefit, like that of the care of the
house, is not conferred without a tax of care and good-will. The
regulations posted on the walls announce it thus:
“The mothers are obliged to send their children to the
Children’s House clean, and to co-operate with the directress in
the educational work.”
Two obligations, namely the physical and moral care of their
own children. If the child shows through its conversation that
the educational work of the school is being undermined by the
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 53

attitude taken in his home, he will be sent back to his parents, to

thus teach them how to take advantage of their good opport¬
unities. Those who give themselves to low-living, fighting and
brutality, shall feel upon them the weight of those little lives, so
needing care. They shall feel that they themselves have once more
cast into the darkness of neglect those little creatures who are the
dear'ist part of the family. In other words, the parents must learn
to deserve the benefit of having within the house the great advan¬
tage of a school for their little ones.
“ Good-wili,” a willingness to meet the demands of the Asso¬
ciation is enough, for the directress is ready and willing to teach
them how. The regulations say that the mother must go at least
once a week to confer with the directress, giving an account of
her child, and accepting any helpful advice which the directress
may be able to give. The advice thus given will undoubtedly
prove most illuminating in regard to the child’s health and educa¬
tion, since to each of the “ Children’s Houses ” is assigned a
physician as well as a directress.
The directress is always at the disposition of the mothers, and
her life, as a cultured and educated person, is a constant example
to the inhabitants of the house, for she is obliged to live in the
tenement and to be therefore a co-habitant with the families of
all her little pupils. This is a fact of immense importance. Among
these almost savage people, into these houses where at night no
one dared to go about unarmed, there has come not only to teach,
but to live the very life they live, a gentlewoman of culture, an
educator by profession, who dedicates her time and her life to
helping those about her: a true missionary, a moral queen among
the people, she may, if she be possessed of suJEcient tact and heart,
reap an unheard of harvest of good from her social work.
This house is verily new; it would seem a dream impossible
of realization, but it has been tried. It is true that there have been
before this attempts made by generous persons to go and live
among the poor to civilize them. But such work is not practical,
unless the house of the poor is hygienic, making it possible for
54 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

people of better standards to live there. Nor can such work

succeed in its purpose unless some common advantage or interest
unites all the tenants in an effort towards better things.
This tenement is new also because of the pedagogical oigani“
zation of the “ Children’s House This is not simply a place
where children are kept, not just an asylum, but a true school for
their education, and its methods are inspired by the rational prin¬
ciples of scientific pedagogy.
The physical development of the children is followed, each
child being studied from the anthropological standpoim, being
given linguistic exercises, a systematic sense-training, and exercises
which directly fit him for the duties of practical life, from the basis
of the work done. The teaching is decidedly objective, and
presents an unusual richness of didactic material.
It is not possible to speak of all this in detail. 1 must, how¬
ever, mention that there already exists in connection with the school
a bathroom, where the children may be given hot or cold baths,
and where they may learn to take a partial bath—hands, face, neck,
ears. Wherever possible the Association has provided a piece of
ground where the children may learn to grow the vegetables in
common use.
It is important that I speak here of the pedagogical progress
attained by the “ Children’s House ” as an institution. Those who
are conversant with the chief problems of the school know that
today much attention is given to a great principle, one that is
ideal and almost beyond realization—the union of the family and
the school in the matter of educational aims. But the family is
always som^ething far away from the school, and is almost always
regarded as rebelling against its ideals. It is a species of phantom
upon which the school can never lay its hands. The home is closed
not only to pedagogical progress, but often to social progress. We
see here for the first time the possibility of realizing the long talked-
of pedagogical ideal. We have put the school within the house;
and this is not all. We have placed it within the house as the
property of the collectivity, leaving under the eyes of the parents
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 55

the whole life of the teacher in the accomplishment of her high

mission.
This idea of the collective ownership of the school is new and
very beautiful and profoundly educational.
The parents know that the “ Children’s House is theii pro¬
perty, and is maintained by a portion of the rent they pay. The
mothers may go at any hour of the day to watch, to admire or to
meditate upon the life there. It is in every way a continual stimulus
to reflection, and a fount of evident blessing and help to their own
children. We may say that the mothers adore the “ Children’s
House,” and the directress. How many delicate and thoughtful
attentions these good mothers show to the teacher of their little ones!
They often leave sweets or flowers upon the sill of the schoolroom
window as a silent token, reverently, almost religiously, given.
And when after three years of such a novitiate, the mothers
send their children to the common schools, they are excellently
prepared to co-operate in the work of education, and wiU
acquire a sentiment rarely found even among the best classes,
namely the idea that they must merit through their own conduct
and with their own virtue, the possession of an educated son.
Another advance made by the “ Children’s House as an
institution is related to scientific pedagogy. This branch of peda¬
gogy, heretofore being based upon the anthropological study of
the pupil whom it is to educate, has touched only a few of the
positive questions which tend to transform education. For a man
is not only a biological but a social product, and the social environ¬
ment of individuals in the process of education is the home.
Scientific pedagogy will seek in vain to better the new generation
if it does not succeed in influencing also the environment within
which this new generation grows. I believe, therefore, that in
opening the house to the light of new truths and to the progress
of civilization we have solved the problem of being able to modify
the environment of the new generation, and have thus made it
possible to apply, in a practical way, the fundamental principles
of scientific pedagogy.
56 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

The “Children’s House ” marks still another triumph, it is

the first step towards the socialization of the house. The inmates
find under their own roof the convenience of being able to leave
their little ones in a place, not only safe, but where they have every
advantage.
And let it be remembered that all the mothers in the tenement
may enjoy this privilege, going away to their work with easy minds.
Until the present time only one class in society might have this
advantage. Rich women were able to go about their various
occupations and amusements, leaving their children in the hands
of a nurse or a governess. Today the women of the people who
live in these remodelled houses may say, like the great lady,
“ I have left my son with the governess and the nurse.” More than
this, they may add, like the princess of the blood, “ And the house
physician watches over them and directs their sane and sturdy
growth.” These women, like the most advanced class of English
and American mothers, possess a “ Biographical Chart,” which,
filled for the mother by the directress and the doctor, gives her the
most practical knowledge of her child’s growth and condition.
We are all familiar with the ordinary advantages of the social
transformation of the general environment. For example, the
collective use of railway carriages, of street lights, of the telephone,
all these are great advantages. The enormous production of useful
articles, brought about by industrial progress, makes possible for
all to have clean clothes, carpets, curtains, table delicacies, better
table-ware, etc. The giving of such benefits generally tends to leave
social caste. All this we have seen in its reality. But the social¬
izing of persons is new. That the collectivity shall benefit from
the services of the servant, the nurse, the teacher—this is a modern
ideal.
We have in the “ Children’s Houses ” a demonstration of this
ideal which is unique in Italy or elsewhere. Its significance is
most profoimd, for it corresponds to a need of the times. We can
no longer say that the convenience of leaving their children takes
away from the mother a natural social duty of first importance.
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 57

namely that of caring for and educating their tender offspring.

For today the social and economic evolution calls the working-
woman -to take her place among wage-earners, and lakes away
from her by force those duties which would be most dear to her.
The mother must, in any event, leave her child, and often with
the pain of knowing him to be abandoned. The advantages fur¬
nished by such institutions are not limited to the labouring classes,
but extend also to the general middle-class, many of whom work
with the brain. Teachers, professors, often obliged to give private
lessons after school hours, frequently leave their children to the
care of some rough and ignorant maid. Indeed, the first an¬
nouncement of the ‘‘ Children’s Houses ” was followed by a
deluge of letters from persons of the better class demanding that
these helpful reforms be extended to their dwellings.
We are, then, socializing a ‘‘ maternal function,” a feminine
duty, within the house. We may see here in this pracdcal act the
solving of many of the woman’s problems which have seemed to
many impossible of solution. What, then, will become of the home,
one asks, if the woman goes away from it? The home will be
transformed and will assume the functions of the woman.
I believe that in the future of society other forms of socialized
life will come to be a practical necessity.
Take, for example, the infirmary; woman is the natural nurse
for the dear ones of her household. But who does not know how
often in these days she is obliged to tear herself unwillingly from
the bedside of her sick to go to her work? Competition is great,
and her absence from her post threatens the tenure of the position
from which she draws the means of support. To be able to leave
the sick one in a “ house infirmary,” to which she may have access
at any free moment she may have and where she is at liberty to
watch during the night, would be an evident advantage to such a
woman.
And how great would be the progress made in the matter of
family hygiene, in all that relates to isolation and disinfection.
Who does not know the difficulties of a poor family when one
58 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

of tlie children has some contagious disease, and needs to be isolat¬

ed from the others? Often such a family may'have no kindred or
friends in the city to whom the other children may be sent.
Much more distant, but not impossible, is the community
kitchen, where the dinner ordered in the morning is sent at the'
proper time, by means of a dumb-waiter, to the family dining¬
room. Indeed, this has been successfully tried in America. Such
a reform would be of the greatest advantage to those families of
the middle class who must confide their health and their pleasures
of the table to the hands of an ignorant servant who ruins the food.
At present, the only alternative in such cases is to go outside the
home to some cafe where a cheap table d'hote may be had.
Indeed, the transformation of the house must compensate for
the loss in the family of the presence of the woman who has become
a social wage-earner.
In this way the house will become a centre, drawing unto
itself all those good things which have hitherto been lacking:
schools, public baths, hospitals, etc.
Thus the tendency will be to change the tenement houses^
which have been places of vice and peril, into centres of education,
of refinement, of comfort- This will be helped if, besides the
schools for the children, there may grow up also clubs and reading-
rooms for the inhabitants, especially for the men. who will find
there a way to pass the evening pleasantly and decently. The
tenement-club, as possible and as useful in all social classes as is
the “ Children’s House,” will do much towards closing the gamb¬
ling-houses and saloons, to the great moral advantage of the
people. And I believe that the Association of Good Building
will before long establish such clubs in its reformed tenements here
in the Quarter of San Lorenzo : clubs where the tenants may find
newspapers and books, and whue they may hear simple and
helpful lectures.
We are, then, very far from the dreaded dissolution of the
home and of the family, through the fact that the woman has
been forced by changed social and economic conditions to give
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 59
her time and strength to remunerative work. The home itself
assumes the gentle feminine attributes of the domestic housewife.
The day may come when the tenant, having given to the proprietor
of the house a certain sum, shall receive in return whatever is.
necessary to the comfort of life; in other words, the administration
shall become the steward of the family.
The house, thus considered, tends to assume in its evolution,
a significance more exalted than even the English word ‘‘ home
expresses. It does not consist of w^alls alone, though these walls-
be the pure and shining guardians of that intimacy which is the
sacred symbol of the family. The home shall become more than
this. It lives! It has a soul. It may be said to embrace its inmates-
with the tender, consoling arms of woman. It is the giver of moral
life, of blessings; it cares for, it educates and feeds the little ones.,
Within it, the tired workman shall find rest and newness of life.
He shall find there the intimate life of the family and its happiness.
The new woman, like the butterfly coming forth from the chry¬
salis, shall be liberated from ail those attributes which once made
her desirable to man only as a source of the material blessings-
of existence. She shall be, like man, an individual, a free human
being, a social worker; and, like man, she shall seek blessing and
repose within the house, the house which has been reformed and
socialized.
She shall wish to be loved for herself and not as a giver of
comfort and repose only. She shall wish a love free from every
form of servile labour. The goal of human love is not the
egotistical end of assuring its own satisfaction—^it is the sublime
goal of multiplying the forces of the free spirit, making it almost
divine, and, within such beauty and light, perpetuating the species.
This ideal love is made incarnate by Frederick Nietzsche, in
the woman of Zarathustra, who conscientiously wished her son to
be better than she. “ Why do you desire me ? ” she asks the man.
Perhaps because of the perils of a solitary life? ”
“ In that case go far from me. I wish the man who has con¬
quered himself, who has made his soul great. I wish the man who-
■60 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

desires to unite with me, body and soul, to create a son: A son
better, more perfect, stronger, than any created heretofore! ”
To better the species consciously, cultivating his own health,
'his own virtue, this should be the goal of a man's married life.
It is a sublime conception of which, as yet, few think. And the
socialized home of the future, living, provident, kindly, educator
and comforter, is the true and worthy home of those human mates
who wish to better the species, and to send the race forward
triumphant into the eternity of life.

Analysis of the Conditions of the First Experiment

History of its Propagation

The environment in which the first Children’s Houses sprang

up must have been extremely favourable to education, for the first
group of children attained such success in their surprising transfor¬
mation that no other group ever reached their level.
For that reason it is worth while to analyse the elements con¬
cerned in these ventures.
First there must have been created among the inhabitants and
the families of the children a sense of peace and well-being, of
cleanliness and intimacy which hitherto had been unknown to them.
Besides, the people concerned represented a moral selection. They
were poor, honest people, without profession, who depended from
day to day on casual labour, some as porters, some as laundresses,
some as gatherers of seasonal flowers in the fields (like violets).
They had lived mixed up in the same surroundings with coarse and
immoral people. All these people, gathered together in the re¬
constructed Houses, were without exception illiterate.
The children lived in a kind of Paradise, which was the same
for all of them. The stolid ignorance of their parents precluded
any possible educational influence in the family; there was no
-contrast there with what the children benefitted from education in
the school The person who held oflace as a mistress was not a
xeal teacher, but a woman having a small amount of education
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS ' 61

who busied herself with domestic affairs and helped with the field¬
work from which they derived their means of existence. This»
mistress had no educational ideas, no scholastic principles; she was
responsible to no authority,was criticized by no inspector of schools.
During the day-time, the children were abandoned by the father
and the mother, who both went out to look for a chance of
employment.
These conditions, which might seem to be most adverse to
the success of a school, represented as it were a void, a zero, as-
far as the arbitrary influence of education was concerned. Scien¬
tific procedure in the school reached full efficiency because there
were no obstacles to oppose it.
This contributed to the success of an experiment which was-
unmixed and isolated from other conceptions, carried on in a
laboratory of psychology, which was what the Children’s House
actually became.
It was here that there occurred surprising manifestations like
‘‘the explosion of spontaneous writing and reading,” “spon¬
taneous discipline,” “free social life,” which have roused the
curiosity and the admiration of the world.
It was this very group of children, callous and half-wild, which
became a centre of interest so noted that from every part of the
world, and especially from the United States of America, there
came visitors as to a Mecca of education.
Because of this attraction the San Lorenzo Quarter was over¬
run with sovereigns, ministers, scientists, aristocrats, all of them de¬
sirous of seeing the wonderful children at close quarters. From that
centre Children’s Houses have spread throughout the whole world.
After the first Children’s House was opened on January 6th,
others were opened in other re-conditioned houses of the Beni
StabilU a few months later, on April 7th; and on October 18th,
1908, under the direction of Miss Anna M. Maccheroni, there was
opened the Children’s House in the Umanitaria of Milan, which
was the largest social institution in Italy, founded by Socialist Jews
for the elevation of the people. It was a centre composed of model
42 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

workmen's dwellings, but at the same tim,e a centre of propa-

,ganda^ in which there was working—a matter worth mentioning—
a gloomy,, severe journalist, whose name was to become famous
.and fatal in the world, namely Benito Mussolini.
It was the Umanitaria which organized a general move for¬
ward, undertaking the manufacture of material, that is, the scientific
apparatus I designed for the first Children's House.
After this the Beni Stabili opened schools in the tenement
buildings which cKistcd in various parts of Rome, this time for
middle-class people, who had asked for the privilege of Children’s
Houses for their children also. Then there was founded the first
Children’s House for the aristocracy, opened by the English
ambassador in Rome and accommodating children from the highest
ranks of society.
After a disastrous earthquake which destroyed the city of
Messina in Sicily, there were gathered together in Rome 60 children
found wandering among the ruins, and for this group of little
unknown creatures, now orphans, bewildered and stupified by the
terrible shock, was founded the Children’s House in the Via
Giusti, kept by the Franciscan sisters Missionaries of Mary. The
'Children’s House in the Via Giusti became celebrated because of
the transformation wrought on these little ones, to whom was
restored the joy of life; it inspired novels and poetry, like the
Montessori Mother of the American authoress Dorothy Can-
field-Fisher. Children’s Houses were opened in various places,
after Baron and Baroness Franchetti provided a first course of
training for teachers, which was originally intended for the prepa¬
ration of Italian teachers for rural schools, but which in that first
session included teachers from nine European nations. After that
in 1913- on the very eve of the first world war, there was organized,
on the initiative of Americans, a first international course in Rome,
which was attended by students from European countries, from
America, Africa and India. .
Scientific pedagogy for children had come into existence with
immense energy to modify education.
 INAUGURAL ADDRESS 63

The Children’s Houses spread rapidly over the world, in spite

of the difficulties due to the war and to prejudices. And today,
during the second world war, the Children’s Houses are multi¬
plying in India.
The history of the movement shows us that the same educa¬
tion is possible, though with some degrees of adaptation, in ail
social grades of society, with happy children, as with children
shattered by the shock of a disaster, and among all races of the
world. The Child is the driving force wlhcli is manifested in our
time, bringing new hope to men in nations wrapt in obscurity.
The Children’s House is endew^ed with double importance: its
social importance is wrapt up in its form of a “ school in a house ”;
its purely educational importance depends on the methods for
child education with which I experimented.
As a factor of civilization affecting the people directly, the
Children’s House deserves to be illustrated in a separate volume.
It indeed solves many social and educational problems which
seemed Utopian, and it forms part of the modern transformation
of the home; that is, it touches directly the most important side of
the social question, that which concerns the intimate life of men.
GENERAL SECTION
c H A P T E R IV

TEACHING METHODS USED IN THE

CHILDREN’S HOUSES

As soon as I knew that I had at my disposal a school of little chil¬

dren, I made up my mind to study their education from the
scientific point of view, and to abandon the methods followed
more or less by others who confused the study of children with
their education, and who gave the name of scientific pedagogy to
the study of children taught in the ordinary schools which remain
unaltered by it. The new pedagogy, founded on precise and
objective studies, ought, on the contrary, to transform the school
and act directly on the scholars, bringing new life to them.
As long as science confined itself to getting to know the
children better, without rescuing them in a practical manner from
the many evils which it has been discovering in the ordinary schools
and in the old methods of education, no one had any right to pro¬
claim the existence of a ‘ scientific pedagogy ’. As long as research
did nothing beyond propounding new problems there was no
ground for declaring that a scientific pedagogy had been evolved,
since it is the solution of problems which it ought to accomphsh,
not just the exposition of the difficulties and the dangers which
exist in the ordinary schools, both those which are hidden and
those which obviously permeate the education of children in these
68 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

schools. To have discovered and demonstrated a hitherto unsus¬

pected evil is a work founded on hygiene and experimental
psychology, but it is not the building up of a new pedagogy.
As for child psychology itself, it cannot have discovered the
natural characters and therefore the psychological laws which
govern child development, because in schools there exist con¬
ditions of life so abnormal that they give rise to characters of
defence and weariness instead of revealing the expression of creative
energy which belongs to life.
Wundt himself, the founder of psychological physiology,
agreed that “ the psychology of the child is unknown
I had thought of taking into account other research work,
whilst keeping myself independent of it. I retained as essential
only the alSrmation, or rather the definition made by Wundt:
“ All the methods of experimental psychology can be reduced
to one single method, that is, to observation which is regulated
with precision.”
When it is a question of children, another factor must cer¬
tainly come in—^the study of development. Here also I retained
the general rule, but without confining myself to dogmas relative
to the activity of children as depending on age.

Morphological Growth

In my schools I have taken great care from the very beginning

to follow the growth of the child’s body, studying and measuring
it in accordance with the practice fixed by anthropological research.
However, I simplified the measurements considerably and adopted
an order which made it easier to record data. I tried also to
interest the children directly in the proceedings. There were sent
out periodically to the families the measurements relating to their
own children, together with the average normal measurements
according to age; and the result of this was that the parents
followed intelligently the physical development of their children.
I caused to be constructed a measuring machine for clrildren
which, had a metric scale ranging between 0.50 m. to 1.50 m.;
 TEACHING METHODS 69

on the platform of the machine was arranged a small movable

stool 30 cms. high, for measuring the height when seated. Today I
suggest that the machine be made with a double platform; on one
side to measure the full height and on the other the height when seat¬
ed. In the second case, the zero is at 30 cms. level, that is, it
corresponds with the height of the seat, which is fixed. The pointers
running in a groove on the vertical pole are independent of each
other; they can, however, take two measurements at the same
time, that is, they measure two children together. In any case
the inconvenience and the loss of time involved in removing
and putting back the seat and in calculating the difference on
the metric scale is avoided.
Having thus prepared the technique of the research, I arranged
to take measurements, both standing and sitting, every month;
and, in order to bring together the most exact measurements
relative to development and to make the research more regular,
1 made it a rule that the height should be taken on the day on which
the child completed a month of its age.
To secure this, I planned a register as follows:

September October
Day of Height Height
the month
Standing Seated Standing Seated

etc.
70 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

The spaces relating to every number serve for registering the

name of the child born on any day of the month. Thus the teacher
knows what pupils she ought to measure on a particular day of
the calendar, and she writes down her measurements in correspond¬
ence with the month. In this way the most accurate registration
is secured without the teacher being aware of it in the sense
that she does not feel the work and fatigue of it to any great
degree.
j'As for weight, I planned that it should be taken every
week by means of a weighing machine placed in the dressing-room
adjoining the bathroom. Choosing the day of the week on which
he was born, the child is weighed; this is done when he is
undressed, previous to his bath. In this way the bathing of the
children (perhaps 50 of them) is spread out over seven days, and
about three to five children come to the bath every day.I In
practice, the weekly bath presents no few difficulties, and it is often
necessary to make this theoretical. In any case, I planned the
weekly weighing in the manner specified with the intention of
regulating and making sure of weekly baths also.
The registration of weight is made very simple. There are
set out in a register the days of the week in a vertical column, and
corresponding to each one are drawn lines intended for the
names of the pupils born on that day.
I am of the opinion that these are the only anthropological
measurements with which the mistress need concern herself and
are the only ones which directly affect the school.
I planned that the other measurements should be taken by a
doctor who had specialized in child anthropology, or who intended
to specialize in this branch of pedagogic anthropology. In the
meantime, I myself undertook these duties.
The work of the doctor is bound to be complicated and to
make the arrangement of it easier, I had printed biographical
forms, specimens of which I reproduce here:
 TEACHING METHODS 71

SEPTEMBER y

(
1st week 2nd week 3rd week 4th week

kg. kg. kg-' kg.

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday...

etc.
i

N. . . . Date of entry.

Ckristian name and Surname. Age . . . .

Names of parents.

Father’s age. Mother’s age ... .

Profession.

Hereditary antecedents ......

Personal antecedents.

^ Every page of the register corresponds to one month.

72 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

ANTHROPOLOGICAL NOTES
standing

Physical constitution.

State of nourishment of the muscles

Colour of the skin.

Colour of the hair.

NOTES
 TEACHING METHODS 73

It will be seen that the scheme is quite simple; that is because

I intend that the doctor and the teacher be guided by the condi¬
tions in which they are carrying on their observations.
The anthropological investigations are carefully fixed in order
that the plan should be respected, and that the fundamental
anthropological research should be secured. I then advise that
every year the following measurements should be taken for every
child: the circumference of the head, the two maximum diametres
of the head, the circumference of the chest, the index figures for
head, weight and height, and such others, selected as opportunity
arises, as may be suggested by modern treatises on pedagogic
anthropology. The doctor is urged to carry out such investigations
within the week, or at least within the month in which the child
completes his first year, and if possible on the anniversary of his
birth. So, by observing this rule, the doctor lessens his task; in
the 365 days of the year only 50 children at the most complete one
year of their existence; this allows the doctor to make his observa¬
tions from time to time without his being overburdened with work
in the slightest degree. It is the teacher’s duty to inform the doctor
of the various birthdays of the children.
Conducted in this way anthropometry has also educational
applications.
Children, on leaving the Children’s House, will certainly be ^
able to answer the following questions: On what day of the week
were you born? On what day of the month? When does your
birthday come?
And in addition to that they would have acquired orderly
habits, and above all they would get accustomed to observing
themselves. (I may say here that little children take great
pleasure in measuring themselves. At the first glance which a
teacher turns on a child and the word ‘ height,’ he kicks off his
shoes quickly with a joyful laugh, runs and places himself on the
machine, taking up of his own accord the correct position so per¬
fectly that the teacher has only to lower the pointer and take the
reading.)
74 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Besides the measurements which the doctor takes with the

ordinary instruments (callipers, metallic tapes), he makes observa»
lions on the pigmentation, on the trophic condition of the muscles,
on the state of the lymphatic glands, on the blood supply, etc„
He makes a note of malformations, and occasional pathological
conditions, which have to be carefully described (rickets, infantile
paralysis, sciuinting, etc.). Such an objective study will also enable
the doctor to frame the questions about the history of the case
which are sent to the parents.
In addition the doctor pays the usual health visits, diagnosing
cases of eczema, ear trouble, conjunctivitis, feverish conditions,
intestinal disturbances, etc. The importance of this is completed
by medical service dispensed in the house which secures immediate
attention and continued supervision, as could be seen in the Casa
Moderna dei Beni Stabili at Prati di Gastello in Rome.
From my work in these Children’s Houses of the Beni Stabili^
I have come to the conclusion that the usual enquiries into case
histories which are taken directly from clinics are not suitable for
the school, because for the most part the family history is generally
perfectly normal. Hence I exhorted the teachers to obtain through
conversations with the mothers information which was rather of a
social character—such as the education of the parents, their habits,
earnings, expenses, etc. in order to compile a family monograph
in the style of Le-Play. I consider that this suggestion is practical
only where the teacher dwells among the families of her pupils,
and not elsewhere.
However, it would be most beneficial everywhere if the advice
of the doctor could be passed on to the mothers through the
medium of the teacher, advice respecting the individual hygiene of
every child as well as child hygiene in general. To the advice the
teacher might also add her own suggestions about the individual
education of the child; but, on that point, the hygienic-social side
of the Children’s Houses, I cannot dwell here.
f The observation method is based on one foundation only—
that children are permitted to express themselves freely, and thus
 TEACHING METHODS 75

reveal to us needs and aptitudes which remain hidden and repressed

when there does not exist an environment which allows free scope
for their spontaneous activity. It is essential that together with,
an observer there should exist something to be observed; and if it
is necessary that the observer should be trained to see and to recog¬
nize the truth, it is, on the other hand, also necessary to prepare
conditions which render possible the manifestation of the natural
characteristics of the children. /
This last part of the problem, which no one had yet taken
into consideration, seemed to me the one which was supremely
important, and the one most directly connected with education,
seeing that it relates to the active life of the child.
I began then by getting manufactured school equipment which
was made in proportion to the child and which provided for his
need to move about intelligently.
I had constructed little tables of various shapes, which would
be quite steady but which would be extremely light so that two
children, four years old, could carry them easily. I had also made
small seats, some straw-bottomed, others of wood, light and
with some attempt at elegance; they were not a small version of
seats for adults but were made in proportion to the child’s body.
In addition I ordered little wooden armchairs with wide arms, and
also wicker-work armchairs. There were also included small square
tables for one person, as well as tables with larger dimensions,
which were covered with little white cloths and decorated with
vases of flowers and foliage. Part of the equipment consisted of
a wash-bowl placed so low down that it was accessible to a child
thfie"1oFIour years old; it had its side ledges, all white and wash¬
able, to hold soap, brushes and towels. The side-boards were low,
light and ver^imple. Some were closed in by a simple curtain,
others had doors each of which closed with a different key, the
fastening being within the reach of the child’s hand so that he can
open and close them and place objects within the compartments. On
the top of the long, narrow side-board was spread a white linen cloth,
on which was placed a howl containing live fish, or other ornaments..
 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD
76
All round the walls, low enough to be within easy reach of little
children, were arranged ^ack-^^rds, and many small pictui es
representing pretty family-Sfienes, or objeets of nature like animals
or'flowers, as well as historical or sacred pictures which could be
chanied'from day t^ay. „
A large coloured picture, a reproduction of Raphael s Madonna
of the Chair, bung high up on the wall. We had chosen it to
stand as the emblem, the symbol of the Children’s Houses.
Indeed the Children’s Houses represent not only social progress
but also the progress of humanity; they are intimately bound up
with the elevation of motherhood, with the advancement of
women, and with the protection of posterity. The Madonna
idealized by the divine Raphael is not only lovely and sweet, a
sublime virgin and mother with her adorable baby, but beside this
perfect symbol of real, living maternity, was the figure of John
the Baptist, who represents for us in the fresh beauty ol baby¬
hood the cruel sacrifices of him who went before to prepare the
way. Further, it introduced a work of art by the greatest Italian
artist, and if, some day. Children’s Houses are scatteied thiough-
out the world, Raphael’s picture will be there to speak eloquently
of the land of its origin.
The little ones may not be able to understand the symbolic
meaning of the Madonna of the Chair, but they would see in it some¬
thing greater than in other pictures which show fatheis, motheis,
grandparents and babies. They would enfold it in theii heal ts with
religious feelings.
That is the teaching equipment.

Practical Observations

Let us begin with the first objection which presents itself to

the minds of followers of the old methods of discipline. The
■children, as they move about, will overturn chairs and tables,
producing noise and disorder; but this prejudges the matter. Think¬
ing in the same way, most people believed that the new-born
baby should be wrapped in swaddling clothes, and that children
A Municipal Montessori School built according to original plans. The clas.sroom is octagonal in shape. Amsterdam, Holland.
 / /

learning to walk need little closed ‘ cages.’ So, in the schools, it is

considered necessary to have heavy benches almost nailed to the
floor. All these ideas are based on the conception that the child
ought to grow np into immobility and on the strange prejudice
that the educational benefit depends upon a special position of
the body.
The tables, seats and armchairs, all light and portable, will -
allow the child to choose the position which pleases Mm best; he
will be able to make himself comfortable as well as to seat Mmseif;
and that will be both an external sign of liberty and a means of
education. If an awkward movement of the child upsets a chair
noisily, he will get an evident proof of Ms incapacity; the same
movement, made among benches, would have passed unnoticed.
The child will thus have means of correcting Mmseif, and when
he has corrected Mmseif, he will have the proof of it plainly in
evidence; chairs and tables will remain quiet and steady in their
places; that will mean that the child has learnt to move about.
With the old method, instead of this result, the very contrary was
aimed at and achieved—that is, the immobility and the silence of
the child MmseK It was an immobility and silence which Mndered
the cMld from learmng to move about with grace and judgement^
so that when he found Mmseif in surroundings where benches did
not exist, he was prone to overturn light articles. In our schools,
on the contrary, the child acquires deportment and control over
movement which will he of service to him outside school; whilst
still a cMld, he will become a person of free but correct behaviour.
The mistress of the Children’s House in Milan had constructed
a long shelf beside a window, on which were set out the supports
for the choice of the metal insets necessary for the first drawing
exercises (vide later: Teaching material in the preparation for
writing). But the ledge, being too narrow, was very inconvement
for the children when they were choosing their pieces, and they
often let a case fall to the ground, scattering with a great amount
of noise the metal insets which it contained. The mistress planned
to have the shelf altered, but the carpenter delayed Ms coining, and
78 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

in the meantime the children learnt to carry out their performances

so cleverly that no more cases fell to the ground in spite of their
uncertain balance. The children’s skill in moving things had made
good the defect in the furniture.
The simplicity and the imperfection of external objects are
helpful in developing the activity and the dexterity of the pupils.
All this is logical and simple; and now, having been enunci¬
ated and experimented with, it seems to be as evident to everybody
as the egg of Christopher Columbus.

Discipline and Liberty

We have to deal with another difidculty frequently raised by

those who practise the usual methods of discipline, namely how
can discipline be maintained in a class of children free to move
about?
Certainly in our system we have a different conception of
discipline; we regard discipline as being an active state of things.
We do not consider that discipline has been achieved when an
individual has been rendered by artificial means as silent as a mute
and as motionless as a paralytic. Such an individual is annihilated,
not disciplined.
We claim that an individual is disciplined when he is master
of himself, and therefore is capable of controlling himself when
it is necessary to comply with a law of life.
This idea of active discipline is neither easy to understand nor
to obtain, but it certainly embodies a lofty principle of education;
it is very different from the absolute and undisputed compulsion
which produces immobility.
The teacher must be equipped with a special technique if she
is to guide the child along this path of discipline in which he ought
to walk throughout his life, continually moving onwards towards
perfection.
Thus whilst the child is learning to move about with ease and
certainly, he is preparing himself not only for school but also for
life, so that he grows up into an individual habitually correct in
 TEACHING METHODS 79

his behaviour in his usual everyday life. He becomes accustomed

to a form of discipline which is not limited to school surroundings:,
but extends outwards into society.
The liberty of the child ought to have as its limit the collective
interest of the community in which be moves; its form is expressed
in what we call manners and good behaviour. It is our duty then
to prevent the child from doing anything which may offend or
hurt others, and to check behaviour which is unbecoming or
impolite. But as regards all else, every action which has a useful
purpose in view, whatever it may be and in whatever form it shows
itself, ought not only to be permitted, but it ought to be kept under
observation; that is the essential point. By means of scientific
preparation the teacher must not only become equipped with
observing powers, but must acquire an interest in the observation
of natural phenomena. According to our system she ought to fill
a passive role in a much higher degree than an active one. Her
patience, her inactivity, will be compounded of keen scientific
curiosity and respect for the phenomena which she wishes to
observe. The teacher must understand and feel her position as
an observer.
Such is the test which should be applied in the school for little
ones who are giving the first revelations of their lives. We cannot
possibly estimate the consequences of preventing a spontaneous
action when the child is just beginning to do things; perhaps we
may be destroying life itself. The humanity which manifests itself
in its intellectual splendour in the sweet and tender age of child¬
hood, as the sun shows itself at dawn and the flower when it first
opens its petals, ought to be respected with religious veneration;
and if an educational act is to be efficacious it will only be so if it
tends to help towards the complete unfolding of life.
In order to do this it is necessary to avoid rigorously the
arresting of spontaneous movements and the imposition of doings
dictated by the will of others. From this ruling there must be
excepted useless or dangerous actions, because these ought to be
prevented.
80 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

The Difficulty of Class Discipline

In order to carry out my plans I generally had to make use

of mistresses already experienced in the old methods of the ordinary
schools. That conyinced me of the radical difference between the
two systems. Even an intelligent mistress who had grasped the
principle found great difficulty in putting it into practice. She
could not understand her apparently passive role, one like that of
the astronomer, who sits motionless before the telescope, whilst
worlds are wheeling through the universe. This idea that life and
all pertaining to it go on by themselves, and that in order to study
life, to enquire into its secrets and to direct it, one must observe it
and get to know it without interfering with it, is really very difficult
to assimilate and put into practice. The mistress has accustomed
herself too completely to being the only freely active person in the
school, which results in the extinction of the activity of the children.
When she fails to obtain order and silence she looks at people in
dismay protesting that she cannot help it; in vain does one repeat
to her that disorder at the start is unavoidable. And when she is
obliged to do nothing but look on, she asks herself if she ought
not to send in her resignation, seeing that she is no longer a teacher.
But when she begins the task of distinguishing between those
acts which have to be prevented and those which should be
observed, the old-fashioned teacher discovers something to be
lacking in herself and suddenly begins to ask herself if she will be
equal to her new duties.
In fact, anyone who is not trained will find herself for a long
time helpless and bewildered; similarly, a mistress will be the more
intensely interested in proportion to her scientific education and
her practical experience.
In a novel called My Millionaire Unde, there is a very
eloquent example of the old methods of discipline. The uncle is
evidently a very difficult child, and after he had done enough
mischief to upset a city he is, as a despairing resort, shut up in a
school. Here the uncle, Fufu by name, performs his first kindly
 TEACHING METHODS 81

act and experiences his first stirring of emotion when, on finding

himself near pretty little Fnfetta, be notices that she is hungry and
has no lunch.
“ He glanced round him, looked at Fufetta, got up, took his
lunch basket and without saying a word placed it on her lap.
Then he drew back a few steps, and without knowing why
he did it, he bowed his head on his chest and burst into sudden tears.
My uncle could not explain the reason for this unexpected
outburst of weeping.
‘‘ He had seen for the first time two gentle eyes filled with
nd at the
be eating.

nor yet
excuse for
t disturb-

With the
ad hidden

>ne. The-
5 counten-
^ern, as if

“Then she kissed him, and my Uncle, yielding again to the

impulse which agitated his heart, threw his arms round her neck,
put forward his lips, and without thinking or looking, still silent
and sobbing, kissed her on the chin.
“Then he drew a long sigh, passed his sleeve across his face
to wipe from his eyes and nose the moist traces of his emotion,
and recovered his serenity.
“ A harsh voice shouted from the far end of the court— Here,
you two down there, hurry up, get inside.’
“It was the guardian. She killed that first right impulse in
the soul of a rebel, with the same blind brutality which she would
6
:82 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

have employed if they had been beating each other. It was now
time to go. back to school, and all had to obey.'’
This illustrates the unthinking manner in which my young
teachers behaved at first; almost involuntarily, they reduced the
ohildren to immobility without taking enough pains to discriminate
between their movements. There was, for example, one baby who
gathered her companions round her in a group, and then, in the
middle of it, moved about talking and making quiet gestures. The
mistress at once hurried up, stilled the waving arms and exhorted
her to keep quiet. But, watching the child, I saw that she was
pretending to be the teacher and the mother of the others, that
she was teaching them their prayers, with wide gestures, invocations
to the saints and the sign of the Cross; already she was showing
herself to be a leader. Another small boy, who was in the habit
of making purposeless movements and was regarded as being
almost abnormally unstable, one day set himself, with intense
concentration, to displacing the small tables. At once they put a
stop to his doings because he was making too much noise. But
that proceeding of his was really a first manifestation of movements
co-ordinated towards an end; in it he was showing his tendencies,
and therefore it was an action which should have been respected.
In fact, after this he began to be as tranquil as the other
children on every, occasion when he had to move about some small
object on his table.
Sometimes it happened that, whilst the mistress was replacing
in the boxes objects that had been used, a child would draw n,ear
and take up something with the obvious intention of imitating her.
The first impulse of the teacher was to send her back to her place
with the usual admonition—“ Let them alone, go to your place.”
The child was really expressing by her action an inclination to do
a useful action; she would have succeeded well, for example, in
exercises demanding arrangement. On another occasion the chil¬
dren were crowding together in the room round a basin of water
in which small objects were floating about. We had in the school
a little one of just two and a half years old; he had remained alone
 TEACHING METHODS 83

at the back and was evidently filled with the greatest curiosity.
I watched him from a distance with much interest; he drew close
up to the gioup, pushed them aside with his liny baby hands."
realized that he had not the strength to make room for himself,
and then stopped and looked round. Most interesting was the
picture of thought shown on that small childish face; if I had had
a camera I would have captured that expression. He spied an
armchair, and evidently thought of carrying it to a place behind
the gro"up of boys and mounting it. He turned a countenance
beaming with hope on the annchair. But at that, moment the
teacher took him up brutally (or perhaps kindly, according to her
thought) in her arms and let him see the basin over the heads of
his companions, saying—“ Come, dear, come poor little fellow,
you shall see too.” Certainly the baby, on seeing the toys floating
about, did not experience the joy which was about to be his from
overcoming an obstacle by his own efforts, and seeing these objects
brought him no advantage, whilst his own intelligent effort would
have developed his mental powers. The teacher hindered the
child from educating himself, without giving him any compensating
benefit. He was on the eve of feeling himself to be a conqueror,
and instead of that he found himself borne aloft in two arms as
if he were impotent. From his face there faded out that express
sion of joy, of anxiety, of hope which had interested me so much,
and there remained only the stupid expression of the child who
Tcnows how others will act for him.
When mistresses grew tired of my making observations they
began to let the children do whatever they wanted to do. I saw
some with their feet on the table and with their fingers in their
noses without the mistress interfering to correct them. I saw
others pushing their companions about, looking very truculent,
without the mistress taking the slightest notice. Then I had to
interfere, trying patiently to point out how essential it was to be
absolutely rigorous in preventing and by degrees eradicating all
actions which should not be practised, with a view to the child’s
learning the exact difference between right and wrong.
84 the discovery of the child

This is the starting point for discipline, and it is the most

wearisome time for the teacher. The first truth which chddren
have to grasp before they can be actively disciplined is the diffei-
ence between right and wrong and the duty of the educator is to
see that the child does not confuse goodness with immobility and
naughtiness with activity, as happened in the old style of diseiphne.
Hence our duty is to discipline for activity, for work, for
well-doing", not for immobility, for passivity.
A room in which all the children are moving about purpose¬
fully, intelligently, and voluntarily, without creating confusion,
would seem to me to be very well disciplined.
To arrange the children in lines as in an ordinary school, to
assign a place to each little one, and to expect the children
to remain still observing some order agreed upon—that may be
carried out as a special practice for the purpose of collective

education.
It happens also in ordinary life that people have to remain
seated together quietly, when they are present, for example, at a
concert or a lecture. And we adults know that this involves no
small sacrifice of our inclinations.
It is permissible then to arrange the children in order in their
places. To get them to understand such an idea so that they
learn, they assimilate the principle of collective order—that is the
important point.
If, after having understood this idea, they get up, talk, change
their positions, they are not doing so as at first, without knowing
it and without thinking about it, but they are doing it because they
want to rise up, to talk, etc.; that is, from that well-known
state of repose and order, they set out to engage on some activity
of their own; and knowing that certain acts are forbidden, they
will be forced to remember the difference between right and wrong.
The way in which the children change over from the ‘ ordered ’
position becomes better co-ordinated as the days pass; they
really learn to consider their own actions. Observatory notes of
the manner in which children’s early, disorderly movements are
 TEACHING METHODS 85

gradually replaced by those which are spontaneously regulated

constitute a book for the teacher, a book which should inspire
her own doings, the only one in which she can read and study if
she is to become a good teacher. Since the child with similar
exercises makes a kind of selection of his own tendencies, at first
he is confused in the unintentional disorder of his doings.
It is marvellous to find how individual differences manifest
themselves in the most striking fashion when this procedure is
followed; every child reveals himself.
Some there are who stay quietly in their places, apathetic,
sleepy; others stand up, shout, bang, overturn things; others again
set about a definite action such as putting a chair crossways and
trying to sit down in it, displacing a table, looking at a picture,
and so on. In some cases children are revealed as being slow in
their mental development, or perhaps sickly; sometimes character
develops late; finally they may turn out to be intelligent, adaptable
to their surroundings, capable of expressing their tastes, their incli¬
nations, their power of spontaneous attention, the limits of their
endurance.

Independence

The concept of hberty for the child cannot be simple like that
which is associated with the observation of plants, insects, etc.
The reason is that the child, owing to its characteristic helplessness
when born and its position as a social individual, is fettered by
many bonds which restrict its activity.
An educational method which is based on hberty must inter¬
vene in order to help the child to regain it; that is, to lessen as far
as possible the social bonds which hmit his activity. By degrees,
as the child proceeds on his way, his spontaneous demonstrations
will become more instinct with truth, will reveal his character more
dearly That is why the first form of educational intervention
ought to have as its object the leading of the child along the paths
of independence.
86 THE DISCOYERY OF THE CHILD

One cannot be free without being independent; .hence, in, (),rder

to attain independence, the active manifestations of personal liberty
must be guided from the earliest childhood. Little children, from
the .moment when they are weaned, are travelling along the
hazardous road of independence.
What is meant by a weaned child? A baby who has become
independent of the mother’s breast. In place of this single nourish¬
ing breast he will.be able to choose from a hundred dishes of
soft stuff, that is, his means of existence is extended ; he will even
be able to choose his ‘papf whereas at first he had been limited
to a single form of nutriment.
Yet he is still dependent, because he is unable to walk, cannot
wash or dress himself, cannot ask for what he wants in intelligible
language; he is the slave of everybody. At the age of three,
however, the child should have made himself to a great extent
independent and free.
We have not yet realized properly the lofty conception of
independence, because the social conditions in which we live are
still servile. In a period of civilization in which servants exist,
the conditions cannot nurture the idea of independence, just as in
the days of slavery the idea of liberty was obscured.
Our servants are not our dependents; rather are wc their
dependents. It is not possible to tolerate in a social structure so
jradical a human error without its leading to general effects of moral
inferiority. We very often think we are independent because no
one gives us orders or because we give orders to others, but the
man who is dependent on a servant is dependent on his own
inferiority. The paralytic who cannot lift his shoes owing to a
pathological cause, and the prince who cannot lift his because of
a social idea, are practically in the same condition.
The people who admit servitude, who believe that it is to the
advantage of a man to be ' served ’ in everything rather than be
‘ helped ’ by another, regard servility as an instinct. In fact, we
are very ready to rush to serve, as if we were likely to fail in perfect
courtesy, politeness or kindliness.
 TEACHING METHODS 87

He who is served instead of being helped, in a certain sense,

has injury done to his independence. Here is a conception which
forms the foundation of man’s future dignity; I do not wish to
be waited on because I am not impotent, but we must help one
another, because we are members of a community. This indicates
what we must attain to before we feel ourselves really free.
Teaching, if it is to benefit the tender children, must be such
as will help them to advance along the road to independence.
Helping them to walk alone, to run, to mount and descend stair¬
cases, to lift up fallen objects, to dress and undress themselves, to
wash themselves, to speak so as to state their needs clearly, to make;
attempts to satisfy their desires—that is what constitutes education,
in independence.
We wait upon children; and a servile act which affects them
is no less fatal than an act which kills one of their useful natural
actions. _ We believe that children are like inanimate pupp.ets; we
wash them, we feed them as if they were dolls. We never think
that the baby who does nothing, does not know how to do any¬
thing; but he ought to do things, and nature has given him all the
means whereby he may learn to do them. Our duty towards him
is, without exception, to help him to perform useful acts. The
mother who feeds the baby without making the slightest effort to
teach him to hold the spoon and to find the way to his mouth, or
who, whilst eating herself, does not at least invite him to watch how
it is done—she is no good mother. She offends the human dignity
of her son, treats him like a puppet, whilst he is a man entrusted
to her care by Nature. Who is there who does not understand
that to teach a child to eat, to wash himself, to dress himself, con¬
stitutes a task much longer, more difficult and more tedious than
feeding, dressing and clothing him?
The first is the work of an educator; the second is the easy,
inferior work of a servant.
The second is not only inferior and easier work but it is
dangerous, for it closes outlets, erects obstacles inthe way of the life
which is unfolding, and besides the immediate consequences, it gives
88 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

rise to graver consequences in the future. The gentleman who has

too many servants not only "becomes more and more completely their
dependent and their slave, but his muscles weaken through lack of
exercise and at last lose their natural power of action. The mind
of anyone who, in order to get what he needs, does not work but
gives orders atrophies and grows weak. In such a manner do we
inoculate the mind of childhood with the deadly sin of laziness.
Supposing that one day, his mind having been suddenly en¬
lightened, the man accustomed to be served should wish to regain
his independence, he would perhaps discover that he no longer
possessed the strength needed to be independent. These criticisms
ought to be made known to parents of the privileged classes.
Just in proportion as it is useless, assistance forms an impedi¬
ment to the development of natural strength.
The danger of servility is not confined to the useless waste of
life which leads to helplessness, but includes the development of
reactions which also are characterized by perversion and lack of
strength, and may be compared with the outbursts of the hysterical
person or the convulsions of the epileptic.
They are the actions of unbridled power. Such violent exhi¬
bitions of strength run parallel with lack of strength; they rise
from the rage which springs from laziness.
Let us imagine a skilful and sensible workman, not only
capable of producing much excellent work but of exercising a
healthy influence in his workshop by the calm judgment with which
he manages everything. Often he will act as a peace-maker, be
the one who smiles when others are in a bad temper. It would
not, however, astonish us to learn that at home this workman
scolds his wife if the soup is not tasty enough or is not ready in
time, or to find that he readily breaks out into anger. At home
he is no longer the skilful operator; the skilful worker is the wife
who serves him and who pities him. Here we have then an
example of a man who is calm where he is the master of his work,
and is overbearing where he is waited upon. Perhaps if he learnt
how to prepare soup he might become a perfect man.
 TEACHING METHODS 89

The man who acts by himself, who expends Ms strength on

his own actions, conquers Mmself, increases his power and perfects
himself.
The men of future generations must be made strong men, that
is, independent and free.

Rewards and Punishments for our Children

We have only to apply the principles set out above to find

that there is born in the child a peacefulness wMch characterizes
and almost illumines all his doings. Truly there is born a new
child morally superior to the one who is treated as a helpless and
incompetent being. A sense of dignity accompanies this new¬
found feeling of inward liberation; henceforth the child interests
himself in his own conquests, remaining indifierent to the many
small external temptations which would have excited Ms lower
feelings irresistibly.
I must confess that tMs experience filled me with astonish¬
ment. I also had been under the delusion of one of the most
absurd proceedings of ordinary education, that is, I also be-
heved that in order to foster in the child a strong sense of work
and tranquillity it was necessary to encourage by means of an
external reward his lower feelings such as greed, vanity and self-
love. And I was also astoMshed when I found out that the child
who is allowed to bring himself up abandons these lower instincts
of his. I then exhorted the teachers to discard the usual rewards
and punishments, which were no longer adapted to our children,^
and to confine themselves to directing them gently in their work.
But nothing is more dijMcult for the teacher than giving up
old customs and old prejudices. One of them especially employed
herself in my absence in improving on my ideas, introducing a
little of the methods to which she had been accustomed. One day,
on an unexpected visit, I surprised a child, one of the most intelli¬
gent, wearing on his breast a large silver Greek cross suspended
from a handsome white ribbon; another child was seated in a chair
in the middle of the room.
90 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

The first had been rewarded, the second was in disgrace. The
mistress, at least in my presence, did not interfere with any action,
and things remained as I had found them. I said nothing and
set myself to watch. The child wearing the cross moved back¬
wards and forwards carrying things from his little table to that ot
the teacher and vice versa, quite busy and intent on his own doings.
As he moved about he passed close to the culprit’s chair. His
cross dropped to the ground, the child in the chair picked it up,
looked at it well on all sides and then said to his companion.—" Do
you see what you have let fall?” The child turned and looked at
the thing indifferently; his expression seemed to say—“ Do not
interrupt me,” his voice said, “What does it matter to me?”
“ It does not matter to you,” replied the one undergoing punish¬
ment, “ then I will put it on.” And the other replied—" Yes, yes,
you put it on,” in a tone which seemed to say, “ But leave me
alone.” The small boy in the armchair fixed the cross on his
breast, looked at it well and settled down in his seat more com¬
fortably, extending his arms along the arms of the chair. Things
remained so and it was quite right. This pendant could satisfy
the naughty one, but not the child contented with his work!
One day I brought on a visit to another Children’s House a
lady who praised the children highly and finally in my presence
opened a box from which she took out many little brass medals
bright and shining, attached to red ribbons. “ The mistress will fix
them on the breasts of the best and cleverest children,” she said.
Seeing that I was not obliged to inform this lady about my metliods,
I was silent; the mistress took the box. Then a little one, four years-
old, a most intelligent child who was sitting quietly at the first table,
wrinkling his forehead and making a gesture of protest, shouted
out several times—“ Not to the boys though, not to the boys.”
What a revelation! The little one already was conscious of
being among the best and cleverest, though no one had made it
known to him, and he did not want to be offended by this reward.
Not knowing how to defend himself, he appealed to his standing,
as a boy! ■
 TEACHING METHODS .91

.■ As'for punishments, we have often found ourselves faced with,

children who continue to disturb others without paying any atten¬
tion to our reproofs. They were at once examined, carefully hy
the doctor, but very often they were quite normal children. Then
we placed a small table in a corner of the room and isolated the*
child at it, making him sit down in an armchair in front of the
class and giving him all the objects he wanted. This isolation
always succeeded in calming the child. He saw from his position
the whole band of his companions and their w^ay of behaving was
an object lesson in behaviour more efficacious than any words.of
the teacher could, have been. Little by little he realized the'
advantages of being in company with others and began to w^ant
to do as they did. We have brought under discipline in this way
all the children who at first seemed to be rebels. The isolated child
was made the object of special care as if he were helpless or sick.
I myself, when I entered, went first of all straight to him, caressing,
him as if he were a baby; afterwards I turned to the others,.
interesting myself as if they were men. I do not know what passed
through their minds, but certainly the ‘ conversion ’ of the isolated
individuals was always decided and thorough. They then became-
proud of being able to work and of behaving properly; generally
they displayed tender affection for their teacher and for me.

Liberty of Development

From a biological point of view, the conception of liberty in

the education of the youngest children should be understood, as a
condition suited to favourable development, both on the physical
side and on the intellectual side. Were the teacher possessed of a
profound reverence for life she would- respect, whilst observing
with human- interest, the unfolding of infant life. The life of the
child is not an abstraction; it is the life of every single child.
There exists only one real biological revelation—the living indi¬
vidual; and towards these single individuals, observed one by one,
education ought to be directed, that is to say the help required for
92 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

the normal expansion of life. The child is a body which grows

and a mind which unfolds; the double physiological and psychical
form springs from one eternal fount-life. Their mysterious poten¬
tialities ought not to be either dissected or crushed out by us;
we must wait for the succession of events in which they show
themselves.
The environment factor is without a doubt subsidiary to the
phenomena of life. It can modify? as it can help or destroy, but
it can never grow. The origins of development are inteinal. The
child does not grow because he is nourished, because he breathes,
because he lives in suitable climatic conditions; he grows because
the potential life within him pursues its course, becomes effective;
because the fruitful germ from which life springs is developing.
Puberty does not come because the child laughs, or dances, or
does gymnastics, or is nourished better than usual, but because
some physiological change has happened. It is life which is mani¬
fested; life which creates; life which gives; and life is confined
within limits and controlled by insuperable laws.
When therefore we speak of liberty for the small child we do
not mean to countenance the unregulated external actions in which
children, left to themselves, indulge as a relief for their aimless
.activity; we assign to the word the profound sense of liberation
of its life from obstacles which might hinder its normal
development.
The child has a great mission which is all the time urging him
onwards—that of growing and becoming a man. Because the
child is unconscious of his internal needs, and because adults are
far from being able to interpret them, there are created around
the child, in the social fife of the family and the school, many
jnistaken conditions which hinder the expansion of child-life. To
remove as far as possible these circumstances through a thorough
study of the intimate and hidden needs of early childhood in order
xo accommodate our help to those needs, is to liberate the child.
This idea demands on the part >f the adult greater care and
Jner observation of the real needs of the child; and, as the first
Exercises of Practical Life, done with great precision and perfection of
technique, satisfy the need for intelligent activity and lead to independence
and co-ordination of movements. A. M. 1. Montessori Schools in Adyar
and Bombay, India; and Karachi, Pakistan.
 TEACfflNG METHODS 93'

practical act, it leads to the creation of an environment in which

the child can employ himself in a series of interesting objectives
be attained—^thus directing into orderly and well-executed
to
actions his unbridled activity.

Exercises in Practical Life

In the environment described above, bright and gay and fur¬

nished according to the proportions of the child, there exist objects
which are designed through their use to achieve some definite
purpose, as for example, certain simple pieces of cloth which the-
child can learn to button up, to lace up, to hook up, to tie,^etc.
Or there are wash-basins in which the child may wash his hands;
brooms with which to sweep the floor, dusters and other things-
suited for removing dust from furniture, various brushes for clean¬
ing shoes and garments—all objects which invite the baby to do
something, to carry out a real piece of work having a practical
goal to be aimed at. To spread out carpets and roll them up
again after they have been used; to spread the tablecloth for the
actual setting of the table at the dinner hour, and to fold it up and
replace it accurately when the meal is over, or to lay the table
completely and afterwards clear away, to wash up the dishes and
replace every item in its own place in the cupboards-these are
nieces of work which are planned and arranged in an order not only
as regards successive dfficulties of execution, but which demand a
gradual development of character because of the patknce which
is necessary for carrying them out and the responsibihty which
they involve in order that they should be carried into effect.
The activities which I have just indicated are called exercises
in nractical life,” because in the Children’s Houses real everyday
ll^eTcarld o; in which all housework is entrusted to the little
ones, who execute with devotion and accuracy their domestic duties,
'hppnmin e sinsularlv calm and dignified.
Besides Lse objects ^hich mtrodoee into tlte mstmeoon .U
the doings of practical life, there are many others {yide following.
■94 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

pages) which lend themselves to a gradual development of intelli¬

gence leading on to culture, such as sets of material for the
education of the senses and others for learning the alphabet,
numbers, and writing, reading and arithmetic. Such objects are
called “ material for development ” to distinguish them from tliose
which are used in practical life.
When we speak of environment we include the whole assem¬
blage of things from which, the child is free to choose for using just
as he pleases, that is to say, in conformity with his inclinations and
his need for action. The teacher does nothing beyond helping him
at first to get his bearings among so many different things and to
find out the precise use of them; that is to say, she initiates him
into *the ordered and active life of the environment. But after
that she leaves him free to choose and carry out his work.
Generally the children have different desires at the same moment,
and one is busy with one thing and one with another, without
disputes arising. In tliis way there moves along an admirable
social life full of energy and vivacious activity; one in which with
quiet delight the little ones solve for themselves the various
problems of social life which the free and many-sided activity
raises up from time to time. Educational influence is diffused
through all the surroundings, and persons, children and teacher,
■come to take their share in it.
 V
H

NATURE IN EDUCATION

ITARD in his classic book, Des premiers developments du Jeune

Sauvage de VAveyron (Of the first developments of the young
Savage of Aveyron), describes in detail the drama of the extra¬
ordinary education which was directed towards dispelling t
mental darkness of an idiot and rescuing a man from a state ot

savage of Aveyron was a child who had grown up in a

state of abandonment in the environment of Nature. Mter being
abandoned in a wood by assassins who thought they had ki
ZX wy .a, cured .y aatura.
vears in a state of freedom and nakedness in the forests. A
X he »aa captured by hunters and was carried into the c.,«
He of Paris; ttie scars on his small body were evidence of h.s
struggles with wild beasts and ot the wounds susta.n«l m hrs

fallstomheig remained a mute; bus

mentalrty, diagnosed by Pinel as that of an idiot, proved almost

—s:femrx“rc^. - -—
made in it. Itard, a physician specializing m the infirmities
96 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

deaf-mutes and a student of philosophy, embarked upon his edu¬

cation with methods which he had already partially tested in
restoring hearing to partly deaf individuals. At first, he was of
the opinion that the wild boy’s inferior traits were due to lack
of education rather than to organic defects. He was a believer in
the principles of Helvetius, “ Man is nothing without the work of
man ”; that is to say, he believed education to be all-powerful.
He was an opponent of the pedagogic principle, enunciated by
Rousseau before the Revolution—“ Tout est bien sortant des mains
de VAuteur des chases, tout degenere dans les mains de I’homme”;
briefly: The work of education is harmful and injures man.
The wild boy, according to Itard’s first illusion, demonstrated
experimentally through his characteristics the truth of the first
assertion. When, however, helped by Pinel, he became aware that
he had to deal with an idiot, his philosophic theories gave place
to a most admirable trial treatment in experimental pedagogy.
Itard divides the education of this boy into two parts. In the
first, he tries to bring him within tire bounds of ordinary social
life; in the second, he attempts the intellectual education of the
idiot. The boy, whilst living his life of terrible abandonment, had
found happiness in it; he had almost been absorbed as part of
Nature in which he delighted; rain, snow, tempest, boundless
space had formed his spectacles, his companions, his love. Civil¬
ized life means renunciation of all this, but it carries with it a
conquest which furthers human progress. In the pages of Itard
there is described vividly the moral work through which the savage
was guided into civihzation, involving the multiplication of tlie
needs of the child and surrounding him with loving care.
Here is an example of the admirably patient work done by Itard
as an observer of the spontaneous manifestations of his pupil; it is
certainly capable of giving teachers who have to prepare themselves
for using experimental methods an idea of the patience and the
self-abnegation demanded when phenomena have to be observed.
“When, for example, observation was kept on him in his
room, he was seen to be swaying himself to and fro with wearying
 NATURE IN EDUCATION 97

monotony, his eyes always looking towards the window and staring,
into empty space. If a storm of wind arose suddenly, or if the
sun all at once emerged from the clouds and lit up tlie heavens
with brilliance, the boy broke out in shouts of laughter, as if
almost convulsed with joy. Sometimes the moments of joy w'ere
replaced by a kind of frenzied rage; he twisted his arms, drove
his clenched hands into his eyes, grinding his teeth and becoming,
dangerous to all around him.
“ One morning the snow was falling abundantly, whilst he
was still in bed; on waking up he uttered a cry of joy, leapt from
the bed, ran to the window, then to the door; back and forth he
went impatiently between the two; then dashed out undressed into
the garden. There, giving utterance to his delight in shriU cries,,
he raced about, rolled in the snow, gathered up great handfuls of
it and swallowed it with incredible avidity.
“ But his sensations were not always shown in such a lively
and noisy manner when he was affected by the great displays of
Nature. It is worth noting that in certain cases they assumed
a calm form of regret and melancholy. Thus when severe weather
drove everybody else from the garden, the savage of Aveyron
chose that time to wander into it. He used to make a tour of it
several times and then seat himself on the border of the fountain.
“ I have spent whole hours, with intense pleasure, watching him
in this position, noting how insensibly that face of his, vacant and
twisted into grimaces, assumed an expression of sadness and melan¬
choly reminiscence, whilst his eyes gazed fixedly at the surface of the
water, on which from time to time he would throw some dead leaves.
“ When, during the fine night of full moon, a beam of silvery
rays penetrated into his room, rarely did he fail to wake up and
station himself at the window. During a great part of the night he
would stand there motionless, his head thrust forward, his eyes
dwelling on the moonlit landscape, immersed in a kind of ecstasy
of contemplation, the immobility and the silence of which were
interrupted only at long intervals by a breath long as a sigh, dying
away in a plaint of lamentation.”
7
 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD
In other passages, Itard relates how the boy was not able to
walk in a civilized manner, but could only run; and tells how he,
Itard, used to run after him at first when he was taking him for a
walk in the Paris streets rather than put a violent check on the
boy’s speed.
The gradual, very gentle introduction of the little savage to
the ways of social life, the way in which the master at first adapted
himself to his pupil rather than the pupil to the master, the sub¬
sequent attraction to a new life which was to win the child over
by its charms instead of being imposed harshly in such a way that
it caused oppression and torture to the pupil—all these constitute
so many precious educational principles which may be generalized
and applied to child education.
I believe that there exists nothing written which offers us so
eloquent a contrast between the natural and the social life, and
which shows so clearly how the latter consists entirely of renun¬
ciations and restrictions. It suffices to think of the run reduced
to a walk, and of the ringing shout brought down to the modula¬
tions of the usual speaking voice.
In our time and in the civilized environment of our society,
children however live very far distant from Nature, and have few
opportunities of entering into intimate contact with it or of having
direct experience with it.
For a long time the influence of Nature on the education of
the child was considered only as a moral factor. What was sought
for was the development of special sentiments aroused by the
wonderful objects of Nature—^the flowers, the plants, the animals,
the landscape, the wind, the light. Later, the attempt was made to
apply the activity of the child to nature by initiating him into the
cultivation of the so-called “ education plots The idea, how¬
ever, of living in Nature is the most recent acquisition in education.
Indeed the child needs to live naturally and not only to know
Nature. The most important fact really is the liberation of the
phild, if possible, from the bonds which isolate him in the artificial
life created by living in cities.
 NATURE IN EDUCATION 99
It was only a short time ago that, under the form of Infant
Hygiene, there came into practice that part of physical education
which meant giving children a closer acquaintance with the open
air in the public gardens, and leaving them exposed for some time
to water and sunshine on the sea-shore. Simpler and scantier
garments, sandals in place of shoes, the bareness of little feet, are
also timid attempts at liberation from the heavy restrictions w^hich
quite needlessly bind children to so-called civilized life. If we
think, however, of the much greater extent to which weak, tuber¬
culous and rickety children are exposed to Nature in modem
sanatoria because experience has taught us that the only means
>of restoring them to health is to make them sleep in the open air
and to live in the sun, it ought to be perfectly evident that all the
more would strong, normal children be able, not only to endure
but to be invigorated by being exposed more freely than they are
at present to the natural elements. But there still exist too many
prejudices about the matter, for we have all made ourselves pri¬
soners voluntarily, and have finished up by loving our prison and
transferring our children to it. Nature has, little by little, been
restricted in our conception to the little growing flowers and to
the domestic animals on which we depend for food, for labour
or for defence. Besides that, our minds have been shrunken, have
•adapted themselves to harbouring contrasts and contradictions,
have even confused the pleasure of looking on animals with that
of being near the poor creatures destined to die in order to feed
us, or that of admiring the song and the beauty of birds imprisoned
in little cages—a kind of nebulous ‘‘ love of nature Does there
not also exist the belief that by transporting a little sea-sand to
some receptacle like a tray one is giving immense assistance to
•children? Very often it is imagined that the sea-shore is educational
because sand is found there as in the receptacle. And so, within
the confusion of this world prison of ours, we arrive at the most
unnatural conclusions.
Nature, to tell the truth, frightens most people. They dread
air and sunshine as if they were deadly enemies. They fear the
100 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

hoar-frost of the night as they would a serpent hidden in the vege¬

tation. They fear rain as much as a conflagration. If nowadays,
urged on by the talk about hygiene, civilized man—that complacent
prisoner—makes a move to free himself in Nature, he does it
timidly, with the most meticulous precautions.
Sleeping in the open air, exposing himself to wind and rain,
defying the sun, plunging into water, are all things about which we
may talk at length but which we do not always practise. Who
is there who does not make haste to close a door for fear of
a draught? And how many do not close the windows before
going to sleep, especially if it is winter and it is raining? Almost
everybody believes that to take very long walks in the open country,
whether it is sun or rain, taking advantage of all natural shelter,
is a heroic effort, a hazard. One must grow accustomed to these
things, they say; but they make no move. How is one to get
accustomed, then? Perhaps the little children ought to get accus¬
tomed; but no! They are even more sheltered than the adults.
Even the English, with their sporting bent, do not subject tlreir
little ones to the tests given by Nature and hard work. Even
there, the good nurse draws them, when they are already well
grown, in their little carriages, into the shade when the weather
is good, and does not allow them to run about and do as they
choose. No! Sport, where it is born, is born as a veritable battle
between the most robust and the boldest youths, those very indi¬
viduals who are called to arms to fight the enemy.
It would be premature to say; “ Set the children free, let them
have fair play, let them run out when it is raining, take off their
shoes when they find pools of water, and when the grass of the
meadows is damp with dew let them run about with bare feet and
trample on it; let them rest quietly when the tree invites tirem to
sleep in its shade; let them shout and laugh when the sun wakes
them up in the morning, as it wakes up every other living creatures
which divides its day between waking and sleeping.” Instead of
that, we ask ourselves anxiously how we can make the children
sleep after daybreak, and how we can train them not to take off
Nature-Study has great interest and reveals a remarkable powder
of observation. Refined movement, trained senses, intelligence
developed on a basis of ordered ideas find unlimited scope for
exploration. Top; Shishu Vihar, Dadar, Bombay, India.
Bottom: Montessori Centre, Laren^N. H., Holland.
102 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

slowly, and stopped when he stopped to gather some little flower;^

or, when discovering the beauty of a donkey which was eating,
grass in a field, he sat down, serious and thoughtful, to keep com¬
pany for a moment with this humble and privileged creature:
Instead of carrying their baby, these parents had solved their
problem by learning from the baby.
Only the poets feel the fascination of a tiny rivulet of water-
trickling over the pebbles as it is felt by the child, who grows,
enthusiastic over it, laughs and wants to stop and touch it with
his hand as if to caress it. No one of whom I know, except
St. Francis, has admired the modest insect and the perfume of
unattractive little plants, as does one of our little ones.
But I suggest that you take up in your arms an infant which
has not yet learned to walk; hold him on a country road from
where is there a wide magnificent view, in such a way that
his back is turned to the scene. You will see him making ejfforts
to turn round and look at the panorama. Stop with him! He-
enjoys that beauty even when he is not able to stand upright and
when his tongue cannot yet ask you to stop. Yes, let us say it
with a paraphrase—“ He does not live by milk alone.”
Have you never seen children standing serious and much
affected round the body of a nestling which had fallen from the
nest, or watched them moving back and forth, talking about
what has happened, asking questions, grieving very sincerely about
what has happened? Well, these are the children who, in their
next period of degeneration, might be capable of going out to rob
birds’ nests.
The feeling for Nature grows with exercise, like everything
else; it is certainly not strengthened by us through descriptions
or exhortations made pedantically to a child who is listless and
bored by being shut within walls and who is accustomed to see-
and hear that cruelty towards animals is a necessity of life. It is
experience which brings things home to him. The death of the
first dove killed intentionally by a member of the family is a black
spot in the heart of almost all children. We have to cure the
 ..NATURE IN EDUCATION 103-

unsuspected wounds, the spiritual maladies which already exist in

these gracious little sons of the prisoners of our artificial
environment.
Nature in Scholastic Education

Education in the school .will be able to fix the attention of

the child on particular objects which will show precisely how far
he has been able to develop feelings for Nature, and which will
awaken in him latent or almost lost sentiments- To supply him
with incentives to activity and at the same time, information which
interests him constitutes, as is true for every other activity, the
function of scholastic education.
The child, who is the greatest spontaneous observer of Nature,"
undoubtedly needs to have placed at his disposal material on which
to work.
Solicitude for Others

Solicitous care for living things affords satisfaction to one of

the most lively instincts of the child mind. It is easy, therefore,
to organize an active service for the care of plants and, more parti¬
cularly, . of animals. Nothing is better calculated than this to
awaken an attitude of foresight in the little child who lives through
his fleeting moments without thought for the days to come. When
he knows that some animals need him, that the little plants will
dry up if he does not water them, his love binds together with a
new th.read the passing moments and the day which is to follow.
Watch the little ones as on one morning, after they had for
many days, with loving care, placed food and water near the
brooding doves, tb.ey discover the nestlings! Another day, it is a
number of delightful chickens which are there, where before there
had been the eggs which the hen had been keeping under her wings
for so long. What tenderness and what immense enthusiasm!
There is born in the children the desire to give further help; they
collect little bits of straw, threads of old cotton material, wisps of
cotton-wool, for the birds which are building their nests under the
102 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

slowly, and stopped when he stopped to gather some little flower:,

or, when discovering the beauty of a donkey which was eating,
grass in a field, he sat down, serious and thoughtful, to keep com¬
pany for a moment with this humble and privileged creature:
Instead of carrying their baby, these parents had solved their
problem by learning from the baby.
Only the poets feel the fascination of a tiny rivulet of water
trickling over the pebbles as it is felt by the child, who grows,
enthusiastic over it, laughs and wants to stop and touch it with
his hand as if to caress it. No one of whom I know, except
St. Francis, has admired the modest insect and the perfume of
unattractive little plants, as does one of our little ones.
But I suggest that you take up in your arms an infant which
has not yet learned to walk; hold him on a country road from
where is there a wide magnificent view, in such a way that
his back is turned to the scene. You will see him making efforts
to turn round and look at the panorama. Stop with him! He
enjoys that beauty even when he is not able to stand upright and
when his tongue cannot yet ask you to stop. Yes, let us say it
with a paraphrase—“ He does not live by milk alone.”
Have you never seen children standing serious and much
affected round the body of a nestling which had fallen from the
nest, or watched them moving back and forth, talking about
what has happened, asking questions, grieving very sincerely about
what has happened? Well, these are the children who, in their
next period of degeneration, might be capable of going out to rob
birds’ nests.
The feeling for Nature grows with exercise, like everything,
else; it is certainly not strengthened by us through descriptions
or exhortations made pedantically to a child who is listless and
bored by being shut within walls and who is accustomed to see-
and hear that cruelty towards animals is a necessity of life. It is
experience which brings things home to him. The death of the
first dove killed intentionally by a member of the family is a black
spot in the heart of almost all children. We have to cure the
 NATURE IN EDUCATION 103-

unsuspected wounds, the spiritual maladies which already exist in

these gracious little sons of the prisoners of our artificial
environment.
Nature in Scholastic Education

Education in the school ..will be able to fix the attention of

the child on particular objects which will show precisely how far
he has been able to develop feelings for Nature, and which will
awaken in him latent or almost lost sentiments. To supply him
with incentives to activity and at the same timeinfonnation which
interests him constitutes, as is true for every other activity, the
function of scholastic education.
The child, who is the greatest spontaneous observer of Nature,
undoubtedly needs to have placed at his disposal material on which
to work.
Solicitude for Others

Solicitous care for living things affords satisfaction to one of

the most lively instincts of the child mind. It is easy, therefore,
to organize an active service for the care of plants and, more parti¬
cularly, . of animals. Nothing is better calculated than this to
awaken an attitude of foresight in the little child who lives through
his fleeting moments without thought for the days to come. When
he knows that some animals need him, that the little plants will
dry up if he does not water them, his love binds together with a
new thread the passing moments and the day which is to follow.
Watch the little ones as on one morning, after they had for
many days, with loving care, placed food and water near the
brooding doves, th.ey discover the nestlings! Another day, it is a
number of delightful chickens which are there, where before there
had been the eggs which the hen had been keeping under her wings
for so long. What tenderness and what immense enthusiasmt
There is born in the children the desire to give further help; they
collect little bits of straw, threads of old cotton material, wisps of
cotton-wool, for the birds which are building their nests under the
104 THE DISCOVERY, OF THE CHILD

or on the trees in the garden. And a chorus of chirping,

growing all round about, gives them thanks.
The metamorphosis of insects, and the care which mothers
bestow on their offspring,, form subjects of patient observation by
the children, and often give rise to reasoning which surprise us.
There was one small child who was so struck by the metamor¬
phosis of tadpoles that he followed up their development, recording
the various phases of the frog, like a small scientist.
The plant world also calls to them. In one Children’s House
in Rome, as they had no ground which could be cultivated, they
had placed jars of flowers, round a large terrazza.^ The children
never forgot to water the plants with a small watering-can. One
morning I found them seated on the ground, all in a circle round
a splendid red rose which had opened during the night—-silent and
tranquil, completely absorbed in mute contemplation.
Once a little girl who had grown up with a love for the flowers
and gardens which her mother and her teachers had never allowed
her to lack, was looking down from a terrace evidently greatly
excited. ‘ “ Down there,” she said to her mother, “ there is a
garden growing things to eat.” It was an orchard which, to the
mother, did not seem worth admiring, but which filled the child
with enthusiasm.
Prejudice in the Garden

Even into the midst of Nature we cannot help carrying pre¬

judices about which it is very difficult to ascertain the truth. We
have made for ourselves too symbolical an idea of flowers; we try
to adapt the activity of children to our own ideas instead of follow¬
ing the child in order to interpret his real tastes and needs. So it
is that in the garden the child has been forced into activity
artificially created by the adult. The act of placing a seed in the
ground, and then of waiting for the seedling to grow from it is
work on too small a scale and involves too long a wait for children.

^ See footnote in Chapter XVI, “ The Mechanism of Writing

 NATURE IN EDUCATION 105

They want to do big things, and to bring their activity into ir^s-j
diate connection with the products of Nature. Without a doubt
children love flowers, but they are very far from being satisfied
with remaining among flowers, with brooding for long over their
coloured blossoms. Children are profoundly content if they can
act, make discoveries, explore, even apart from external beauty.

Favourite Work

As the result of experiments which we have made, various

conclusions, different from tliose with which I myself had begun,
have been demonstrated by children left with free choice.
The work which pleases children most is not so much that of
•sowing seed as that of harvesting: work, as one knows, not less
intense than the other. It is harvesting, one might say, which
intensifies the interest in seed-sowing. Anyone who experiments
with gathering in the crops will feel more keenly the hidden
fascination of sowing.
One of the most brilliant experiments was that of harvesting
'grain and grapes. The reaping of a field of com, the making up
of this into sheaves to be bound together with bright-coloured
ribbons has had great success and can be made the occasion of
deli^tful field festivals. The care of the vines, the cleansing of
the grapes, as well as the collecting of the beautiful fruit in baskets
may also be turned into gala days of all kinds.
All the fmit trees lend themselves to work of this kind. The
gathering in of the almonds interests even the smallest children,
who do a really useful bit of work, so diligent are they in seeking
out the hidden almonds and gathering them into baskets. Hunting
•out the strawberries lurking under the leaves is work not less
pleasing than that of seeking for sweet violets.
There follows from these experiments an interest in seed-sowing
■on a large scale, as for example in a corn-field, with all its opera¬
tions. Only the adult can prepare the furrows, but the children
can pile up the various heaps of grain to be sown, which are placed
106 THE DISCOVERY. OF THE CHILD
in separate baskets; they,then cast the seed diligently along the'
furrows. The, springing up of so many rows of tender pale-coloured
little plants gives intense satisfaction to both eye and mind. The
growth seems to be made more striking by the uniform quantity,
by the patterns of long, parallel lines which are coloured in them¬
selves. It seems that the magnificence is derived from the massing,
together of single items which by themselves are without much
interest. The yellow stems as they sway about in the wind, and
as they grow up and up even to the child’s shoulders, fill with
enthusiasm the little band waiting to harvest them. Although our
field-work had a religious purpose ^ we were able to reach the-
conclusion that the life of the field is better adapted to the child
than philosophy and symbolism of flowers.
The little plots of fragrant herbs are also full of practical
interest. The activity of the child is then directed to searching,
for, identifying and choosing herbs of various scents. The exercise
of recognizing similar things and of looking for a perfume rather
than a flower, demands (intense effort and arouses the feeling of
making a discovery of something which is hidden.
Naturally the flowers also are of interest, but gathering flowers
is rather more contrary to nature than gathering the fruits offered
by the earth througli the medium of the flowers. These by their
fleeting beauty seem to call to themselves insects more than man,
in order that they may be helped to carry out their mission of
eternal life. It is true that children brought up so that their needs
are satisfied, often sit down beside flowers and admire them; never¬
theless they get up very soon and go off in search of something.
to do; the reason is that it is through activity that they tb.emselves
can stimulate into unfolding those buds of theirs which are instinct,
with beauty.
Simplicity

The work must be such as possesses variety within itself.

The end operations of sowing and reaping are not essential for
rousing the child’s interest. . He adapts himself cheerfully to the:
T See Chapter XXIII, “ Religious Education
 NATURE IN EDUCATION' lOT

simplest doings which have an immediate end in view*, and allow-

him bring into play some purposive effort—as for example, clear¬
ing away weeds from paths and furrows, sweeping up dried leaves,
cutting off some old branch. In a word, to have a wide field for
activity and to have opportunities for new experiences and for
engaging in dijdicult enterprises, brings satisfaction to the spirit of
animation which prompts the child to make its way in the wmrld.
Our experience reminds us of quite small children who wander
fearlessly among cows, or children who are making friends with,
flocks of sheep. Others are preparing soil with a sieve and carry¬
ing it away in barrows or building up great beds with branches-
of trees.
The care of the greenhouses and the preparation of water for
acquatic plants, the . arranging of the nets which protect the water
from insects and such things, are work which it is perhaps rarely
possible to carry out, for the environment does not generally pro¬
vide for them; but they would never be outside the strength and
the good-will of the child.

Our Garden

Another conclusion we arrived at by placing the child

in conditions in which his needs could be demonstrated was that
of limiting the field or the garden to its spiritual needs. It is a.
common belief, on the contrary, that it is desirable to give children
unlimited space. In that case the child was being considered
mainly in the matter of his physical life; the limits were to be deter¬
mined by the nimbleness with which his legs could run. However,,
even considering the ‘ racecourse ’ as the limit of the ground, we
will find it to be decidedly more restricted than we had imagined
it to be, provided that we are willing to determine that limit with
precision. In an immense field, children play and race about in
some well-defined space. All living things tend to localize them¬
selves and to keep themselves within boundaries.
This deduction applies also when we consider the mental life.
The limits must be sought for in that right measure which lies»
108 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD
'between excess and insufficiency of space and things, a miserable
affair which does not even satisfy his own sense of importance.
Whether it is his own property or not does not matter to the child
whose needs are satisfied. He must be able to survey just as many
plants as he can get acquainted with, just as many as he can fix in
his memory in such a way that they are familiar to him.
Even for us, a garden with too many plants, too many flowers,
is a place full of ‘ unknowns,’ which live outside our consciousness.
Lungs will breathe well in such places, but the mind will remain
without kindred attachments. But a very small patch of ground
■cannot satisfy us either; what it contains is a mere nothing, does
not fulfil our needs, does not satisfy the hunger of the spirit which
longs to enter into communication with other spirits. There are
then limits—the limits of our garden—in which every plant is dear
to us and gives us help which, we feel, aids us in maintaining our
intimate personality.
The decision respecting limits has raised great interest, and
has been applied in many countries as the practical definition of
the garden as being what responds to the needs of the child’s spirit.
Today, the lay-out of our gardens proceeds step by step along
with the building up of the Children’s Houses.^

^ Tn later experiments, planned by Mr. Mario Montessori, scientific educa¬

tion in nature subjects is being carried out more extensively. It is impossible
to describe here the great amount of work and the ample and striking material
•which have been suggested exclusively by the interest and the activity shown by
the children. It is enough to mention that they include a great part of the
morphology and the classification of the animal and the vegetable kingdoms,
preparing for and beginning the experimental study of physiology. Precise
;and scientific attention is also given to the preparation of aquaria and terraria
which should not lack in any school. Spontaneous and purposeful exploration
■of Nature followed this preparation in the school and led to a host of dis¬
coveries made by the children themselves. On this basis, responding to the
characteristic needs of the young child for sensorial and motor activity applied
to the absorption of fundamental knowledge, the ground was prepared for a
vast and far-reaching development in the elementary school. It provided the
solution for the problem of satisfying the interests of the older child without
"burdening his mind with a preliminary and boring effort to master terminology
and static notions, when the interest for them has disappeared. It is the
7ounger child who spontaneously and enthusiastically prepares the foundations,
‘Which the older child then uses to satisfy his own superior interest.
CHAP T E ’ ’ R VE

EDUCATION IN MOVEMENT

The Red Man and the White Man

One point which I think it is well to clear up for teachers is the dis¬
tinction to be drawn between the nutritive part of the bodily system,
and the part which functions in bringing us into relationship with the'
environment and the organs with one another. The former depends-
on the circulation of the blood, the latter on the nervous system.
The nervous system can be distinguished as consisting of the
main sympathetic nervous system, which specially controls the
visceral functions and which is closely linked up with emotional
states; and the central nervous system with its infinite ramifications-
of nerves which, proceeding from the sense organs, place these-
centres in communication with the external world, and by termi¬
nating in muscles establish the dependence of these on the will..
We need no other indications than those of the emotions and the-
will to convince us that the sympathetic system is subordinate to*
and dependent on the other. And that, above all, ought to be
considered by anyone whose aim is education.
The question which occupies us at the moment, however, is
to bring for a moment under our attention, in their entirety and
:110 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

lin outiine, the two great systems—that of the circulation, which,

having for its centre the heart, permeates the whole body with its
extremely minute system of capillary vessels, and the nervous
■system, which, having its principal centre in the brain, sends out
an infinite number of branches which break up into the microscopic
ramifications of the periphery.
As is well known, capillary vessels and ultimate nerve-endings
are to be found in all the most minute parts of the body, the blood
:supplying the material nourishment, and the nervous element
maintaining the vital tone even in histological places. In order to
obtain a clear impression of the distribution of the capillary system
and of the peripheral nervous system, it is enough to remember
that the prick of a pin in any part of the body whatever (external
or internal) causes bleeding and gives rise to pain. If, speaking
theoretically, we could dissect out in a complete manner the
-circulatory system and the nervous system, the result would be a
reproduction of the body in all its details: in the first case a ' red
man and in the second, a ' white man h
To the ‘ red man ’ belongs the life of nutrition, since in him
are linked up the systems which serve to gather in from the outside
world the material necessary for sustaining the body—food and
-oxygen—as well as the organs intended to get rid of refuse. On
fthe other hand, embodied in the ‘ white man ’ are the organs of
the senses, which serve to collect sensations from the external
world, and the immense muscular system which carries out motor
activity. Although the two ‘ men ’ are quite distinct one from the
other and are clearly separated in their functions (one takes in
material for the body, the other food for the spirit), yet they are
interlocked so closely and are in such intimate reciprocal reilation-
ship that no part of the organism could function without their
mutual action. The heart beats and drives the blood onward,
because it is enervated; the nerve centres and tlie nerves carry out
their work because they are fed by the blood.
The muscles form the most massive part of the bodily struc¬
ture. They are attached to the skeleton, which exists in order to
 EDUCATION IN MOVEMENT 111
provide them with points of support, as well as to protect the
centres of the nervous system and of the circulation. To them
belongs all activity relating to the external world and expression.
The small organs of the senses are almost the breathing pores by
which the mind takes in the images necessary for mental impres¬
sions; but to the muscles is reserved the practical work of life.
All the work of the will is carried out by these marvellous instru¬
ments of movement. The function of the mind is just to possess
all these means of expression with which the idea is changed into
action; feeling is realized in work.
Whilst the muscles exercise an important a function and in
order to fulfil it carry out operations most complicated in their
co-ordination, at the same time they assist the circulation of the
blood in such a pronounced manner that they lend the greatest
assistance to the heart. This,' however, happens as a material
consequence of that movement designed to further relationships.
It has happened, however, that man (especially the children)
has been condemned to an inactive existence, to carry on mental
work dissociated from the organs with which it ought to be bound
up, which include not only the brain but the organs of the senses
and the muscular system. Physical degeneration has been the
consequence of this, because even nutritional life forms part of the
individual unity. The educational consequences of this fact have
been demands on the ‘ active life,’ that is to say the motor life,
principally with the object of reviving and intensifying the
‘ nutritive life,’ in which languor accompanies physical weakness,
the alteration of the building-up processes and a predisposition to
diseases. This muscular system, to which belong the lofty func¬
tions of the life of relationships, has therefore been degraded to
the mere task of helping the blood to travel more quickly on its
difficult and complicated journey; the organs for the expressions
of the mind will then form a kind of suction pump acting on the
liquid of the blood.
Such a reversal of functions certainly cannot restore man to
normal activity; to the error of apathy, there has been added at
112 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

functional error. One mistake tries to remedy another mistake.

And tb.e mental is always more damaged by it, even in its moral
expression. For acrobatism is a physical struggle. Games and
similar activities dissipate the higher qualities of man.
What does one do when a joint is dislocated and causes defor¬
mities and pain and ailments of so many kinds ? One puts the bone
back into its place to restore it to normal functioning. This being
done, all the consequences which were the effects of a single cause
disappear of themselves. The educational error then was to let
thought and fancy wander about vaguely allowing the senses to
remain unused and the muscles inert, whereas senses, nerve
centres and muscles constitute one whole. The correction needed
is to put into an active state the functioning of the organs coimected
with the mental hfe. Mental work ought to be accompanied by
sensations of truth and beauty, which reanimate it, and by move¬
ments which bring ideas into play and leave their traces in the
external world, where men ought to be giving each odter mutual
help. Muscular exercises ought always to be at the service of the
mind, and should not abdicate in order to make themselves
servants of the material part of the nutritive life in what is called
the ‘ physical life ’.
For example, work is a physical exercise which is at the
service of the mind, and when man works, it helps indirectly to
make the blood circulate and the lungs to breathe.
The problem of health is also, tlierefore, a problem of work.
To work in the open air, when conditions of nutrition are
good, within the limits which the higher functions of the human
mind permit, is to live normally and to attain perfect health.

Gymnastics and Behaviour

In the ordinary schools it is usual to call by the name “ gym¬

nastics ” a kind of collective muscular discipline the aim of which
is to carry out movements under commands given to a whole class.
This work in the gymnasium is often a first step towards acrobatics.
 education in movement 11?
These diflferent kinds of movement have been found useful in
order to counterbalance the muscular inertia of pupils who have
to follow a sedentary life in their studies, whilst keeping themselves
in a prescribed position imposed by class-discipline, that is to say,
seated stiffly on wooden benches. So gymnastics represent a
remedy necessitated by"* an evil inflicted on the children; and
nothing is more characteristic and almost symbolical of the old
regime than this action and counter-action enforced by the teacher,,
who dictatorially increases evils and remedies for the passive,,
disciplined child.
The modern tendencies which place gymnastics on different
levels, as for example, games in the open air which come to us-
from England or the rh3^hmical gymnastics of Dalcroze, consider
the child inn more human fashion. They give him an opportunity
for loosening his muscles from their enforced positions with a
greater regard for his personality. All these methods, however,
are reactions from a life which has been wrongly understood and
have no modifying influence on life itself. They lie, like amuse¬
ments, outside the usual existence.
Making muscular education penetrate into the very life of
the children, connecting it up with the practical life of every day,
formed a main part of the practical side of our method, which
has introduced education in movement fully into the indivisible
whole of the education of the personality of the child.
The child, as all agree, must be continually on the move; the-
need for movement, which is irresistible in childhood, apparently
lessens as the inhibitory powers develop, during the time when
these, harmonizing with the motor impulses, are building up
machinery for bringing them into subjection to the will. Thus
the more advanced child possesses more obedient motor tendencies,
and when an outside will influences his he can dominate impulses.
This, however, always remains as the foundation of the life of
relationship, for this is precisely the characteristic which distinguishes
not only man but all the animal kingdom from the vegetable world.
Movement is therefore the essential of life and education cannot
8
114 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

be conceived of as a means to moderate or worse to inhibit move¬

ment; it should only function as an aid to a better expenditure of
energy, whilst allowing it to develop normally.
In nature children possess a guide which leads them to modify
their way of moving about; this does not need to be demonstrated.
The infant’s movements are ceaseless and imco-ordinated like those
of a puppet; the child of three is always on the move, often throw¬
ing himself on the ground, running about and touching everything;
the child of nine walks and moves about no longer feeling the
need to stretch himself on the ground or to lay hold of everything
with which he comes in contact. These modifications develop by
themselves, independently of any educational influence. They are
associated with an external transformation of the proportions of
the body, between the length of the trunk and that of the lower
limbs. In the new-born child the length of the trunk from the
top of the head to the hollow of the groin is equal to 68 % of the
total length of the body; this means that the legs represent 32%
of the length. On the other hand, in the adult man, bust and
legs are about equal in length. The change in these proportions
forms part of growth. When the child enters our schools at three
years of age, his legs correspond to 38% of his height; and then
they grow, relatively to the trunk, until they exceed by a great deal
the proportions in the adult; already at seven years of age the legs
are 75% of the height. It is known, that after puberty it is the
tnink which grows mainly, until it attains the usual adult pro¬
portions. It is worth while to consider such an elementary detail
of growth in order that we may understand that children’s needs
in respect to movement must vary, and that we must observe
them as they move about spontaneously if we are to be able
to help them to grow up to their fullest possible measure. It is
enough to point out some fundamental characteristics. Children
with their short legs are making great efforts to establish perfect
balance, and with a little run they mask the difiiculty of simply
walking, whilst they feel the need for resting themselves by extend¬
ing their trunk on the ground and raising their legs in the air.
 EDUCATION IN MOVEMENT 115
Whilst the infant assumes almost as a natural position that in
which the trunk is supine and the feet turned up into the air to
meet the extended hands, the child between three and five years
of age seeks a resting position by stretching himself prone on the
ground and often elevating his shoulders by supporting himself on
his elbows; that is, he assumes the position, ventre a terre.. He
has also to find positions of rest different from that of -sitting on
a chair. Children love to sit on the ground, using as a base the
whole length of the crossed legs or the length of one leg placed
alongside; in doing so they give theiiiselves a wider base of support.
Considering this natural need for a period of rest to break the
continuous moveinent, we have provided in the Children’s Houses
■small rugs, which usually are rolled up and kept in a part of the
room set apart for the purpose; children who want to work on the
ground rather than seated at a table must first of all take a mat,
spread it out on the ground and then work-oii it there. No adult
tells them to change these positions, so the child quietly follows
the dictates of its nature.

- Gymnastics and Work

The exercises of practical life, when one thinks of it, constitute

real and proper gymnastics; the gymnasium in which they are
fostering all movements is just the environment in which one lives.
Here we have something which is quite different from the labour
which produces new things. Instead of that it preserves things as
they exist; it is a continual displacing of objects under the direction
of intelligence which sets before it an aim to be reached. Rolling
up a rug, brushing a pair of shoes, washing a wash-basin or floor,
laying the table, opening and closing boxes or doors or windows,
arranging a room, setting chairs in order, drawing a curtain, carry¬
ing furniture, etc.—all these are exercises in which the whole body is
engaged, sometimes one, -sometimes another movement being per¬
fected.. By means- of habitual work the child learns to move its'
arms and hands and to strengthen its muscles in a better way than
116 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

by tLe usual gymnastics. But the exercises of practical life cannot

be regarded as simple muscular gymnastics; they are part of the
work. It is the restful work of muscles which function without
growing tired because interest and variety renew them with every
movement. It is the exercise natural to man who, when he moves,,
ought to have an object in view; muscles ought always to serve
the intelligence and thus remain in functional unity with the human
personahty. If man is an intelligent creature and is muscularly
active, then his rest lies in intelligent activity, as the rest of
every other creature lies in the normal exercise of its functions.
We must, then, offer to the child means within his surround¬
ings by which to exercise his activity, remembering that the
Children’s House includes children of various ages—from three to
six years—who all Mve together like members of a family and who,
therefore, require different occupations.
The objects which we use for practical life have no scientific
signification; they are the objects in use where the child lives and
which he sees being used in his home; they are made, however,
in sizes adapted to the little man. The quantity is not fixed by
the method, but depends on the resources of the school, and above
all on the length of time which the child spends in school each day.
If the school has a garden attached to it, there will form part of the
practical operations such work as taking care of the paths, tidying
up the plants, gathering fruit when it is ripe and so on. If the
day’s time-table is very long, dinner will form part of the occupa¬
tions; it introduces effort and action more difficult and more
interesting than any other kind of practical work; it includes laying
the table with the utmost care, serving at table, eating properly,
washing plates and cups, carrying away and storing pots and pans,
and so on.
The Work

’When the child arrives in school, he takes off his own gar¬
ments. Little hooks, fixed to the wall at such a height that the
arm of the child can reach them comfortably, are at his disposal.
 EDUCATION IN MOVEMENT 117
Little water-taps, placed so low that they do not reach the Imee
of an adult; minute appurtenances like bits of soap, nail brushes,
■small hand-towels are within the reach of the child. Or, faiMng
the water-tap and basin, there will be some sort of wash-basin,
were it only a small bowl set on a low table together with a little
jar and a receptacle into which used water can be poured. A box
containing shoe brushes, a few bags hung on the wall in which
are kept clothes-brushes so narrow that a tiny hand can grasp them
easily, form other practical objects. And, where it is possible,
there ought to be kept a small dressing-table with a small
mirror, placed so low that it reflects perhaps no more than
the space between the feet and the knees of an adult. The little
one will be able to look at himself when he is seated and should
his hair become untidy by taking off his hat or through the
wind in the street he will be able to put it in order; there will be
at hand a little hair-brush and a tiny comb. The child then puts
on his pinafore and working blouse, and he is now ready to make
his entry.
If the school is not in order, then there is work to be done.
Perhaps there are vases of rather faded flowers which it is well to
throw away, or the water needs to be changed. The statue of the
baby Jesus, so dear and pretty, has not been'dusted; that must be
done. Cloths of various kinds and colours hang from hooks,
together with a bright-coloured feather duster; the article most suit¬
able is chosen and the cleaning begins. A table has a spot on it!
It must be removed: soap and a brush. If a little water has fallen
on the floor it must be wiped up at once. Or if a piece of bread
or a dry leaf has fallen on the floor, the broom is there, small,
light, so inviting with the pretty colours and pictures which adorn
a handle shining with polish and cleanliness! What is there more
pleasing than the dust-pans all green with red spots, or what as
white as a wash-tub? Similar occupations are engaged in as often
as occasion arises; we have no time-table either for forenoon or
afternoon. The child is all the time inspecting his surroundings
minutely, his * House ’; and when any chair is out of place, making
118 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

things look disorderly, we may be certain that it will be the smallest

children who will take notice of it. Before the age of three the
work of arranging furniture and putting everything in order forms
the highest and most improving work, and for that reason also,
it makes the loudest calls for action.

The Voices of Things

The teacher superintends, it is true; but it is the things of

various kinds which call to children of various ages. Truly the
brilliancy, the colours, the beauty of gaily decorated objects are
no other than voices which call the attention of the child to them¬
selves and urge him to do something. Those objects possess an
eloquence which no mistress can ever attain to: “ Take me,’’ they
say, “ see that I am not damaged, put me in my place.” And
the action carried out at the instigation of the things gives the child
that lively satisfaction,, that access of energy which prepares him
for the more difficult work of intellectual development. Very
_often there is more than one voice of things which is calling; the
call gives a complicated order; some important pieces of work
require not one child but an organized band of them and require
long training and preparation. Such are the tasks of laying the
table, serving dinner and washing up pots and pans.

The Talents

It w^oiild be a mistake, before testing it, to make an estimate:

of the capability of children as based on their ages and to exclude
any of them helping on the supposition that they are not capable
of giving help. The teacher ouglit always to open the doors of
-opportunity, never discourage anyone by lack of.trust. Even the
tiniest children w^ant to be doing things and are possessed of an
urge to exert themselves, more vigorously than the bigger ones.
The wise mistress will therefore be on the look-out for any
contribution which even the smallest child can give. Perliaps. the
 EDUCATION IN MOVEMENT ' ' 119

little one of two and a half will be able to carry the bread, whilst
the child of four and a half will manage to carry the pan of hot
soup. The importance of the work does not concern the children;
they are satisfied w4en they have given the maximum of which
they are capable, and when they do not see themselves excluded
from the possibilities which the surroundings offer for doing some¬
thing. The most favoured work offers the greatest scope to
each of them. They possess a kind of inw^ard ambition which is
directed in bringing into full play the ‘ talents ’ which God has
■given to them, as in the Gospel parable; and when they do succeed
in it, they attract the liveliest interest of many admirers. The
children when invited to table do not think only of eating; they
love this splendid chance of showing their inner powders and often
their fine feelings (as in waiting for companions, in saying their
prayers). They waste no time, and they know how to take
advantage of opportunities. Look at this minute w^aiter, covered
up in his white apron, as he stands there thoughtfully before the
table on which he has just spread the table-cloth so carefully, and
thinks ever the number of the guests, and then about the best
arrangement of the places which presently will have to be laid.
That laughing baby who pours the water into the glasses so slowly,
guiding her^ hand so that the bottle shall not touch the edge of the
glass and.shall not let the last drop of w^ater fall on the table-cloth!
Moving swiftly and. gai,ly there arrives a band of little serving-
maids, each one carrying a pile of plates, the crockery for every
separate table. It is satisfaction which has given lightness to these
bodies and stimulated them like music.

Precision

Anyone who comes much into contact with these children

finds out .that underlying the active force which directs them to
carry out certain practical matters, there exists a secret of success;
it is. the precision, the exactitude with which the acts must be done.
The ..obvious aim of pouring into a.glass interests them much less
120 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

than the pouring of it without touching the edge of the glass with
the bottle and without spilling on the cloth the last drop of water.
Washing the hands is a more attractive proceeding if one has to
.remember the exact place where the soap has to be put and where
the towel must be hung up.
Movement in itself is a crude affair, but if it is actuated by
a desire for perfection, its value is increased. The hands, for
instance, are washed not only to get them clean, but that there
may be acquired the ability to wash oneself perfectly. By washing
one’s hands in this way one is left not only with clean hands, but
one becomes more skilful, gaining a certain refinement which
makes one superior to the child with dirty hands. This revelation
made by the children of loving not only activity directed to a
purpose, but of being attracted by special details and therefore
by precision of execution, has opened up a wider field to education.
It is the education of movements which surges into the front
rank, whilst learning practical things is only an external call, the
apparent motive which stimulates a profound need of organization.

The Sensitive Age

Children are then at an age in which movements possess

fundamental interest; they seem to be most anxious to know how
they ought to move about. They are passing through that period
of life in which they must become masters of their actions. With¬
out our looking beyond the intimate physiological reasons, we
note that the muscular and nervous organs are passing through
the stage when the co-ordination of movements is established.
They are in the critical and transitory stage of definite construc¬
tion. To initiate perfection at this time of life is an immensely
productive piece of educational work; the teacher reaps a wonder¬
ful harvest after a minimum of trouble given to sowing the seed.
She is teaching people to be avid for this definite knowledge.
She gets the impression of giving rather than of teaching, of
performing an act of charity. When she is casting among the
Witii what care do these three little girls perform their self-chosen task! Polishing brass is a delightful and
serious occupation. Monicssori School, Gwalior, India
 EDUCATION IN ■MOVEMENT 121

•crowd of little ones the seed which is necessary for that age, she
feels that she is doing a work of the most worthy charity, like that
of giving food to the starving. Later on, these same children will
tend to become careless about precision of movement; the con¬
structive period of muscular co-ordination will begin to decline.
The mind of the child will pass onward; he will no longer have
that love of his. His mind is compelled to follow a definite course,
which is as independent of his own will as it is of the power of his
teacher. Later on, duty will make him preserve, by an effort of
his will, what he had created lavishly in the stage of love, that is,
at the time when he had to create within himself new aptitudes.
It is, then, at this stage that there is a possibility of initiating
•children into the analysis of movements.

The Analysis of Movements

Every complex action is made up of successive incidents, one

■quite distinct from the other; one act follows another. Trying to
recognize and to execute exactly and separately these successive
acts is the analysis of movement.
In dressing and undressing are performed very complicated
actions, which we adults, except in special social conditions, carry
out very imperfectly. The imperfection consists in mixing up
together several of the successive movements of the action. It
is something which resembles the jumbled up pronunciation of
long words, in which several syllables are run together into an
indistinct and sometimes incomprehensible sound. The person
speaks badly; he does not analyse the word into the sounds
of which it is composed. The elimination of or the confusion of
sounds has nothing to do with the slowness or the rapidity of
speech. One can speak both clearly and rapidly ; indeed the person
who distorts his words is often slow of speech. It is not a question
of speed, but of exactitude. Now we, generally speaking, display
in many of our movements an inexactitude which springs from
lack of education and which clings to us, though we may not be
122 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

conscious of it, as a real mark of inferiority. Let us suppose, for

example, that we want to button a jacket! After having more or
less got the button through, we begin, to thrust the thumb through
the button-hole, and to grab at the opposite side in search of the
button, ignorant of how the button should be directed to put it
in place. On the other hand, what is necessary to do first of all
is to bring the two edges of the jacket close together and then to
direct the button into the line of the hole and push it through^
finally straightening it up. This is in fact how it is done by
servants and tailors when they are dressing their masters or cus¬
tomers. The garments are then kept uninjured for a long time,
whereas by the other method three or four buttonings put them
out of shape and deprive the garment of its elegant fresh look.
By similar stupid procedure we spoil locks, by putting the keys
into them blindly, and mixing up the two successive motions by
turning the key and pulling the door at the same time. Often we
pull the door half shut with the key even when it is not intended
for that purpose, as is indicated by the more or less handsome
door-handles. In the same way we ruin our best books as we turn
over the leaves, because our movements are not adapted to the
purposes. The results of the wrong treatment given to objects
reflect back on ourselves, for our movements become habitually
so rough and clumsy that the harmony of the body is spoilt. If
we observe the movements of an aristocrat, of one of those people
spoken of as ‘ distinguished,’ we find that the distinction is due
to their actions being carried out in the proper consecutive oifler.
This is just the kind of person who moves easily and graceftilly.

Economy of Movement

The analysis of movement is bound up with economy of move¬

ment; to perform no movement unnecessary for the purpose is-
really the highest degree of perfection. There follow as a conse¬
quence'aesthetic movement^ artistic attitudes. Greek movements-
and those which today resemble them most, like those in the
The buttoning frames are
a source of great delight
enabling the child to con¬
quer independence in car¬
ing for his own person.
Also the two girls below
are enjoying an activity
that proves their indepen¬
dence from the help of
fussing adults. It is not
vanity, but this vital urge
that prompts them.
Top; Photo by Mrs. Y. A.
Baker in an English Mon-
tessori School. Bottom;
A.M.I. Montessori School,
Juhu, Bombay, India.
 EDUCATION IN MOVEMENT 123

Japanese dance, are none other than a selection of the movements

absolutely necessary in the analytical succession of actions. But
all this is not confined to art; it is a general principle which
concerns every act of life. A clumsy, ungraceful movement is
generally overburdened by acts unnecessary for its object. Anyone
who, w^hen about to get out of a carriage, opens the door a little
before the carriage has stopped and extends his foot towards the
step, is unconsciously doing two or three useless things, because
he cannot ali^-t yet. But all that is not only useless for the
purpose of alighting, but it is a sign of an uneducated person.
These seem to be difficult, things for us to teach. . But there
is an age v/hen movements possess a fascinating interest, when
the muscular and nervous apparatus responds to exercise, and
when are laid down for the future the differences between, a
cultured and an uncultured individual—it is the age of infancy.

Buttoning Frames

Pieces of cloth which can be fastened together serve the child

as objects for practising analysis of .movement; they are fixed on
a frame which carries two rectangles of material wliich can be
joined together. Every frame illustrates a different kind of joint—
buttons, hooks, laces, ribbons, buckles, patent fasteners, etc. Tliese
objects of development enter into the dressing of ourselves. The
two pieces of stuff must be placed edge to edge,.so .that the things,
to be used for joining them lie immediately opposite each other.
These may, be eyelets into which a lace has to be threaded, .or a.
button and, button-hole, or ribbons to be tied—^all needing mani-
pulations diverse and complicated enough .to enable the chi.ld
to distinguish the, succession of acts, each . one of which has
to be completed before proceeding to the next. For example:
The button must be tilted with one. hand, whilst the other
hand moves the button-hole till it .lies, over the button held
edgewise; then the.button is passed through,; after that it is .made
to lie horizontally. After the teacher has' demonstrated with the
124 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD
utmost exactitude the mode of procedure, the child tries again and
again indefinitely, buttoning and unbuttoning a great many times
until he acquires skill and speed.

Other Means

The following list may supply examples of similar activities:

Dne is locking and unlocking doors, distinguishing between the
acts of inserting the key, which should be held horizontally, of
turning it, then drawing it out of the box or the door. Another
is opening a book properly and then turning over the pages one
by one, touching them delicately. Others are—rising from and
sitting down on a chair; carrying things (stopping before putting
.them down); avoiding obstacles while walking, that is^ not knock¬
ing against people or things. These form a set of the examples
which are in use in the Children’s Houses.
Besides these, another series of actions is introduced in the
course of the everyday life of the child—those relating to formal¬
ities in social intercourse, such as saluting, picking up and holding
out to others an object which has been dropped, avoiding passing
in front of anyone, giving way to others, and so on.

The Line

In everything there exists the multiple expression of one single

idea; it is this unique and fundamental thought which must be
•sought for as being the key to a general problem. The perfecting
■of the most varied movements also has its key, the governing
essential with which all perfection is bound up. This is the equili¬
brium of the body. We have therefore thought out a method for
helping little children to maintain their balance safely, whilst at
the same time perfecting the movement which above all others is
•essential, that is walking.
A line in the shape of a long ellipse having been drawn on the
floor (either with chalk or painted to make it more durable) the
Walking on the line an exercise in balance. The face and outstretched arms betray effort and concentration
Montessori School in England. Photo by Mrs. V. A. Baker
 EDUCATION IN MOVEMENT 125

child walks on it, placing the foot completely on the line, so that
the line lies along the axis of the flat part of the foot. The-
exact placing of the foot is the first point which has to be shown;
the toe and the heel must both be on the line. Moving the feet,
forward in this position, as anyone can prove, gives the impression
of falling. That means that an effort has to be made in order to
preserve equilibrium. When, the child is beginning to be sure of
his walking power, he is taught to overcome another difficulty;
the feet have to advance in such a way that the foremost is planted
with the heel in contact with the toe of the other foot. The-
exercise not only demands an effort to maintain balance, but it
exacts from the child the closest attention in order that the feet"
may be placed in the position required. There results from this,
the ordinary utilization of that instinct which everyone has noticed
in children, the desire to walk on a plank or any narrow bar; and
that explains the keen interest which little children take in our
exercises on the line, and in the development of them which has.
taken place in our schools.
A mistress plays the pianoforte or a violin or a small organ;
not to get the children to walk according to a musical rhythm, but
to give some animation to the movement, so useful when one has-
to make an effort.

Concurrent Exercises

In all our schools there is today, as part of the standard

apparatus, a stand to which are attached many different little-
banners, all attractive because of their bright colours. It is well
known how much the children like to hold them in their hands..
Those waUdng on the line, directly after they have overcome their
first difficulties and acquired equilibrium, may take one of the little
flags, provided they can hold it aloft. If they do not pay great
attention to controlling the arm, the flag will drop little by little.
Attention therefore has to be divided between controlling the feet,
which have to be placed without fail on the line, and guiding the
arm which holds up the banner.
126 THE DISCOVERY O'F THE CHILD

The next difficulties are found in exercises which are more and
more exacting in their control of movements. One is worked with
a set of glasses which contain coloured liquids; the liquid reaches
nearly to the brim, and the child, has to walk liolding the glass
■quite upright so that the liquid is not spilt. The whole jiaiid must
therefore be controlled by that will which is at the same time
keeping the feet from, straying from the line.
Other objects consist of bells which have to be carried whilst
the child is walldng and must be kept quite upright, that is, per¬
pendicular. As he walks all round ..the line, not a sound must be'
heard; whenever the attention wanders, the fact is loudly announced
by the belk
At this stage there comes into existence an interest in over-
■coming greater and greater difficulties. The child launches
himself into joyous activity which little by little makes him
master of all his movements. He is often most audacious in
his belief in himself. I have seen children holding in their hands
■several cubes placed one on top of the other in a column, and
carrying this erection on their walk without letting them fall.
■Others place little baskets on their heads and proceed with the
greatest care.

Immobility an,d Silence

Quite another kind of exercise in the ca,ntroI of movement is

that which makes it possible (as far as it concerns children) to
-create absolute silence. This does not mean the approximation
^iven by sitting still and saying nothing, but is a perfect condition
to be arrived at gradually. It involves not uttering a single sound,
not producing the slightest noise such as might be made by moving
a foot or by a hand slipping, or by noisy breathing. Absolute
silence is the equivalent of absolute immobility. But we will discuss
silence along with exercises of the senses; it is simply mentioned
here, in order to complete the picture which helps in analysing and
co-ordinating movements.
 EDUCATION IN MOVEMENT „ 127

Open Roads

The final object of such exercises is the perfecting of the indi¬

vidual who practises tiiein. But the ways which open up and lead
to new possibilities are multitudinous; the iiidividual wdio has gone
far forward along the path leading to perfection becomes capable
of many things and perfection is not barren of practical results.
The child who has become master of his actions through long
and repeated exertion, and who is satisfied through the employ¬
ment of those motor acts of Ms which he has used in such
interesting and pleasing fashion, is a child filled with joy and health,
who is distinguished by his calmness and his discipline.
He has also prepared himself to acquire many practical accom¬
plishments. His body is ready to respond to musical vibrations;
he is adniirably prepared for rhythmical gymnastics. In the second
stage, music does not continue to be an indifferent incitement to
effort, but becomes, an inner director of movements which are
obedient to its rhythm.
Let us, review matters. These little ones of ours are prepared
for entering a sacred building, where, silence and stillness are obli¬
gatory for those who are worthy to enter it. You see them there
paying attention to the movements of every muscle. They can
walk about without making a noise, stand up and sit down, carry
chairs without disturbing the peace of the holy place. We certainly
do not say that the child is religious because he does this, but in
p,ractice he is ready to enter with dignity into the place where
religion is practised. He is a child refined and perfected and tliere-
,fore he is capable of,entering upon every road which may lead to
his advancement.

The Free Life .

Those conquerors of themselves are also conquerors of liberty,

for there disappear from their constitutionsso many disorderly
and , ignorant tendencies which of necessity place children under
128 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

the continuous and rigid control of the adult. They can scatter
themselves in a garden without damaging paths or flowers, can
run about in a meadow without tumbling down in wrong positions.
Dignity and graceful bearing, easy movement, are gTts supeiadded
to their patient and laborious fundamental acquisitions. Using a
word which translates the English idea, they are “controlled”
beings; and directly they become capable of controlling themselves
they are freed from the control of others. Those who familiarize
themselves with the theoretical study of our method receive an
impression that in the beginning it runs contrary to the precon¬
ception which they had formed of it—that the child is free to do
what he pleases. Instead, they begin to fear for this little one who
is supposed to be free, yet who is obliged in his walking to place
his feet exactly on a line, who is drilled into reducing his small
body to sheer immobility, who toils with the patience of a servant
and who analyses every movement. Only practical experience can
show him children who delight in immersing themselves in these
“ sacrifices,” and convince him that the needs of very small children
who in the course of development are fundamentally governed by
the need for being developed.

The Reality

The exercises in equilibrium and analysis, by stabilizing the

body in its mechanism of equilibrium and accustoming the atten¬
tion to follow every action, encourage perfection in the execution
of every act. The doings of everyday life divert the lively intelli¬
gence of the child to the many actions which he carries out during
the day, and a reciprocal influence is the result; analysis helps
synthesis and its applications, and vice versa. The secret of per¬
fection lies in repetition, and therefore in coimecting up the exercises
with the usual doings of real life. If the child does not lay the
table for a company of people who really dine, if he has not at
his disposal real brushes to clean, and real carpets to clean
every time they are used, if he does not himself have to wash and
 EDUCATION IN MOVEMENT 129
dry plates and glasses, etc. tliere will never be born in him any
real ability. And if he does not live a social life in which he'
observes the rules of education he will never acquire that graceM
naturalness which is so attractive in our children. We know what
a perpetual struggle it is to prevent ourselves from failing into that
depth of indolence which is-always hindering us on our journey
towards perfection, just as the force of gravity in the end stops
the smoothest, most polished sphere from running on the most
level surface. To have reached the highest refinement would matter
nothing, if that were not linked up with daily life, where various
motives urge us never to relax and w^here the fruits of dexterity
acquired are transmitted reciprocally. Rougliness, inexactitude,,
spring up like those herbs which grow even among dry stones, on
a rock which, from its very nature, would seem to be protected
from them.

Giving Actions Their Peace

One detail usually very little understood is the distinction

between teaching how one ought to act—Cleaving free, however,,
the practical applications of it—and the other plan (which is done*
by other methods) of guiding the child in every action and
imposing the power and the will of the adult on the child. Those
who teach in the old style suppose that we, while defending the
liberty of the child, desire that the child should remain without
ability or will-power because we deprive him of that adult superin¬
tendence. On the contrary, we do not understand the idea so
simply; our education is not negative, it takes away nothing, but
it changes, it intensifies, it refines.
One ought to teach everything, one ought to connect every¬
thing with life, but there ought not to be suppressed, by directing
them ourselves one by one, the actions which the children have
learnt to carry out and to place in practical life. This assigning
of their proper places to actions is one of the most important
things which the child has to do. He has not only learnt to be
silent, but he has learnt where he ought to be silent; he will be
9
130 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

silent in church. He has learnt not only how to bend the knee,
but .also where to do it—before the altar. He has learnt not only
every kind of greeting, but has also learnt how to allocate them
according as to who is presented to him—another child, a relative,
a .stranger or a venerable personage. That means that the various
things which he has learnt perfectly must be used and given their
right place in the different times and circumstances of life. It is he
who decides; this application is the work of his understanding, the
exercise of his own responsibihty. In this way he is set free from
the greatest of dangers, that of placing upon the adult the respon¬
sibility for his doings, thus condemning his own intelligence to the
inertia of sleep.
The new education consists not only in supplying the means
of development for separate actions but in leaving the child at
liberty to make use of them.
It is this which transforms the child into the thoughtful and
diligent little man who makes, in the secrecy of his heart, decisions
and selections very different from what we would have expected,
or who, with the rapidity of a generous impulse or with delicate
affection, does things which are .prompted suddenly by his inward
thought. In this also, more than in anything else, does he exercise
himself; and so he travels onwards with surprising confidence along
the ways chosen by his own intelligence.
The inner work of the child is marked by a kind of modest
sensibihty and is expressed only when the adult refrains from
interfering with his directive doings, his inspections, advice and
exhortations. Let us leave the child free to make use of his
powers and he will show himself capable of successes greater than
those which he is making. He will act with scrupulous diligence
in assigning to every activity its proper place, just as the younger
child (that is, two years old) takes pride in being able to put every
object in its place.
When he greets a person of rank who is visiting the school,
he feels that he not only knows how to salute, but how to choose
that form of salutation which is fitting. When he sits down in
 EDUCATION IN MOVEMENT 131
school, or kneels in church, it is he who places in the right order
the actions learnt and perfected. In this there is a knowledge as
well as a power which raises the understanding. The child w%o
has finished his first plate of soup will not ask for more if he has
learnt that he ought not to do it, that his natural desire is forbidden
at this time. He will wait patiently till the waiter, anxious like
himself to do the right and to practise at the right time eveiything
learnt, begins his second round, inviting all who have finished to
have their plates refilled.
As guest or waiter, artist or student, the inward satisfaction
of the child consists in doing the right knowingly, according to
high principles.
Gymnastics and Gavies

What opinion ought we to have about games in the open air?

It is a way of expending an overflow of energy, that is the residue
of energy. They ought to be the gay, unfettered employment of
a strength which the demands of daily work have not used up.
This is a very different thing from considering games and gymnastics
as being in themselves the sole means of physical exercise—almost
as a reaction which saves us from the dangers of inertia.
Nowadays we talk about the great moral influence of sport,
not only because it uses up with definite purpose energy abnormally
penned up and constituting a danger to the equilibrium which the
will has to preserve in man’s actions, but—and this is one of the
most important points—because organized games demand the
exact use of apparatus, and therefore the exact co-ordination of
movements as well as disciphned attention. Exactitude is the
basis of perfection in movements and the point which requires
the co-operation of the attention. It follows that games foster
the spirit of co-operation and maximum effort. This, by com¬
parison with aimless play, represents moral progress.
Now everyday tasks include part of these advantages, as for
example, accuracy in the use of objects, the discipline of attention,
and the final perfection which is. arrived at by movements. The
132 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

moral and social aim, however, is different, because the exercises

do not claim such a conscious social co-operation, but are prompted
by the individual love of the children for their surroundings.
Through games of this character there is, therefore, developed a
true ‘ social sense,’ because the children are working in the sur¬
roundings in which they live as a community, without troubling,
themselves as to whether they are working for themselves or for
the common advantage. In fact, they correct all mistakes with
the same readiness and the same enthusiam—their own and those
of others—without stopping to find out the culprit in order to
make him put the matter right.
Everybody, not only children, ought to exercise his muscles, in
work and make a first choice of this very human and superior way
of expending his energy. This is not merely to establish indi¬
viduality as an entity, but to unify it also with social needs, to which
the work of man is directed. Up till now no man of government
rank has been able to boast that he has obtained from games or
sport help as great as that which working on the soil gave to
Cincinnatus; and no young sportsman will have gained from his.
exertions the moral advantages which daily work gives to the young
monk, who works out his noviciate that he may obtain peace.

Gymnasium for Little Children

If by gymnastics we mean exercises done with the help of

special instruments like those used in a gymnasium, I was the first
to start them with children from three years of age. The first
edition of this book spoke extensively about them. I had observed
that the smallest children, of about three years of age, spontane¬
ously did some exercises on the railings round the flower beds in
the courtyard. These railings were made of iron bars running
parallel and supported by wooden sticks* The children held the
upper bars and put their feet on the lower ones* The distance
between the two corresponded by chance to thek height. Thus,
they moved sideways along them.
 EDUCATION IN MOVEMENT 133

I then had a similar apparatus made which was the first

gymnastic instrument for tiny children.
Afterwards I had a special kind of swing made. It was like
a small chair, raised abo^e the ground with a long seat so that
their feet also could rest upon it. This swing moved towards a
vertical wall. The child, after an initial push, could keep the
swing moving by pushing with its feet against the wall every time
it came near it. This was a g^^mnastic exercise tO' strengtlien the
knees without the effort of walking.
Other simple instmments w^ere also prepared, e.g. the ‘‘ round
stairs ” with lines painted upon them to learn to come down the
stairs in a correct manner, keeping to the same direction without
sw^erving either to the left or the right.
Finally there w^ere various contraptions for jumping from
different heights.
1 was then severely criticized for giving a gymnasium to
children of only three years of age! Afterwards, however, the idea
made headway and was perfected in every country. Also in our
own schools greater perfection was achieved and new applications
were found.
Children of about 5-6 years of age love to climb the branches
of trees, and this is a very good practical exercise for them. I there¬
fore had some instruments built that were similar to empty prisms
with boards fixed at regular distances. These were used as stairs
or ladders to reach the trees. In California we also had small huts
built with balconies resting on the branches of trees. They gave
an opportunity to the children to stay up there and even to
work there.
As a last example I wish to mention the pagoda This is
an application of those contraptions that are everywhere in use on
which children go up a ladder on one side and then slide down on
the other. Instead of the small platform at the top, serving merely
to pass from the ladder to the slide, I had a much larger platform
laid out, so that they could also bring their chairs there and sit
down. It is reached on one side by either a ladder or by simple
134 THE DISCOVERY O'F THE CHILD

transversal bars along wMch they climb whilst they can slide down
on the other side. This pagoda ” was built specially in those
places where some kind of tennis-court existed. This court was
very useful; small children pushed small handcarts there, sometimes
with another small child in them, or they used it for cycling.
Children of three years of age can very well use bicycles (built
according to their size) and those of four become real cyclists. In
Holland, where there are special cycle-paths, many children come
to school on cycles instead of by tram.
Also swimming pools were built in many of our schools; the
fixst having been built in Vienna. There they had a pool in the
shape of the figure eight with various depths for smaller and bigger
children.
We thus had an opportunity to observe that children of four
years of age can learn how to swim (as for that matter we can see
the children of Italian fishermen doing, even without any formal
teaching, at that same age).
All these possibihties are like games, very amusing but not
necessary. That is why later on we did not speak about them
any more and we substituted for them practical work and perma¬
nent abihties (like cycling and swimming). Another reason why in
later years we did not stress them was that these applications are
not easily realized in schools for the poor.

Silence: The Inhibition of Movements

In the common schools, for long, it has been thought that

silence could be obtained by a command.
The meaning of the word has not been studied. It has not
been realized that it demands immobility, almost the suspension
of life for that particular instant during which silence is main¬
tained. Silence means the suspension of every movement; it is
not, as is generally considered in schools, in a rough and ready
way, the secession of noises greater than the normal noises tolerated
in the place .
 EDUCATIOI^ IN MOVEMENT ' 135

Silence in the ordinary schools means stopping talking,, quelling

a disturbance, the opposite of noise and disorder.
On the other hand, silence may have a positive meaning, indi¬
cate a state of things on a higher level than that of normal
conditions. It may be like an instantaneous inhibition which costs
an effort, a dictate of the will, something which detaches us from
the noises of common life, almost isolating the mind from outside
voices.
This is the silence which we have attained in our schools—
profound silence, although it is produced in a class of more than
forty little children between the ages of three and six,
A command could neve,r have secured the marvellous victory
of wills united in preventing all action, during that period of life
in which movement seems to be the irresistible, ever-present char¬
acteristic of life.
This collective work is done by children who are accustomed
to act independently in satisfying their own desires.
It is necessary to teach the children silence. To accomplish
this we get them to perform various silence exercises which con-*
tribute in a noteworthy way to the surprising capacity for discipline
displayed by our children.
The exercises of silence and afterwards the “ silence lesson,
one of the most characteristic peculiarities of our schools, had
their origin in a casual episode.
During a visit paid to a Children’s House, I„met .in the court¬
yard a mother who was holding in her arms her four-months’ old
baby, swaddled as was still the custom among the people of Rome.
Tiny infants were so tightly swathed in the bands moulded round
their little bodies having no other coverings, that they are known
as pupi (puppets). This little one, fat and tranquil, looked the
incarnation of peace.
I took her in my arms where she lay quiet and good. I
went inside with her in my arms, to be met by the children of the
House who rushed out to meet me, as they usually do, all trying
to embrace my knees in such a tumultuous fashion that they almost
136 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

lipset me. I smiled at them., showing them the ‘ cocoon They

understood and danced round me but without touching me out
of regard for the little creature in my arms. So I entered the room
with the children walking all round me. We sat down, I in front
of them^ on a high chair, not on one of the small chairs which I
generally used. That is to say, I seated myself with some
solemnity. They gazed on my little one with a mixture of tender¬
ness and joy; we had not yet pronounced a single word. I said:
‘‘ I have brought you a little teacher.” . They were surprised; they
laughed. “ A little teacher, for no one can keep as still as she
does.” Every little figure stifiened itself in its place. “ No one
keeps his legs as still as she does.” They all carefully adjusted their
legs so as to keep them still. I looked at them smiling: Yes, but
they will never be as motionless as hers; you will move them a little,
she will not; no one can be like her.” The children were serious;
they seem to have realized the superiority of the small teacher;
some of them smiled, and seemed to say with their eyes that the band¬
ages deserve the credit. “ No one can keep as quiet as she does.”
General silence. “It is not possible to keep silent like her; you
hear how delicate her breathing is. Come close up on tip-toe.”
Some of them rose up and crept up to me very, very slowly, on the
tips of their toes, stretching out their heads and turning their ears
towards the little one. Deep silence. “ No one can breathe as
silently as she does.” The children gazed in astonishment; they
had neyer thought that even when, they keep still they were making
noises, and that the silence of the little ones were deeper than that of
the big ones. They almost tried to stop breathing. I got up. “ I am
going away very, very quietly” (I walked on the tips of my toes
without making any noise), “ yet you hear that I make some noise,
however quietly I go; but she walks with me in silence, she goes
away in silence.” The children smiled but they were moved, for
they understood the truth and the joking in my words. I restored
the ‘ cocoon ’ to the mother through a window.
Behind the little one there seems to remain a fascination which
takes possession of every mind; nothing in nature is sweeter than
 EDUCATION IN MOVEMENT 137

the silent breathing of the newly born. - Human life renewed, rest¬
ing in silence, what majesty! Compared with that how colourless
are the words of Wordsworth about the silent peace of Nature—
*‘How calm, how quiet! One single sound, the drip from the
suspended oar.'*
Even the children feel the poetr\^ of the silence of the tranquil,
new-born human life.

The Silence .Lesson is Established

After this surprising experience I felt a desire to repeat it, but

how to achieve this? One day I decided in favour of simplicity and
asked the children: ‘‘ Shall we make silence? ” To my astonishment
all the children, seemed happy at the prospect and answered:
‘‘'Yes, yes!”
I then began my attempt. " In order to obtain silence nobody
should move. . . " Even a foot that moves, makes a noise. . ,
Also loud breathing may make a noise. . . All tried to keep
still and so did I with them. .
During these attempts the children remained enchanted, all of
them competed in.the effort to avoid even the slightest movement.
Thus the attention of the children was drawn to every part of
their body.
Whilst these doings are going on, and my short, excited
speeches are being interrupted by intervals of immobility and
silence, the children listen and watch with great delight. Very
many of them are interested hy the fact which they had never
noticed that they make many noises of which they are not aware,
and also that there are many degrees of silence. There is an
absolute silence, in which nothing, absolutely nothing, moves.
They look at me in astonishment when I stop right in the middle
of the room; it is really as if I were not there. Then they all set
themselves to imitate me and try to do the same. I point out that
here and there a foot is moving about almost inadvertently- The
attention of the children is fixed on every part of their bodies, in
138 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

an anxious desire to attain immobility. Whilst they are doing this,,

there is truly created a silence which is different from that thought¬
lessly called silence. It seems that life gradually vanishes, that the
room by degrees becomes empty, as if there were no longer any¬
body in it. Then there is heard the tilc-tak of the clock on the
wall; and this tik-tak seems to grow in intensity little by little
as the silence becomes absolute. From the outside, from the
courtyard which had seemed silent, there come various noises—
bird chirping, a child passing. The children are fascinated by this
silence, as by a real conquest of their own. “ See,” I said, “ it is
now quite as quiet as if there were no longer any one here.”
This stage reached, I darkened the windows and said to the
children, “ Now listen for a gentle voice to call you by name.”
Then from an adjacent room, situated behind the children,
through a wide-open door, I called in a muted voice but lengthen¬
ing out the syllables as one would in calling to someone across the
mountains, and this half-hidden voice seemed to reach the hearts
of the children and to call upon their souls. Every one I called
rose up silently trying not to move the chair, and walking on the
tips of the toes so silently that one scarcely knew they were
walking; nevertheless the step resounded in the absolute silence
which was never broken whilst all the others remained motionless:
The one called gained the door with a countenance full of joy,
making a little leap into the next room, stifling little outbursts of
laughter; or he laid hold of my dress leaning against me; or he set
himself to watch the companions who were still waiting in silent
expectation. He. felt almost as if he had received a privilege, a
gift, a reward, yet he knew that all would be called, beginning with
the most absolutely silent one who was left in the room. In this
way each one tried to deserve by waiting in perfect silence the call
which was sure to come. I once saw a little one of three trying
to check a sneeze and managing to do it; she held back the breath
in her heaving little chest, and resisted, to emerge triumphant.
Such a game fascinates the little ones; their intent faces, their
patient immobility, show that they are eager to get the pleasure it
 EDUCATION IN MOVEMENT 139.

affords. At first, when I was still ignorant of the child’s mind,

I used to show them little sweets and toys, promising to give them
to whoever was called out, imagining that presents were necessary
to stimulate such efforts in childhood. But very quickly I had to-
acknowledge that they were useless.
The children arrived like ships in port, after having experi¬
enced the efforts, the emotions and the delights of silence; they
were happy, because they had felt something new and had gained
a victory. This was their reward. They forgot the promised
sweets, and did not trouble to take the toys which I had supposed
would attract them. So I abandoned this useless method, and was ■
amazed to find that after the game had been repeated again and
again, even children three years old could keep silent during the
whole of the period necessary for calling out of the room some-
forty other children. It was then that I learnt that within the mind
of the child dwell its own rew^ard and its own spiritual pleasures...
After such exercises it seemed to me that their love for me was
greater; they certainly became more obedient, sweeter and gentler..
We had really isolated ourselves from the world and had passed
a few moments of intimacy among ourselves—in desiring them
and calling for them, they in hearing in the deepest silence^ the
voice directed to each one of them personally, adjudging him at:
that moment to be the best of all I

Freedom of Choice

We now arrive at practical work; we are at school. The-

materials for the training of the senses, decided upon after experi--
mental research, form part of the environment.

^ Silence, which has become one of the best-known characters of the-

Montessori method, has been adopted in many ordinary schools, and so to *
some extent the Montessori spirit has penetrated into these schools. It was this
influence which caused to penetrate into the public manifestations of social-
and political order the silence of immobility, and it was also used for religious -
education.
140 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Little by little, following the directions arrived at after long

experience, the teacher presents now one part, now another of the
-material, in accordance with the age of the child and the systematic
gradation of the objects.
But such a presentation is only a preliminary which acts as
an introduction and nothing more. It is afterwards that the im¬
portant doings begin. Influenced by the various attractions, the
child will choose, as it pleases him, any one of the objects with
which he has made acquaintance and which have already been
presented to him.
The material is set out for him; he has only to stretch out his
hand to get it. He may carry what he has chosen anywhere he
pleases—^to a table, near a window, into a dark corner, or to a
nice little mat spread out on the ground; he may use it over and
over again as often as he chooses.
What influences him in the choice of one subject rather than
another? Not immediate imitation, for there is only a solitary
specimen of every object, and if one child is using it, that is the
very time when no other child can use it.
So it is not imitation. The way also in which the child will
use the material shows this, for he becomes absorbed in his doings
with such intense fervour that he becomes oblivious to every¬
thing around him and continues his work, repeating his actions
consecutively dozens of times. This is that phenomenon of con¬
centration and repetition of an exercise with which is bound up
the inner development. No one can concentrate by imitation. Imita¬
tion, in fact, binds us to the outside world. Here we are dealing
with a diametrically opposite phenomenon, that is, abstraction
from the external world and the closest union with the intimate
-and secret world which operates within the child. No influence is
exerted here by an interest in learning or by an external objective;
nothing of that sort can be connected with this moving and dis¬
placing of objects which are invariably put back into their original
positions. It is thus quite a personal fact, connected with the
meeds which exist then in the child, and therefore with the
 EDUCATION IN MOVEMENT 141
conditions characteristic of his age. Indeed an adult would never
maintain an interest in such things to such an extent as to repeat
their displacement dozens of times and find pleasure in doing it;
still less would it he possible for the inner faculties of an adult to-
concentrate on these doings in such a way to make him insensible-
to external events. The teacher therefore exists on quite a different
psychical plane compared with the child and could not in the-
smallest degree influence such a phenomenon. We are face to-
face then with a veritable revelation of the inner world. External
stimuli like a great calamity call forth some manifestations belong¬
ing to the depths of the soul. Here we find ourselves in front of
a phenomenon of development, pure and simple.
The fact is very clearly evident when we observe the behaviour
of very young children. They sometimes show a similar symptom,,
though only in the motor field; it consists in carrying similar objects-
one by one from one place to another. Only at a later age does-
the child love to transport things actuated by an external purpose'
to be attained, like laying a table, replacing things in a cupboard,
etc. There exists then a formative period in which actions are-
apparently aimless, have no external application. Analogous facts
are met with in the course of the development of speech, when
the child for a long time repeats sounds, syllables and words
without yet using language, far less applying it to external objects.
This phenomenon, so general in ail manifestation of the deve¬
lopment of mental life, therefore possesses the highest interest.
It necessitates that the child should be allowed free choice of
objects. It will develop the more readily in propo-rtion as there'
can be eliminated any obstacle which may interfere between the
child and the objective to which his mind is unconsciously aspiring.
Every external thing, in particular every external activity,,
will be an obstacle hindering that frail and mysterious vital
impulse, which acts as a guide though still unconsciously. The
teacher may therefore become the principal obstacle, because here-
is a more energetic and intelligent activity than that of the child.
In that environment in which the sense stimuli are set out for the:
142 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

free choiee of the child, the teacher (after she has in the first
instance shown them and pointed out the use of them) should try
to ehminate herself.
The activity of the child is spurred on by his own mind and
■ certainly not by that of the teacher.
c H A ^ P T E ■ R VII

THE MATERIAL FOR DEVELOPMENT

Om material for the development of the senses has a history of

its own. It represents a selection, based upon careful psycho¬
logical experiments; from material used by Itard and Segiiin in
their attempts to educate deficient and mentally defective children;
from objects used as tests in experimental psychology; and from a
series of material which I designed in the first period to my own
experimental work. The way in which these different means were
used by the children, the reactions they provoked in them, the
frequency with which they used these objects, and above all the
development they rendered possible, furnished us gradually with
reliable criteria for the elimination, the modification or the accept¬
ance of these means in our apparatus. Colour, size, shape, all
their qualities in brief were experimentally established. As in this
book we do not deal with this phase of our work, it is worth while
to mention this fact.
To avoid misunderstanding and refute criticism expressed after
our Method became known all over the world, it may be equally
useful to state the aim of our sense training. There is the obvious
value of the training and refinement of the senses which, by widen¬
ing the field of perception, furnish an ever more solid and richer
144 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

basis to the development of the intelligence. It is through contact

with and exploration of the environment that the intelligence builds
up its store of operational ideas without which its abstract func¬
tioning lacks both foundation and precision, exactitude and
inspiration. This contact is established by means of the senses
and of movement. If it is at all possible to train and refine the
senses, even if this be only a temporary achievement in the life of
those individuals who later on do not use them to such an extent
and with such constancy as in certain specifically practical and
sensorial professions, its value stands undiminished, because it is
in this period of development that the fundamental ideas and habits
of the intelligence are formed.
There is, however, another side to the importance of sense
training. The child of two and a half or three who comes to our
Children’s Houses, has, during the previous very active and men¬
tally alert years of his existence, accumulated and absorbed a host
of impressions. This remarkable achievement, the extent of which
can hardly be exaggerated, was, however, made without any outside
help and guidance. Essential and accidental impressions are all
heaped together, creating a confused but considerable wealth in
his subconscious mind. With the gradual assertion of conscious¬
ness and will, the need to create order and clarity, to distinguish
between the essential and the accidental becomes imperative. The
child is ripe for a re-discovery of his environment and of his inner
wealth of impressions of it. In order to realize this need he
requires an exact and scientific guide, such as that given by our
apparatus and exercises. He may be compared to an heir uncon¬
scious of the great treasure he possesses, eager to appreciate them
with the knowledge of a professional connoisseur and to catalogue
and classify them so as to have them at his full and immediate
disposal.
If doubt as to the permanence of increased and refined
sensorial activity in certain walks of life seems possible, this last
achievement certainly seems to be an acquisition of the greatest
permanence. Generally the fixst aim of sense training has been
 THE MATERIAL FOR DEVELOPMENT 145

taken as the reason of the importance given to it in our Methodj,

while the second to us is not less, but actually its prime motive.
Our experience and that of our followers has only served to
strengthen our idea.
We may, in conclusion, mention the great service rendered by
our sensorial apparatus and the exercises done with it, for the
detection of defects in the functions of the senses at a period when
much can yet be done towards remedying them.

General Reference to the Material for the

Education of the Senses

Material for training the senses comprises a system of objects

which are grouped together according to some definite quality
which they possess, such as colour, shape, dimension, sound,
surface texture, w^eight, temperature, etc. Examples of these are: A
set of bells which reproduce musical tones; a collection of tablets
which present different colours in a graduated scale; a group of
solids which have the same shape but graduated dimensions and
others wLich differ among themselves in geometrical form; things
of different weight but of the same size, etc., etc.
Objects of every single group represent the same quality but
in different degree; it is then a question of gradation in wLich the
difference between object and object varies regularly, and is when
possible fixed mathematically.
Such general rules are, however, subject to a practical con¬
sideration which depends on the mentality of the child; and as
being suitable for education there will be chosen, as the result of
experience, only material which effectively interests the little child
and attracts him into doing voluntarily and repeatedly an exercise
- chosen by himself.
Every group of objects (material for sounds, material for
colours, etc.) which presents a gradation has therefore its extremes,
the- maximum and minimum of the series, which determine the
limits of it and which, more correctly, are fixed by the use which
10
146 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

the child makes of it. These two extremes, when brought together,
demonstrate the most striking difference which exists in the series,
and thus establish the most outstanding contrast which the material
renders possible. The contrast, being a striking one, makes the
difference very evident and even before he has used the things
the child is interested in them.

Isolation of a single Quality in the Material

Whatever object we wish to use for the education of the senses,

it, of necessity, presents many diverse qualities like weight, rough-
nks, colour, form, size, etc. How then ought we to proceed so
that the series will bring one quality only into prominence? We
must isolate, from among the many, one single quality. This
difficulty is overcome by the series itself and its gradations; we
must prepare objects identical among themselves in all respects
except the variable quality.
If we want objects suitable for teaching colour differences, we
must have them made of the same substance, form and size and
differing in colour only. Or, if we want to prepare objects with
a view to teaching the various tones of the musical scale, it is
necessary that they be perfectly alike in appearance, as are the
bells which we use in our system; these are of the same shape and
size and are mounted on identical supports, but when struck with
a small mallet, they give out different sounds and these sounds
constitute the only difference, perceptible to the senses.
For this reason the little instruments which are put into the
hands of children as musical toys, which have longer or shorter
rods or tubes of different heights arranged like organ pipes, do
not lend themselves to a real exercise in musical sense, tending to
differentiate sounds; for the eye is able to help in distinguishing
them, being guided by the different dimensions, whereas the ear
ought to be the sole receiver and the sole judge.
This method is successful in differentiating between things very
clearly; it is evident that clearness constitutes the principal factor
for raising interest in making distinctions.
 THE MATERIAL FOR DEVELOPMENT 147

On the psychological side, it is known that to enhance any

single quality, it is necessary to isolate the senses as far as possible.
A tactile impression is clearer if it is confined to an object which
does not conduct heat, that is, wfiich does not at the same time
give rise to sensations of temperature, and if the subject stands in
.a dark, silent place, free from ocular or auditory impressions which
disturb the tactile impressions, the process may be doubled—in the
•subject isolated from all other impressions arising in the surround¬
ings; in the material with its system graduated in respect of one
quality only.
This precision, which serv^es as the standard of perfection at
which we must aim, renders possible a work of internal and
external analysis fitted to bring order into the mind of the child.
The little child, who is by nature an eager explorer of his
•surroundings because he has not yet had time or means for getting
to know them intimately, willingly ‘ closes his eyes ’ or is blind¬
folded in order to shut out the light when he is exploring shapes
with his hands, or willingly accepts darkness in order to listen to
•slight noises.

Fundamental ■Qualities Common to Everything in tboe

Educational Environment of the Child

To the above-mentioned characters, others have to be added;

these, however, do not refer exclusively to sense-objects, but must
be made to include everything which surrounds the child. They
.are as follows:
1. The Control of Error. In several cases the materials offered
to the child involve in themselves the ‘ control of error,’ as is
instanced by the solid insets; these have wooden bases which are
provided with holes into which are fitted cylinders of graduated
■dimensions, ranging from narrow to wide, or from tail to short,
Dr from small to large. As the hollows correspond exactly to the
■cylinders to be deposited in them, it. is not possible to place them
wrongly, since at the end there would remain one without a
place; this indicates that an error has been made.
148 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

la the same way, when buttoning is being done, if the pro¬

cedure is bungled or one button is forgotten, the fact is revealed
at the end by an empty button-hole. In other materials, as in the
three series of blocks, the colour, size, etc. of the obj^-cts and the
fact that the child has already accustomed himself to recognizing
errors, bring rnistakes into evidence.
The material control of error leads the child to apply to his.
doings his reasoning power, his critical faculty, an attention which
grows more and more interested in exactitude and an intelligence
growing more alert to distinguish small differences. In this way the
mind of the child is prepared to control errors, even when these
are not material and apparent to the senses.
Not only the objects are set apart for the education of the senses-
and for general culture, but the whole environment is prepared in
such a way as to make the control of mistake an easy matter. All
objects, from the furniture to the special material for development,,
are informers whose warning voices cannot be ignored.
Bright colours and shining surfaces denounce spots; the light¬
ness of the furniture tells of movement which is still imperfect and
clumsy by noisy falls and scrapings on the floor. Thus the whole
environment forms a stern educator, a sentinel always on the alert,
and each child hears its warnings as if it stood alone in front of
this inanimate teacher.
2. Esthetics. Another character of the objects is tlrat they
are attractive. Colour, brightness and harmony of form are
sought after in everything which surrounds the child. Not only
the sensorial material, but also the environment is so prepared
that it will attract him, as in Nature brilliant petals attract insects
to drink the nectar which they conceal.
“ Use me carefully,” say the clean, polished tables; “ Do not
leave me idle,” say the little brooms with their handles painted
with tiny flowers; “ Dip your little hands in here,” say the wash¬
basins, so clean and ready with their soap and brushes.
The pieces of cloth for fastening up having silver buttons
placed on green material, the beautiful pink cubes, the tablets of
 THE MATERIAL FOR DEVELOPMENT 149

sixty-three graded colours, the beautiful coloured letters of the

alphabet lying in their compartments—all these are invitations
given by things.
The child obeys any object which at that moment corresponds
with his most acute need for action. In the same vay in a field,
the petals of all the flowers are calling to other living tilings with
their perfumes and their colours, but the insects chooses the flower
which is made for him.
3. Activity. x4nother character of the material of develop¬
ment is that it must lend itself to the activity of the child. The
possibility of rousing the interest and attention of the child does
not depend so much on the quality of things as on the opportunities
which they offer for doing something with them.
That is, in order to make a thing interesting, it is not enough
that it should be interesting in itself, but it must lend itself to
the motor activity of the child. There must be, for instance,
•small objects which can be moved from their places; it is then the
movements of the hand w^hich pleases the child as he busily makes
and unmakes something, displaces and replaces things many times
in succession, thus making prolonged occupation possible. A very
beautiful toy, an attractive picture, a wonderful story, may doubt¬
less rouse the interest of the child, but if the child may only look
and listen and touch an object which remains in its place, Ms
interest will be superficial and will pass from one object to another.
Hence the environment is all so planned that it lends itself to the
child’s love of being active; it is beautiful, but that would interest
the child for only a single day, whilst the fact that every object
may be removed, used and put back in its place makes the attrac¬
tions of the surroundings inexhaustible.
4. The Limits. Finally another principle common to all the
material means provided for education is the following, up till
now very little understood and yet of the very highest pedagogic
interest: the material must be limited in quantity. This fact, once
stated, is logically clear to our understanding; the normal child
does not need stimuli to wake him up, to put him in connection
150 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

with the material world. He is awake and his connections with

the outside world are innumerable and unbroken. His need,
instead, is to bring order into the chaos which is created in his
mind by the multitude of sensations which the world has given
him He is not asleep in life like the deficient child; he is an ardent
explorer in a world which is new to him, and like an explorer, what
he needs is a road (that is, something limited and direct) which
may lead him to his objective and save him from the wearying
deviations which hinder his progress. Then he is passionately
attached to those things, limited and direct in their scope, which
bring order into the chaos accumulated within him. They set up
conditions of clarity in his exploring mind and furnish him with
a guide in his exploring operations. The explorer, at first aban¬
doned to himself, becomes then an enlightened man, who at every
step, makes new discoveries and advances with the strength which
is given by inward satisfaction.
How this experience ouglit to modify the conception still held
by many that the child is helped in proportion to the quantity of
educational objects which can be placed at his disposal! We all
believe wrongly that the child who has the most toys, who gets
the most help, ought to be the best developed. Instead of that,
the confused multitude of things raises new chaos in his mind, and
oppresses him with discouragement.
The limits to the aids which enable the child to reduce his
mind to order, and to make it easy for him to understand the
infinite number of things which surround him, are represented by
the maximum necessity for economizing his energy and for enabling
him to advance along the dijBficult way of development.
C H A P T E R VIII

THE EXERCISES

How THE Teacher ought to Give Lesson

Comparison with the Old Systems

The lessons to initiate the children in the education of the senses,

are individual lessons. The mistress makes an almost timid attempt
at approaching a child, whom she presumes to be ready to receive
it. She sits down at his side and brings an object which she deems
capable of interesting him.
In this lies the preparation of the mistress. She should have
been trained in attempting experiments only; the response she
expects from the child is that an activity is aroused in him which
urges him to use the material that has been presented.
The lesson constitutes a call for attention. The object, if it
meets the irmer requirements of the child and represents something
which will satisfy them, incites the child to prolonged activity, for
he makes himself master of it and uses it again and again.
Words are not always necessary; very often showing how to
use the object is all that is needed as a lesson. But when it is
necessary to speak and to initiate the child into the use of the
152 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

material of development and culture, the characteristic of such a

lesson must be its brevity; perfection is achieved in speaking the
necessary and sufficient minimum. Dante is teaching these mis¬
tresses when he says, ‘‘ See that tliy words be counted
A lesson will approach closer to perfection in proportion to
the number of words which we contrive to leave out. Special care
must be devoted in the preparation of a lesson to counting and
choosing the words which will have to be spoken.
Another quality characteristic of the lesson is its simplicity;
it ought to be shorn of everything but the absolute truth. That
the mistress should not lose herself in empty words is included
in the first quality; this second thought is therefore a character
of the first, that is, the counted words ought to be of the simplest
kind and should represent the exact truth.
The third quality of the lesson is its objectivity, which means
that the personality of the teacher disappears, and there remains
in evidence only the object on which it is desired that the attention
of the child should be focussed. The short and simple lesson is
for the most part an explanation of the object and of the use which
the child can make of it.
The teacher will take note as to whether or not the child is
interested in the object, in what manner he shows his interest, for
how long, etc. and she will take care never to force the child into
following her when he does not seem to be interested in what she is
offering. If then the lesson, prepared with due regard to brevity,
simplicity and verity is not understood by the child as an explanation
of the object, the mistress must be given two warnings: first, not to
insist on repeating the lesson; second, to refrain from making the
child understand that he has made a mistake, or that he has
not understood, because that might arrest for a long time the
impulse to act, which forms the whole foundation of progress.
Let us suppose, for example, that the teacher wishes to teach
a child the two colours, red and blue. She wishes to attract the
Childs attention to the object; so she says to him: “Look, pay
attention.’’ If she aims at teaching him the names of the colours,
 THE EXERCISES 153
•she says, showing the red one, ‘‘ This is red,” raising her voice
and pronouncing the word ‘ red ’ very slowly. Then she shows the
other colour with ‘‘ This is blue.” In order to test whether or
not the child has understood, she says to him, “ Give me the red,
give me the blue.” Suppose the child makes a mistake; the mistress
neither repeats nor insists; she smiles and puts away the colours.
Ordinary teachers are amazed at such simplicity; they usually
say, “ Everyone can do this.” Really we have here again some¬
thing like the story of the egg of Christopher Columbus, but the
fact is that they cannot ail do it. In practice estimating one’s
own actions is very difficult;, all the more so in the case of
ordinary teachers trained according to the old methods. They
■overwhelm the child with a deluge of useless words and mis¬
statements.
For instance, in dealing with the example just given, an
ordinary teacher would have had recourse to collective teaching,
attaching excessive importance to the simple thing which she had
to teach and compelling all the children to follow her, when perhaps
not all of them were inclined to do so. Possibly she would begin
her lesson in this way; “Children, can you guess what I have in
my hand ? ” She knows that the children cannot guess and she
thus claims their attention with a falsehood. Then she probably
would say: “ Children, do you ever take a little look at the sky?
Have you ever seen it? Have you ever gazed at it at night when
it is glittering with stars ? No ? Look at my apron, do you know^
w^hat colour it is? Does it seem to you to be of the same colour
as the sky? Well, look at the colour which I have here; it is the
same as the sky and my apron, it is blue. Look all round about;
do you see any other things which are blue? And do you know
what colour cherries are? And burning coals? ” etc., etc.
In this way the child’s mind, after the bewilderment of
.guessing, is overcome by a mass of ideas—the sky, aprons, cherries,
€tc.; from this confusion it is difficult for him to perform the task
of extracting the subject, the aim of the lesson, which is to recog¬
nize the two colours, blue and red. Further such a feat of selection
154 THE DISCO'VERY OF THE CHILD

is impossible for the mind of a child, especially considering that

he is not able to follow a long speech.
I remember being present at an arithmetic lesson in which
children were being taught that two and three make five. For
this pui-pose was used a checkered board set up so that balls
could be fixed into corresponding holes. For example, two balls-
were placed at a higher level, three lower down and finally five
of them. I do not remember exactly the proceedings adopted in
this lesson; I know, however, that the teacher had to place beside
the two upper balls a paper dancer wearing a blue tunic, which
was christened there and then with the name of a child in the class
—“This is Mariettina.” Then beside the three balls was placed
another dancer, differently dressed, who was “ Gigina ”. I do not
know precisely how the teacher arrived at a demonstration of the
sum, but she certainly talked for a long time with these dancers,,
moved them about and so on. If I remembei the dancers better
than the working out of the sum, what would it have meant for
the children? If by such means they have not learnt that two and
three make five, they must at least have made a great mental effort,,
and the mistress must have talked with the dancers for many
hours!
In another lesson the mistress wished to show the difference
between noise and sound. She began by telling a rather long story
to the children; suddenly someone working in agreement with her
knocked noisily at the door. The mistress broke off her story to
cry: “ What is it? What has happened? What have they done?’
What is it, children? Oh, I have lost the thread of my ideas; L
cannot go on with the story; I can remember nothing; I must let
it go. Do you know what is the matter? Have you heard? Have
you understood? It is a noise! That is a noise. Oh, I would rather
nurse this baby.” (She takes up a mandoline wrapped up in a
cover.) “ Dear baby, I prefer to play with you. Do you see it?
Do you see this baby which I am holding in my arms? ” Some of
the children call out, “It is not a baby”; others, “It is a.
mandoline.” The teacher says: “No, no, it is a baby, a real
 THE EXERCISES 155

baby; I am very fond of it, it is really a baby. Do you want a

proof of it? Oh, do be quiet; it seems to me that it is weeping,
that it is crying out. Oh, will it perhaps say ‘papa’ and
‘ mama ’ ? ” She touches the strings underneath the covering. “ Ah,,
did you hear? Did you hear what it did? Did it weep, did it call
out?” Some of the children say: “It is the mandoline, it is the
strings, you have touched them.” The mistress answers, “ Quiet,,
children, listen carefully to what I do.” She uncovers the man¬
doline, and touches the strings lightly, “ That is a sound\ ”
To expect the child as the result of such a lesson to under--
stand the intention of the teacher, that she wanted to show the
difference between noise and sound, is impossible. The child
will have understood that the teacher wanted to make a joke. It
will think that she is rather silly to lose the thread of her discourse
because of a mere noise and that she confuses a mandoline with.
a baby. Certainly the figure of the mistress will be well fixed m
the child’s mind, but not the object of the lesson.
To get a simple lesson from a teacher trained according to
the usual methods is a most laborious business. I remember that,
after many explanations on the subject, I asked one of my teachers
to teach by the use of the insets (vide later) the difference between
a square and a triangle. She had merely to get a square and a
triangle of wood fitted into empty spaces which suited them, make
the child trace with its finger the outlines of the inset pieces and
of the frame and say: “This a square,” “This is a triangle.”
The mistress, making them touch the outlines, began by saying:
“ This is one line, another, another, another; there are four; just
count with your finger how many there are. And the corners?
Count the corners, feel them with your finger, press on them;
there are four of them also. Look at it carefully; it is a
square! ” I corrected the teacher, pointing out to her that she
was not teaching them to recognize a shape, but was giving them
ideas about sides, angles, numbers—a very different thing from
what she had to teach. But she defended herself saying, “ It is the-
same thing.” It is not the same thing, it is the geometrical and
156 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

mathematical analysis of the thing. One could have grasped the

idea of a square form without knowing how to count up to four,
and therefore without finding out the number of sides and angles.
Sides and angles are abstractions which do not exist of themselves;
what does exist is a piece of wood of a definite shape. Again,
the lengthy explanations of the teacher not only confused the
child’s mind, but crossed that abyss which separates the concrete
from the abstract, the shape of an object from mathematics.
Suppose, I said to the teacher, that an architect was showing
you a cupola, the form of which interested you. He might give
you two illustrations. He might point out to you the beauty of
the surroundings, the harmony of the paits, might make you
.ascend and climb round the dome itself in older to appreciate the
relative proportions of its parts, so that the appearance of the
whole should be realized, and then recognized and believed in.
Or he might make you count the windows, the wide and the
narrow cornices and finally make a drawing of the structure, to
illustrate the laws of stability and to teach you the algebraic
formulse necessary to be resolved for the calculations relative to
these laws. In the first case you would visualize the form of the
cupola; in the second, you would understand nothing and instead
of an impression of the cupola you would get one of this architect
who imagined that he was talking to engineering colleagues instead
of to a lady who was travelling for amusement. The case is just
the same. Instead of saying to the child, “ This is a square,
and simply make him touch it and ascertain its material outlines,
we proceed to the geometrical analysis of it. We believe that
it is premature to teach plane geometrical forms to the child,
just because we associate them with the mathematical concept.
But the child is not incapable of appreciating simple form; in fact,
he can see square windows and tables without making any effort;
his eye rests on all the forms round about him. To direct his
.attention to one particular form is to make it stand out clearly
and to fix an idea of it. In the same way, we ourselves may
be standing on the margin of a lake, looking at its shores
 THE EXERCISES 157'
without taking much notice, when suddenly an artist comes up
and exclaims: “ How exquisite is the bend w^hich the bank makes,
under the shadow of that clilF! ” We at once feel the hitherto life--
less scene come to life within our consciousness as if illumined
by a ray of sunshine and we experience the joy of having realized
to the full what we had felt before only imperfectly.
This is our mission: to cast a ray of light and pass on.
I compare the effects of these first lessons with the impressions-
of a solitary wanderer who is walking, serene and happy, in a
shady grove, meditating; that is, leaving his inner thought free to
wander. Suddenly a church bell pealing out nearby recalls him
to himself; then he feels more keenly that peaceful bliss which
had already been born, though doimant, within him.
To stimulate life, leaving it free, however, to unfold itself, that
is the first duty of the educator.
For such a delicate mission great art is required to suggest
the right moment and to limit intervention, lest one should disturb'
or lead astray rather than help the soul which is coming to life'
and which will live by virtue of its own efforts.
This art must accompany the scientific method, because the
simplicity of our lessons bears a great resemblance to experiments-
in experimental psychology.
As soon as the teacher has touched the hearts of her pupils,
one by one, awakening and reviving life in them as if by the touch
of an invisible fairy, she will possess these hearts; and a sign, a
word will be sufficient, because each of them is keenly aware of
her, acknowledges her and listens to her.
There will come a day when the mistress, to her great
astonishment, will realize that all the children obey her like gentle
baby lambs, not only ready for her signal but watching for it.
They regard her as one who gives them life, and they hope-
insatiably to receive new life from her.
Experience has revealed this to us and what constitutes the'
greatest marvel for those who visit the Children’s Houses is that
collective discipline is obtained as if by some magic powder. Fifty
158 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

or sixty children from two and a half to six years of age, all
together, at a single sign, keep silent so perfectly that the absolute
silence is like the solemn stillness of a desert; and if a gentle order,
expressed in a low voice, tells the babies: “ Stand up, walk about
for a moment on the tips of your toes and then go back to your
places in silence,” they all together, like a single person, rise and
execute the movements with the minimum of noise. The teacher,
by her one voice, has spoken to each one and every one hopes
to get from her intervention some light, some inner joy and
goes'’onward, intent and obedient, like an earnest explorer who is
following a way of his own.
Here again is something like the egg of Christopher Columbus.
A concert conductor must train the members of his oichestia one
by one if he is to secure from their collective efforts a noble
harmony; and each artist must make himself perfect before he is
fitted to obey the silent guidance of the conductor’s baton. We,
on the contrary, in the ordinary school, instal as a conductor one
who teaches, at one and the same time, to instruments and voices
of the most diverse characters, the same monotonous and even
discordant melody.
So it is in society that the most highly disciplined are the
most perfected men; but perfection of behaviour, for instance
among English citizens, is not of the heavy, brutal, military type.
We are full of prejudices rather than of wisdom as regards
child psychology. Up till now, we wanted to dominate the
children from the outside with the rod, instead of trying to subdue
them internally by guiding them like human beings. Thus it is
that they have passed close by us without our getting to know them.
But when we throw aside the artificiality in which we tried
to wrap them and the violence which we deceived ourselves into
thinking meant disciplining them, then they reveal themselves to
us under a new aspect.
Their gentleness is sweet and absolute, and their love of knowl¬
edge is such that it enables them to overcome obstacles by which
•one might have imagined their desires would be obstructed.
 THE EXERCISES 159
How TO Initiate the Child into the. Exercises

With the Sense Material, Contrasts, Identities, Gradations

One ought to begin with very few contrasting stimuli, for

which purpose is collected a number of objects similar in
kind but showing gradation, growing finer and less perceptible.
For example, when it is a matter of recognizing tactile differences,
we begin with only two surfaces, one perfectly smooth and the
other very rough; if we are experimenting with the weight of
things, first will be presented tablets which are the lightest of
the series and afterwards the heaviest; for sounds, the two
extremes of the graduated series are offered; for colours,
the brightest and most highly contrasting tints like red and
yellow are chosen; for shapes, a circle and a triangle, and
so on.
In order to make the differences still clearer, it is well to
mix together with the greatest contrasts the identities (in con¬
trast to ' the great differences), offering, a , double series of
objects; in a mixture of pairs, in which all are mixed in con¬
fusion, would be sought similar things two by two—two sounds
equally loud and two equally faint, two things having the same
yellow colour and two of an identical red. The exercise of
searching for similarities among contrasts marks the differences
strongly, by making them prominent.
The final exercise, that of gradation, consists in placing in
graded order a system of similar objects mixed up confusedly;
for example, a series of cubes of the same colour but of different
dimensions, the difference being systematically graduated (for
example,, having a difference of 1 cm. in the length of the sides).
Of a similar character will be the presentation of a series of yellow
objects, the shades of which will grow gradually paler, from dark
to light; or a series of rectangles having one pair of equal sides
fixed, and the other decreasing systematically. Such objects must
be arranged side by side in the positions which they should occupy
in a graduated series.
160 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Technique for Beginning Tactile Exercises

Although the tactile sense is distributed over the whole skin,,

the exercises with which the children begin are limited to the tips
of the fingers and in particular to those of the right hand.
Such a limitation is rendered necessary in practice and is also an
educational necessity, inasmuch as it prepares for daily life, when
man exercises and utilizes the tactile sense with these very areas.
The exercise is specially useful for our educational aims, for
as we shall see, the various exercises of the hand form an indirect
and remote preparation for writing.
I make the children wash their hands well with soap in a
hand-basin; then in a nearby basin they have to give them a short
bath of tepid water. Then I make them dry them and a slight
massage completes the preparatory work of the bath. Then I
teach the child to ‘ touch,’ that is, the way to touch the surface,
for it is necessary to take the child’s fingers and guide them so
that they stroke the surface very lightly. Another detail of the
method is to teach the child to keep his eyes closed whilst he is
touching, encouraging him by saying that he will feel better and
that he will recognize, without seeing them, changes in the
surface. The child learns at once and shows his great pleasure
in the proceedings. So true is this that, on occasions after the
exercises have been practised for some time, when we enter the
Children’s House, it often happens that the children run forward
to meet us, close their eyes and with the very lightest of touches
feel the palms of our hands, trying to find the places where the skin
is smoothest; or they stroke our clothes, especially silk or velvet trim¬
mings. They are really exercising the tactile sense, for they never
seem to tire of touching smooth surfaces like satin. They become
very skilful in discerning the differences between polished cards.
The material for first use consists of:
(a) A very long rectangular wooden board, which is divided
into two equal rectangles, one covered with extremely smooth
paper, the other with rough paper.
 THE EXERCISES 161

(b) A board resembling (a), but covered with alternating

strips of smooth and rough paper.
(c) A similar board having strips graduated from roughness
in decreasing stages towards smoothness.
(d) A board on which are placed papers imifonn in size
and varying in smoothness from parchment to the smooth card¬
board of the first board.
These boards, which keep immovable the different objects to
be touched, serv^e to prepare the hand for touching things lightly,
in addition to giving lessons in identifying differences in a
systematic manner.
The child, with his eyes closed, strokes the different areas of
the board and thus begins to measure distances by the movement
of his arm.
As in many of the exercises which are called sensorial, the sensi¬
tive stimulus is a means of leading to the determination of movements.
To follow this first series, I have prepared movable material,
each part constituting a group by, itself and therefore determining
a separate exercise.
The collections comprise:
(a) Smooth cards of varying grade,
(b) Graduated sandpaper cards,
(c) Fabrics of different kinds.
This material is used in the usual way, that is, by mixing up
the objects of a series, proceeding sometimes in pairs, sometimes-
in graduated order.
The fabrics are duplicated in pairs and are kept in a special
little cupboard which contains velvet, silk, wool, cotton, linen, net,
etc. The children are able to learn the names of these materials.
All the above-mentioned exercises are carried out with the
eyes bandaged.

Impiuessions of Temperature

I utilize for this exercise various small metal receptacles, of

ovoid shape and hermetically closed. Using warm water at a
11
 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD
162
constant temperature (75=C), I place some of it in gradually differ¬
ing quantity into every vessel and then fill up the rest with cold
water at iS^C. Or I prepare receptacles in equal pairs. Although
the temperatures change quickly during the operation, the exercise
nevertheless serves to give a certain amount of exactness.
A series of substances which differ in their heat-conducting
properties, like wood, felt, glass, marble, iron, is used for more
delicate exercises.
Ij^ipressions of Weight

For the education of the baric sense rectangular tablets 6 cms.

by 8 cms. in area and | cm. thick, made of three different
qualities of wood—wistaria, walnut and fir—are used; they weigh
respectively, gr. 24,18,12; that is, they differ by gr. 6. They ought
to be very smooth and brightly polished, so that all roughness is
removed; the natural colour of the wood remains. The child,
whilst ob’serv'ing the colour, knows that they have different weights,
which gives him a check for his exercise. He takes two tablets
into his hand, places them on the palm with the fingers extended,
and executes an up-and-down movement in order to gauge the
weight; such a movement should, little by little, be made unnotice-
able. The child is advised to proceed to make comparisons with
his eyes closed; so he grows accustomed to acting by himself with
great interest, in order to see if he guesses.
The above-mentioned methods refer to a technique which is
necessary for reaching sufhcient exactitude in the estimation of
weights. It is absolutely necessary to place the object lightly on
the skin, avoiding any feeling of temperature (hence the wood),
in order to obtain a true and exact idea of the weight of the parti¬
cular object. Moving the hand up and down alters the weight by
altering the atmospheric pressure which is bearing down on it and
by making the weight more appreciable. This method of ‘sub¬
weighing’ is instinctive, but in order to secure a more exact
valuation of the weight of the object it is necessary to make these
movements as small as possible.
rlcre \\c see iTkC concer.traied balancing
ot the canc tablets vvith closed eyes.
The expression of the face betrays'the
intelligent inner acti\ity. Below: Two
sound-boxes are compared in order to
tind a^ pair of identictil noises among
tne slighthv graded contrasts. Photo
by Mrs. \'. A. Biker in an English
Montessori School.
 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD
162
constant temperature (TS'X), I place some of it ia graduaUy differ¬
ing qnamin' into every vessel and then fill np the rest with cold
water at 15^C Or I prepare receptacles in equal pairs. Although
the temperatures change quickly during the operation, the exercise
nevertheless seri es to give a certain amount of exactness.
A series of substances which differ in their heat-conductmg
properties, like wood, felt, glass, marble, iron, is used for more
delicate exercises.
IiviPRESsioNS OE Weight

For the ediication of the baric sense rectangular tablets 6 cms.

by 8 cms. in area and f cm. thick, made of three diffeient
qualities of wood—wistaria, walnut and fir are used;, they weigh
respectively, gr. 24,18,12; that is, they differ by gr. 6. They ought
to be very smooth and brightly polished, so that all roughness is
removed; the natural colour of the wood remains. The child,
whilst observing the colour, knows that they have different weights,
which gives him a check for his exercise. He takes two tablets
into his hand, places them on the palm with the fingers extended,
and executes an up-and-down movement in order to gauge the
weight; such a movement should, little by little, be made unnotice-
able. The child is advised to proceed to make comparisons with
his eyes closed; so he grows accustomed to acting by himself with
great interest, in order to see if he guesses.
The above-mentioned methods refer to a technique which is
necessary for reaching sufficient exactitude in the estimation of
weights. It is absolutely necessary to place the object lightly on
the skin, avoiding any feeling of temperature (hence the wood),
in order to obtain a true and exact idea of the weight of the parti¬
cular object. Moving the hand up and down alters the weight by
altering the atmospheric pressure which is bearing down on it and
by Tnaking the weight more appreciable. This method of ‘ sub-
weighing’ is instinctive, but in order to secure a more exact
valuation of the weight of the object it is necessary to make these
movements as small as possible.
Here we see the coneentreted baluincine:
of the baric tablets with closed eyes.
The expression of the face betray s^the
intelligent inner acti\it\. Below: Two
sound-boxes are compared in order to
find a _ pair of identical noises among
the slightly graded contrasts. Photo
by Mrs. V. A. Biker in an English
Montessori School.
 :THE EXERCISES 163
The above method of procedure reaches a pitch of exactitude
which in itself is very interesting.

Impression of Form through Touch alone

(Education of the Stereognostic Sense)

To recognize the form of an object by feeling it all over, or

rather touching it with the finger-tips (as the blind do) means
something more than exercising the tactile sense.
The fact is that through touch one perceives only the super¬
ficial qualities of smoothness and roughness. But, whilst the hand
(and the arm) is moving all round the object, there is added to the
tactile impression that of the movement carried out. Such an
impression is attributed to a special sense (a sixth sense) which is
called the muscular sense, and which permits many impressions to
be stored up in a " muscular memory,’ or a memory of movements
accomplished.
It is possible for us to move without touching an3^hing and'
to be able to reproduce and' remember the movement made, with
regard to its direction, the limits of extension, etc. (a pure con¬
sequence of muscular sensations). But when we touch something
as we move, two sensations are mixed up together—-tactic and
muscular—giving rise to that sense which the psychologists call the
stereognostic sense ”, In this case, there is acquired not only
an impression of movement accomplished, but knowledge of an
external object. This knowledge may be integrated with that
gained through vision, thus. giving a. more concrete exactness to
the perception of the object.. This is very noticeable in little
children who seem to be possessed of greater certainty in ^recog¬
nizing things, and above all greater facility in remembering them,
when they handle them than when they only see them.. Th.is. fact,
is made evident by the very nature of the cliildren in their early
years. They touch everything they see, obtaining the.double image
(visual and muscular) of the innumerable different things with
which they come in contact in their environment.
164 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

But this ' toudiing.everi^thiiig/ besides being a verification of

vision, is, according to our experience, the visible expression of a
Ytry acute muscular sensibility which exists in the small child
during that period of its life when are fi^xed the fundamental co¬
ordinations of movement.
It is not then a question only of verifying vision, but of per¬
forming the movement itself, and of building up that physiological
edifice which is the co-ordination of movements necessary for
preparing the organs of expression.
Furthermore, the fact that nearly all the sensorial exercises
are accompanied by movements shows how the muscular sensi¬
bility may possess, in early years, a pre-eminent function. For
this .reason w^e have used extensively in our method the stereo-
gnostic sense, for the furthering of education itself, in the matters
of its expressive manifestations (drawing, writing, etc.), and to
attain this end, wfiich for us implies special value in these
sensations, w^e have paid particular attention to the development
of it in the formative period of early childhood.
On this subject we have conducted wonderful experiments
with educational success, which deserve, to be described that they
may offer help to the teacher.
The first material used consisted of Froebefs cubes and bricks.
Having called the attention of the child to the shapes of the two
solids, we made him feel them over carefully with his eyes open,
whilst we repeated some sentences with which to keep his attention
fixed on the details. After that the child was told to put the cubes
on the right hand and the bricks on the left, fingering them all the
time without looking at them. Finally the exercise was repeated
by the child blindfolded. Almost all the children succeeded in
doing the exercise and after a few repetitions every error was
eliminated. The bricks and cubes were twenty-four in number;
therefore the attention could be kept fixed for a long time on this
kind of game. But without a doubt its maintenance is assisted by
the child’s knowledge that he is being watched by curious com¬
panions ready to laugh at his mistakes and also by his own pride
 THE EXERCISES 165
in guessing. On one occasion one of tJae„ teachers presented tO'
me a little girl of three, that is, one of the smallest, who had been
in the habit of repeating the exercise perfectly. We placed the
little one comfortably in her armcliair close to the table; we put
the twenty-four objects on the table, mixiiig them together; and
after having called her attention to their shape, we asked her to
place the cubes on the right and the bricks on the left. Having
been blindfolded, she began the exercise as we teach It, that is,
taking up by chance two objects with the two hands at the same
time, feeling them all over and putting them into their places*
Sometimes she picked up two cubes, sometimes two bricks, or. a
brick in the right hand and a cube in the left. The child had to
recognize the .form and remember throughout. the exercise the
position assigned to the different objects. That seemed to me
very difficult for a child three years of age.
But as I watched her I noticed that she not only carried out
the exercise very easily, but also that she did not require to explore
the objects by feeling them. .'In fact, directly she took up the two
objects, handling them with a very light touch because she wus a
chM rather graceful and elegant in her actions, if it happened that
the. brick was in her. right hand and the cube in her left, she
immediately exchanged them, then began the laborious stroking
with the hand as she had been taught, mffiich she, .regarded, as a
duty; but the objects had already been recognized by her solely
by touching them lightly, that is, the recognition took place directly
she took them up. Studying the subject .afterwards, I realized that
the child possessed functional ambidextry, which is very common
among children of three or four years old., but which disappears later.
I then had the exercise repeated by more children and found, that
they recognized the objects before feeii.ng them over, and that this
happened often among the smaller children. Our educational
methods therefore constituted wonderful practice,, in association,
and were admirably adapted to the age of childhood.
These exercises in the stereo,gnostic sense may be extended
a' great, deal and .amuse the child.ren greatly, because they
166 THE DISCO\mY OF THE CHILD

are mt concerned with the perception of merely one stimulus, such

as that of heat, but reconstruct a whole, well-known object.
They can stroke the toy soldiers, the balls and above all
the money. They gain the power ultimately to discriminate
between things which are small and closely related, like bird-seeds
and rice.
They are proud of seeing without eyes; they shout, holding
out their hands: “ Here are my eyes, I see with my hands, I do
not need eyes.” And I always reply to these gay cries: “Ah,
well! let us all get rid of our eyes; what more shall we do? ” And
they break out into laughter and cheers.
Truly our little ones, walking in ways beyond our vision, make
us w^onder at their unforeseen, unexpected progress; and, whilst
they seem sometimes to be little creatures mad with joy, we are
left in profound meditation.
Later on, the children showed an inspiration which has been
adopted and which today forms part of the most interesting
exercises in the Children’s Houses. They Lave begun to use over
again systematically ail the material which lends itself to being
recognized by the feel of it—the solid insets, the geometrical insets
and the three series of blocks. Children who have forsaken them
some time before to pass on to more advanced work return to
take up the three stands of solid insets, and, blindfold, set about
feeling the cylinders and the corresponding holes, often taking aU'
the three stands and mixing up the cylinders of the three series. Or^
going back to the geometrical insets, with closed eyes, they follow
their outlines accurately and almost thoughtfully, seeking the cor¬
responding space in the frame. Very often the children place
themselves on the ground on rugs and repeatedly stroke the long
rods, running their fingers down them from top to bottom, as if
to determine the extent of the movement made by the arm;
or seated, they gather round them the cubes of the pink tower
, and build it up with their eyes closed.
Muscular exercise, therefore, does over again all the educa¬
tion which, through sight (as will be described later) leads to the
 THE EXERCISES 167

exact appreciation of differences in the shapes and dmensions of

objects.

Self-Education in Taste and Smell

The exercises relati¥e to these senses are not ver>" easily render¬
ed attractive. I can only say that exercises like those comnionly
adopted in psychometry do not seem to me snitabie and practicable
at least for little children.
So our second experimerit was to organize ‘ games of the
senses/ which the children could repeat among themselves. We
made the child smell fresh scented violets and jasmine; or in late
May, w’e used the roses gathered for the flow^er vases. Then we
blindfolded a child, saying to him., “ Now w^e are going to .give
yoii, some presents; we will present you with some flowers.”
A companion brings close to Ms nose perhaps a bunch of
violets, w^Mch the child is expected to recognize. Then, as a test
in intensity, he is presented a single flower, or a quantity of
flowers.
Then adopted the simpler idea of letting the enviroiaiiieiit
do a great part of the educational work. Really, the odours for
exercising the senses must first of all be available and as they are
not. necessarily in existence around us, like.light and like the sound
w^hich results from every movement, wt got the idea of dispersing
perfuin.es systematically in the suiTou.ndiiigs, arranging to make
them more and more delicate.
Some sachets deco.rated in Chinese fasli.ion were hung up as
ornaments, attached to the walls. FloW’Crs and garden herbs,
soaps scented with natural perfumes such as almond and. lavender
were prepared and placed .round the children.
Only later, having made little plots of sweet herbs, fonnliig
almost a green alley, in order that colour should not claim atten-
tio.n as happens with pretty flowers, we found, that the greatest
interest in finding different odours existed .in chfldren about three
years of age. To our astonishment, we saw little ones. bringing
168 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

to lis small lierbs wLicIi we Lad not cultivated and wMch we did
not know to have scent; but when the children insisted and we
smelt them, we discovered that they really possessed a delicate
perfume.
The ground thus cultivated, in which uniformity of colour
and only slight differences in shape combine to isolate, up to a
certain point, the olfactory sensations, is a place of ‘research’
and therefore of exercise for the olfactory sense.
When the attention is directed methodically into activity
through various sensorial stimuli, even smell is more intelligently
exercised and becomes an organ for exploring the surroundings.
But that smeU acts naturally in conjunction with taste in the
act of feeding was more clearly shown to us even in the smallest
children through their ability to choose or to reject foods. This
part of education is mixed up with nutritional life, but is so deli¬
cate that it deserves special treatment. Remembering that taste
identifies only the four fundamental tastes, one understands how
it is that the most natural place to exercise the olfactory sense is
that of the meal.
Getting children to distinguish sensations due solely to taste,
to know the four fundamental tastes, excites undoubted interest.
Whilst sweet and saline are both pleasing tastes, even bitter is
tried as an experiment, and acid, especially in various fruits, is
distinguished in its different degrees.
Once interest has been roused in tastes and the very distinct
limitation of them, the world of odours is distinguished more clearly
in the vast variety of those mixed sensations of smell and taste
which is met with in nutrition—^as in milk, fresh and dry bread,
soup, fruit, etc. And the tactile sensations of the tongue, such as
those of sticky, oily substances, are distinguished from those of
taste and smell through an effort of the intelligence which is a real
and proper exploration of oneself and of the environment.
The method of touching the tongue with a specific solution—
bitter, acid, sweet or salt—such as is used in estesiometry,^ was
, A Measiaement of semibHity^
 THE EXERCISES 169

applied to children of five years,* who lent themselves to such

research as to a game, amusing themselves by rinsing out their
mouths, without suspecting that they were being subjected to
experiments clothed by the adult with the solemn mantle of science.
In the meantime the little things had reserved the serious sides of
their minds to search for those perfumes which Nature has
bestowed on the small herbs of the field.
 H A P T E R IX

VISUAL AND AUDITORY DISTINCTIONS

Material: Solid insets and blocks. Recognition of Dimensions,

by Visual Means only.
Tke various series demonstrate differences in dimensions. In
one series, the differences are concerned with one dimension only
(height); in another, there is a graduated difference in two-
dimensions (area); in another, there is a graduated difference in
all three dimensions increasing harmoniously; in another, the-
difference also concerns the three dimensions, but in the inverse-
sense.

Solid Insets

There are four strong blocks of natural coloured wood, bright¬

ly polished; all four have the same shape and dimensions (55 cms.
long, 5 cms. high, 8 cms. wide). Each of one of these contains ten
insets, which are cylindrical in shape, smooth and slippery and
which are handled by means of a knob placed on the top. They
can be taken out of, and replaced easily, in holes which, hollowed
out in the stand, correspond perfectly and exclusively to each
cylinder.
Cylinder Hlocks, Pink Power, Broad Stairs, Long Stairs and Knobless Cylinder Material for tlie training of
visual discrimination of variations in dimension.
 VISUAL AND AUDITORY DISTINCTIONS 171'

The stand together with the cylinders belonging to it, looks-

rather like the ordinary receptacle for weights belonging to a
balance.
V- ithin the cylinders embedded in their supports there exists a
regularly graduated difference:
1. In the first stand, the cylinders are all of the same dia¬
meter, but differ in height. The shortest is cm. high, and others-
increase each by half a centimetre, up to the tenth, which is 5 cms.
high.
2. In the second stand, the cylinders are all of equal height,
but the circular section decreases regularly. Whilst the diameter
of the section of the smallest cylinder is i cm., the diameters of
the other sections increase by half a centimetre up to a diameter
of 5 cms.
3. In the third stand, the cylinders diminish in all three
dimensions, combining the differences met with in the two other
sets.
4- Finally, in the fourth stand, the cylinders differ in three
dimensions, but height and section in opposite directions.
At first, the children take only one of the stands, hence four
children can find occupation w-ith them at the same time. The
exercise is the same with all four insets. After being placed on
the table, they are used by removing all the pieces, mixing them
up and then replacing them, fitting each piece into its appropriate
hole. In this exact correspondence between the cylinder and the
hole in the stand there exists the ‘ control of error ’.
If, for example, in the case of the first inset the child
a mistake in putting it back, one cylinder wfil disappear within a
hole which is too deep, and another will project because one is
not deep enough. The irregularity which results, apparent to sight
and touch, affords an absolute, material control of the mistake
made. It follows that the objects must be put back into their
places with care, that the replacement of them must be repeat¬
edly tested, so that all may be in place at the same level in the
stand.
172 THE DISCOVERY; OF THE CHILD

Still plainer is the error in another inset apparently the same

as the one described; that, however, when carefully noticed, differs
from it to some extent. The cylinders are all of the same height,
but the circular sections differ gradually from the first to the last;
from the smallest to that of largest section. That is, there are
narrower and wider cylinders instead of shorter and longer, as
■were those of the first set. If, handled by the knob which is used
to replace them,, a cylinder is replaced in a hole too wide for it,
■the error may for the first moment pass unnoticed and by con-
"tinuing to inset cylinders narrower than the space needed, there
may persist for a long time the illusion that all is going well. But,
in the end, there will be left one cylinder for which no place is big
^enough, one object out of all left outside the stand.
Here the mistake is so glaring that it at once destroys the
illusion so long cherished. Attention is directed to an evident
problem. All the wTongly placed cylinders must be taken out
-again and each one put back into its own hole.
We come to another inset of the same kind. Here, the cylin¬
ders are graduated according to all the dimensions. Not only are
•the circular sections diminished gradually as in the second insets,
but the heights also decrease from the tallest cylinder to the short¬
est; the cylinders are thus larger and smaller, keeping the same
form with different dimensions. With this inset also, which presents
the material control of error, there is repeated a similar exercise.
The four insets, at first sight indistinguishable one from the
other, present to the child who uses them their minute differences,
. and all four by degrees rouse more and more interest, as use reveals
them. There follows as a consequence repetition of the exercise,
which increases the power of the eye for distinguishing things,
makes more acute the faculty of observation, regulates and guides
•the attention thus trained systematically, stimulates the reasoning
power by applying itself to error and its correction, and if one
may say so, by laying hold of the mental personality .of the child
^through the senses, furnishes him with constant and far-reaching
i-exercise.
Two examples of the exercises
with _ the apparatus for visual
discrirninatioii of dimensional
gradations. Note the intentional
movement of the hands and the
attitude revealing total concen¬
tration of mind and body. The
careful scrutiny is a clear mani¬
festation of the child's desire for
perfection. Top: Montessori
School, Adyar, Madras, India.
Photo by C. T. Nachlappan.
Bottom: Photo taken in an
English Montessori School bv
Mrs. V. A. Baker.
 VISUAL AND AUDITORY DISTINCTIONS 173^

The Blocks

Quite different in external appearance, three sets of blocks

repeat the graduation in one, two and three dimensions.
We have here large pieces of wood painted in bright colours,,
in three systems which we call—the system of rods and lengths,
the system of prisms, the system of cubes.
The rods, having the same square section of 2 cms. sides, are-
painted red, differ from each other by 10 cms. the longest of the
series being a metre long; from that the rods decrease by one
decimetre at a time.
The manipulation of such long, cumbrous objects demands
from the child movement of the whole body. He has to go back
and forth to transport these rods and then he has to place them
side by side in the order of length, giving to the whole the
appearance of organ pipes.
The place for their disposal is the floor, on which, however,
the child has previously spread a mat sufficiently large to accom¬
modate himself and the w'orking material, having built up his
organ pipes, he pulls them apart, mixes them up and starts afresh,
repeating this just as often as he gets pleasure from it.
A similar exercise carried out on mats is that of putting
together a series of prisms of chestnut colour, all of the same length
(20 cms.), but having different square sections, ranging from 10 cms.
sides in the largest square, down to 1 cm. in the smallest. The
prisms, from the thickest to the thinnest, are placed one beside the
other in graduated order, in a manner which suggests a staircase.
Finally, a series of cubes, the square end of which decreases from
lOcms. to 1 cm., coloured bright pink, presents objects differing in the
three dimensions, from the largest to the smallest. The largest cube
is placed first on the carpet, then all the rest, one above the other,
thus building up a kind of tower. This is demolished, then re-builU

Force and Muscular Memory

The children take up the blocks with one hand only. The
hand of a child three and a half years old finds it difficult to grasp
174 the discovery of the child

Flocks iO cms. wide. Besides these and above all, the prisms two
decimetres long are heavy for the child. He has, then, to make
efforts with his little hand, which stretches and grows stronger.
Taking up in repeated exercises all the brown blocks, the hand
finally adopts automatically the precise position which is necessary
for covering the space of 10 cms. of 9, of 8, of 7, of 6, of 5, of 4,
of 3, of 2, of 1; that is, the muscular memory is fixed in agreement
with the exact gradation of space. This is repeated with the
pink block. Here there is another means of improvement; the
cube smaller than that preceding it must be placed in the centre
(a strip I cm. wide remains all round); the arm and hand must
therefore respond to this definite intention; thus they execute pre¬
cise, purposive movement. Of these, the most difficult belongs to
the cube of the least weight, namely the small cube of 1 cm. side.
The arm has to be very certain if it is to place this little object in
the centre and this is apparent in the intense concentration of
the child and his evident efforts.
Without a doubt it is the visual sense which benefits most in
the exercises with the solid insets and the blocks. By degrees,
the eye begins to distinguish differences which previously were
beyond them.
When the four sets of insets are in use together (the children
make a triangle of them and deposit in confusion in the space so
marked off the cylinders of the four series), it forms an exercise in
reasoning and memorizing which is set up, because the comparisons
made among the cyhnders are most compUcated and the recollec¬
tion of the series to which they belong, and therefore of the stand
which will accommodate them, comes into action. The fascina¬
tion inherent in the exercises is this—^that the small intelligence
finds it a great piece of work and devotes to it the greatest natural
and agreeable effort of which it is capable.
In the case of the blocks also, it is above all the eye which acts
in recognizing gradations and therefore in revealing chance errors.
Misplaced organ pipes, a staircase which looks as if it had irregular
steps, a tower which bulges because a large cube has been placed
 VISUAL AND AUDITORY DISTINCTIONS 1,75

bet^’een two otkers of siri,aiie,r s,i2:e—all strike the eje, which is

also drawn to them by the bright colours. And th.is striking whole
calls upon the eye to .recognize the error and the hand to remedy
it by rearrangemejit.
A fact which accompanies the eye e.x,ercise is iii,otor activity.,
soiiietiiii,es as the manipiilation of the small objects to be moved
about (the cxlinders of the solid insets), sonietimes as carry^ing and
placing hea^y' blocks of wood. The work of the senses is then
carried out by movements which are co-oidiiiated round some
inteUigeiit purpose to be achieved.
By observations made, it is seen tliat tills movement helps
to concentrate the attention with constant Ikity on a repetitive
exercise.
If we consider the relative differences present in the three series
of blocks, we find them to be of mathematical proportions.
The ten rods are, individually, in agreement with the numbers
—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
The ten prisms of the same length wffich, however, vary in
cross section, correspond with the squares of the numbers—

i 2, 2A 3A 4'\ 5A 6A 7% 8^, 9^, lOU

Finally, the ten cubes, having three varying dimensions, stand

in relationship to the cubes of the EUiiiber,s—

2% 3A 4% 53, 63, 73, 8U 93, lO®.

It is true that these proportions appeal to the child, only

through the senses, but the mind is w^orking on exact foundations
fitted to prepare it for .mathematical operations.
The cMM finds easiest of ail the exercises those with the cubes
(maximum differences) and most difficult those with the rods
(minimum differences).
"^ffien, however, in the elementary classes he begins to be
interested in, arithmetic and geometry., he takes up .again the cubes
of his early childhood and studies them over again in their relative
proportions, applying the science of numbers.
176 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Materials for Colour

The material on which is based the recognition of colours

(education of the chromatic sense) is the following, which I have
decided upon after a long series of trials with normal children.
(In institutions for defectives, I have used insets of wood consisting
of many series of round, coloured plaques.) The prescribed material
consists of tablets round which are wound threads of vividly
coloured silk. The tablets are furnished at their two extremities
with double rim, so that the colours will not spread out on the
table, and also to make it easier to handle the object without ever
touching the coloured thread. In this way, the colour remains
unimpaired for a long time.
I have chosen nine colours, and to each of them there cor¬
respond seven shades varying in intensity. There are thus 63
colour tablets. The colours are grey (from black to white), red,
orange, yellow, green, blue, violet, chestnut (maroon), pink.
Exercises, There are chosen three of the most sharply con¬
trasting colours (e.g. red, blue and yellow), a double set of them,
and they are placed on the table in front of the child. Being
shown one colour, he is invited to find its match in the mixture.
The tablets are arranged in a double column, that is, in pairs of
identical colour. Afterwards a gradual increase is made in the
number of coloured tablets employed until all nine colours are
presented, that is, eighteen tablets.
Finally, two or three tablets of the same colour but of
different shades are presented choosing, for example, the lightest,
the medium and the darkest of the shades and having them
arranged in graded order, until at last all the nine shades are
in use.,
Successively before the child are placed the given shades of
two different colours, mixed up together (e.g., red and blue).
The groups have to be separated and each one arranged in graded
series. The next stage is to offer, mixed up, colours nearer to
^ch other (e.g. blue and violet, yellow and orange, etc.).
With infinite care the 11 fundamental colours are matched on top
Below a girl arranges the 7 shades of each of the 9 colours from dark
to light. Top: Amsterdamsche Montessori School, Holland.
Bottom: Photo by Mrs, V, A. Baker in an English Montessori
School.
 VISUAL AND AUDITORY DISTINCTIONS 177
In one Children s House I have m'atched the following game
being carried on, with great and increaskf interest and sarpriskg
speed. The mistress places on the table round wbich some
children are seated as many grading groups as there are cMIdren^
e.g., three. She makes cvGiy child notice the particuiar colour
wMch belongs to him and is to be chosen by him. Then she iriixes all
the groups together on the table. Every child then selects from
the complicated heap ail the shades of Ms own colour, makes a
pile of them and then proceeds to arrange the shades in a graduated
series \^hich resembles a riobon in wnicii ihe shades fade awav.
In another House I have seen, t,he chiidren take the whole box,
of sixty-three colours, turn them out on the table, spend a long
time iii,i,xiBg up tiie tablets, theii re-rorm the groups and arrange
t,iiejii ill giadation, jiia,ldiig up a kind of little mat, beautifuMy
coloured and shaded, spread out on the table.
The children quickly acquire a skill which astonishes us-
CMldren three years old succeed in putting all the shades, in
gradua.ted order.
One can test the ,ineBior}^ for colours by showing a child 'a
certain colour and inviting Mm to go to a distant table where all
the colours are laid out and choose the identical colour. Children
succe.ed in the exercise, iiiaki,iig ,few mistakes. There are children
of five years of age who amuse tliemselves with this last exercise.
They .are verv’ fond of comparing two shades and making a decision
about their identity.

SENSE KNOWLEDGE OF GEOMETRY

Plane Insets and Geometrical Shapes

Material:~F!at imeis of woodr—lmtory. In the school fQ,r

defectives I had provided insets of the same sliapes ,as those used
by my - illustrious predecessors, that is, I placed,, one above the-
other, two frames, the lower ,haviiig a uniform surface, the upper
.hollowed out into various shapes. To fit within the sockets
12
178 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

thus formed corresponding figures of wood, provided with a

brass knob so that the handling of them might be easier,, were
made.
Seguin used a star, a rectangle, a square, a triangle and a
circle, differently coloured, so that colour and form were combined;
the sockets were all in the same wooden frame.
In my school for defectives I increased the number of exam¬
ples, separating those to be used for colours from those to be used
for shapes. The insets used for colours were all circular plates,
whereas those for form were all of the same colour (blue). I
provided a large number of frames with many colours, graded,
always grouping more figures into the same rigid frame which
kept them together.
But in my new experiments with normal children, I com¬
pletely excluded fiat insets for colours, because such material
affords no control over error, the child having to cover up the
colour needed for comparison.

Definite Material

I retained the flat insets illustrating form, but I modi¬

fied the material, separating one figure from another, so as
to give to every object to be inset a simple border, one with
the piece, almost like what carpenters make in exact joined con¬
structions, which form the first test of the workman’s skill.
Every one of the various shapes (squares, rectangles, circles,
triangles, trapeziums, ovals, etc.) was painted a bright blue colour,
whilst the various borders belonging to each piece were square in
shape, all of the same dimensions and yellow in colour. Thus
the pieces when separated could be arranged in different combi¬
nations for increasing the number of groupings, it being an easy
matter to place the square frames side by side.
In order to keep the groups together, I used wooden con¬
tainers, or frames, large enough to take six squares, and therefore
to hold six figures in two rows of three each. The blue background
 VISUAL AND AUDITORY DISTINCTIONS 179

of these containers being indentical in form and colour with the

insets themselves comes into "view when the framed shapes are
deposited there and the insets are taken away.
For the first exercise I used a frame having a rectan¬
gular area of the same dimensions (inside the rim) as the
frames described; the dark blue interior is surrounded by a
raised border about 6 mms. deep and 2 cms. wide. On this
frame is hinged a frame-cover made from strips about two
centimetres thick, crossed in sucii a way that they form a rim
which fits exactly over the lower stracmre. and is divided into six
equal squares by one transverse and two longitudi.nai bars. This
lattice-work cover turns on a small hinge and is fixed in. front with
a small stud.
Into the blue background can be fitted exactly six square
frames of 10 cms. sides and 6 mms. thick, which are kept in
position by the cover w'hen it is closed, because every spar forming
the grating is superposed on the extreme sides of the adjacent
plaques; the latter thus remain securely in place and the whole
can be handled as a single piece.
In addition to the advantage offered by the other pieces
described, this frame makes it feasible to have all the com¬
binations possible with the geometrical figures by changing the
plaques, as well as that of keeping the individual frames in place.
The border and the external and internal outlines of the
frame are enamelled yellow; the pieces to be imbedded (the flat
geometrical figures) are blue like the bottom of the frame.
I had provided also four flat plaques of the same yellow
colour, because by employing these one can adapt the frame to
take only one, two, three, four or five geometrical figures instead
of six. It is more helpful, in the first lessons, to work with only
two or three contrasting figures, or which at least differ a great
deal in shape (e.g., a circle and a square; or a circle, a square and
an equilateral triangle).
In such ways we may multiply the possible combinations.
A cabinet with six drawers is also provided; it may be of
180 the DISCO'YERY of the child

cardboard or of wood. It consists essentially of a box; the six

trays or drawers, resting on small side supports, will each hold six
plaques. In the first tray are placed six triangles; in the
second, a square and five rectangles of the same height and
decreasing in breadth; in the third, six polygons from the pentagon
to the decagon; in the fourth, six circles decreasing in diameter;
in the fifth, two plain plaques, and a rhombus, a rhomboid,
a trapeziuin and a trapezoid; in the sixth, various curved figures
such as the ellipse, the oval, a floral design (four crossed arches)
and a curved triangle and two plain plaques.

The Three Series of Cards

To this material are added several white square cards of

14 cms. side. On. one series of these is printed a geometrical
figure of the same blue colour as the inset pieces, embracing in
dimensions and shape ail the geometrical figures of the collection.-
On a second series of similar cards are printed, in outline,
also in blue, the same geometrical figures, the outline being 1 cm.
thici. On a third series of similar cards, is printed with a
thin blue line the outlines reproducing the same figures in dimen¬
sions and shape. This idea is to be found in Seguin. The material
comprises the frame, the collection of plane figures and the three
sets of form cards.
Exercise with the insets. This consists in presenting to the
child the frame with various figures, taking out the pieces, spread¬
ing them out, mixing them up on the table and inviting the child
to restore them to their places.
This game is suitable for children even below the age of three,
and keeps the child’s attention for a long time, though not for so
long as the solid insets. I have never seen the exercise repeated
here more than five or six times in succession.
The child devotes a great deal of energy to this exercise. He
has' to recognize the shape and give it a lengthy examination. At
-first many succeed only after' repeated attempts to embed the
Cicometrical insets and cards and the constructive triangles rorining various regular tiuadrangles atnl hexagon:
 VISUAL AND AUDITORY DISTINCTIONS 181

pieces^ trying for example,, to fit a triangle, into a trapeziiiin, into

a rectangle, etc. Or, wlien they take up a rectangle and recognize
the place where it ought to he put, they arrange it with the long
side across the short side of the place, and only after many trials
do they succeed in putting it into its right place. After three or
four successive attempts,.the child recognizes the geometrical figures
with extreme facility and replaces the insets with a confidence
which oarries with it an expression of indifference, of disparage¬
ment for it as being an easy bit of work.
This is the moment at which the child m.ay advance to a
methodical examination of the shapes, changing the insets on the
desk at his convenience and passing from contrasts to similarities.
Then the exercise becomes easy for the child, who gets accustomed
to recognizing the figures, and to putting them back in their
respective places without e,ffort or mistake.
At the first stage of attempts when to^ the chi.id figures
of contrasted form are presented recognition is helped, a
great deal when tactile-muscular sensations are associated with
visual sensations. I make the child trace with the forefinger of
the right hand the outlines of the pieces as w^ell as the inner edge
of the socket which reproduces the shape of the piece itself. I get
this to become a habit with the child. It is an easy habit to acquire
in practice, because little children love above everything to touch
things. .Some children who do not yet recognize a shape when
they see it, do so when they touch it, when they execute
the movements needed to trace the outlines of it. Turning round
and round in all directions a piece which they vainly try to fit into,
its place, they get worried; but directly they trace the outlines
of the piece and of the socket, they succeed in the attempt. Un¬
doubtedly the .association .of the tactile-muscular sense with the
visual, helps in a marked degree in the perception of shapes and
fixes the memory of them. ,
In such exercises the control is absolute .as with the solid
insets; the figure can be put in nowhere except into its own socket;
the child therefore must exercise itself alone and carry out real
182 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD '

seif-ediicatioii of the senses, as far as it concerns the recognition

of sha|)es.

Exiecises the Three Series of Cards

1st series. The cliiM is given the cards in solid colour and
the inset pieces (that is, the central figures without the surround¬
ing frame) corresponding to the figures. They are mixed up
together. The child must put the cards in a row on the table
(w’Mcii amuses Mm greatly), and then place the pieces over
them. In this the control is exercised by the eye; the cMld must
recognize the figure and fit it perfectly over the shape on the card
so that it covers and hides it. The child’s eye here takes the place'
of the rim which, in the first instance, materially led to the fitting
together of the two pieces. In addition to this the child must get
accustomed to touching the outlines of the solid-coloured figures,
as a simple exercise (and the cMld is always wiiling to make move¬
ments): after he has covered the printed shape he again traces it
ail round almost as if he w^ere adjusting the superposition with Ms
finger in order to make it perfect.
2nd series. A pile of cards is given to the child together with
the group of inset pieces which correspond to the figures outlined
in thick blue lines.
3rd series. The child is given the cards on wMich the figures
are thinly outlined in black, and the pieces as directed above.
The child is thus prepared to inteipret with the eye the outlines
of the drawm figures, and also the hand is prepared for drawing,
these objects through the movements wMch are made.

Exercises for Distinguishing, Sounds

Education in hearing carries us in a special way to the relation-,

sMp betw^een the ind,ividual and the movement in his enviromnent
by wMch alone sounds and noises can be produced, for, when all
is at rest, there exists' absolute' silence. Hearing is therefore a
On top we see a girl placing tne georne:r:caI ngures uiih inienriona!
movements on their bi-dincensiona! reproduction. Below a dot tises the
“* constructive triangles *' to compose quadrangles known to him through
the geometrical figures. Top; Photo b> Mrs.^V. A. Baker in an English
Montessori School. Bottom: Moniessori School. Ad}ar. Madras, India
Photo by C. T. Nachiappan.
 VISUAL AND AUDITORY DISTINCTIONS 183

sense which can receive impressions only from movement which

takes place round the hearer.
An education in hearing, if it starts from immobility to pro¬
ceed to the perception of noises and sounds caused by movement,
begins from silence.
We have already explained the importance (many-sided) which
our method attaches to silence, which becomes the controlling
factor in the voluntary inhibition of the movements from which
it is derived.
Silence leads also to training in coEective effort, for, in order
to obtain silence in a certain place it is essential that aU objects
(or people) within it should he completely motionless.
There is no doubt that trying to establish complete silence
ought to awaken keen interest, as indeed happens among the
children, who obtain satisfaction from this research in itself.
(Analyses of independent factors.)
The sense of hearing also gives us a clear idea of what ^the
first fundamental education of the senses consists in. It consists,
in fact, in being able to hear more.
We hear more (acquire greater acuteness of hearing) when we
can hear slighter noises than before. Education of the senses
leads then to an appreciation of the smaEest stimuli, and the
smaller that which is perceived the greater is the sensorial
capacity.
The education of the senses strengthens in an essential manner
the minimal appreciation of external stimuli.
For example, a half-deaf person (as Itard has shown so con¬
clusively) cau be educated to perceive slighter noises than those
which, if he had been left to himself without any education,
generJuy he could hear before, until by stages, he is led to hear
the ordinary noises which the normal man hears without any
ediicatioa in hearing.
And basing his proceedings on this idea, Itard, usmg a suc¬
cession of stimuli which were graded &om the strongest to tiie
Hghtest, trained many deaf-mutes tffl they could hear the speakmg
184 THE DISCO\^RY OF THE CHILD

voice Ecd after that tili they coiild speak—thus curing a large
uninbcr c^f mutes.
Another principle of sensorial ediication is that of distinguish¬
ing ciferences between stimuli.
That includes as teaching preparation a ciassi&cation of the
different groups of sensations, and then the grading of every group
which lends itself to it practically.
We can first of ail distinguish between noises and sounds,
beginning with strongly contrasting differences and passing on to
almost imperceptible differences. Then we proceed to the different
qualities of sound w^ich have different origin, e.g., the human
voice and instniinents; and finally we deal with the scale of musical
sounds.
To sum up and emphasize the fundamental groupings, we
will indicate the four classes of auditory sensations—silence, the
speaking human voice, noises, music.
The lesson on silence are separate, independent exercises w^hich
have an important practical effect on discipline.
The analysis of sounds relative to speech are exercises con¬
nected with the learning of the alphabet.
For studying noises, there is in our present system illustrative
material of quite simple and primitive character consisting of
a set of wooden (or cardboard) boxes, made in identical pairs, and
prepared in such a way that, when in series, they produce graduated
noises. As with the other sense-materials, the method of using
the boxes for noises is to mix them all together and then arrange
in pairs those boxes w^icli give out the same noises. Then, trying
to estimate the difference among the boxes in one series, the
children use the evidence to place the things in graduated
order.
For the education of the musical sense, there was adopted a
series of bells whicli Signorina Anna Maccheroni had prepared
with great accuracy. The bells, each mounted on a stand and
S€|mrate from each other, constitute a group of objects identical
in appearance, but which, when struck with a little hammer.
 \1SUAL AND AUDITORY DISTINCTIONS 185

produce the following notes, so that the only difference percepti¬

ble is that of sound:

-rf—
"-J- Ji#.
r
The individual bells, wMcii constitute a double series, are
moveable; they can therefore be mixed together, precisely as are
the other objects used in sense ediication.
The bells are handled by the stand and made to vibrate bv
a small hammer. The first exercise consists in recognizing iwo
beiis which produce the same sound and placing them side by side
(semi-tones being excluded). Then comes the learning of the notes
of the scale, in their order, and in this case it is the mistress who
arranges in the desired order one set of bells, leaving the other
series mixed up. The exercise is again one of making up pairs,
for it consists in sounding one of the bells in the fixed series, and
then finding by trial among the mixed group the bei! which gives
a corresponding note. In this exercise, how^e\-er, the pairing is
.guided in a prescribed order.
When the ear is sufficiently accustomed to recognizing and
.memorizing the succession of simple sou,nds in the scale, the child
may possibly be able, without any guidance, to put the displaced
and mixed group of bells into the successive order of tlie diatonic
tones guided solely by his own musical ear; afterwards he may add
the semi-tones.
As in the case of the other systems of objects, the name is
added to the sen^sation after that has been clearly perceived (siiioot.h,
rough, red, blue, etc.). So here the name of the note is made to
accompany the sound, .after the latter has been distingu.ished with
certainty, ^
, The greatest limit possible for a child six or seven years old
as that of recognizing, and namiiig an. isolated sound.
186 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

To the tOECs Ere added the semi-tones, wLich, to present waste

of energ}t are recognizable by the bell-stands, wMch are black
instead of white (recalling the keys of the pianoforte). The exer¬
cise consists in piacing the semi-tones in connection with the
respective tones.^
One must not confuse the sense-ediication of the musical sense
in general technique, which delimits it, with musical education.
■One may carry out the exercises in identifying tones without
entering at all into the field of music, just as, in another field, the
scientific, they make studies in physics, wLich are concerned with
the vibrations of matter including that special form w^hich produces
musical notes.
The sense-exercise represents the essential base for musical
education. The child who has done such exercises is extremely
well prepared for Mstening to music, and therefore for making
more rapid progress.
It is not necessary to say that, for this very reason, music
itself will continue and strengthen the sense education, just as the
study of painting will continue the study of colours, etc. The
exact base of a “ classffied perception ” which is fixed within the
child like a foundation stone for comparison, possesses an inestim¬
able initial value for continued progress.

1 It was in the course of these exercises with the bells that notice
taken of the maximum number of repetitions of the same exerc^ f iffSn
round; there were counted as many as 200 repetitions by children between
six and seven years of age.
Palriog the bells reproducing one octa\e of the scale lays the foundation for musical
education and leads to writing, reading, singing and man> original compositions.
Amsterdamsche Montessori School, Holland.
c H A F T E R X

GENERALIZATIONS ON THE EDUCATION

OF THE SENSES

The metliod of educating the senses of norma! children from, three

to SIX years of age opens, I believe, a new way for psychological
researcli which promises rich results.
Up till now expermenta! psycholog}’ has aimed at perfecting,
instriments of naeasurement, that is, the graduation of stimuli;
blit it has not attempted to prepare the individual methodically
for the sensations.
Instead of that, I consider that psycholog}^ will om’e its deve¬
lopment more to the preparation of the individual than to that of
the instrument.
But leaving out of account this purely scientific interest, the’
education of the senses is of the highest pedagogic interest.
We set before ourselves two objects in general education, one
bio’logical .and one social. The biological object is to help in the
natural, development of the individual; the social is to prepare the’
individual for Ms environment, and into tMs there enters also
professional education which teaches the ,individEaI to utilize his
environment..,. The education of the senses is of the highest
importance fo.r both purposes; the development of the senses
precedes that of the, M#ier intellectual powders, and in the
ISS THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

crJId between three and six years of age it is in the formative

period.
We can, therx, help the development of the senses during
this very period, graduating and adapting the stimuli, just as
we ought to aid the acquisition of speech before it is completely
developed.
All tlie education of early diildhood ouglit to be based on
this prirxiple—to aid the natiirai developmeBt of the child.
The other pan of ediication, that of adapting the individual
to the environment, v.iil become more important, when the period
of intense development is past.
The two parts are always interlaced but the predominance of
either of them depends on the age.
The period of life which lies between three and six years is a
period of rapid psychical growth and of building up the sensorial
mental faculties. The child of that age is developing his senses,
Ms attention is therefore directed towards the observation of his
surroundings.
It is the stimuli for things, not the reasons, which attract his
attention: it is. then, the time to direct sense stimuli methodicaliy,
in order that sensations should evolve rationally. In this way
is prepared a basis on which may be built up a positive mentality
for the child.
Besides, through the education of the senses it is possible to
discover and correct casual defects which today are not noticed
in the schools, at least until the time in which the defect shows
itself by a definite and then irreparable inadaptability to the
■surroundings (deafness, shortsight).
It is this physiological education wMch prepares for mental
..education, by perfecting the organs of the senses and the nervous
tracks of projection and association.
But the other part of education also, touching the. adaptation
•of the individual to the environment, is indirectly affected because
in this way we are preparing the infancy, of the humaiu.ty of our
time. Mm of our present day ckilization are pre-emkieE,tly
 EDUCATION OF THE SENSES im
observers of their e!i\”!roiinien,t because they iriust 'utilize to the
utniosi extent all its riches.
Today, art also is based, as Greek lirues, on the observa¬
tion of truth. The exact scierxes progress directly through
observation: ail discoveries and the applications of them which
for a century have been the means of transforming the world in
which we move were arrived at by this very route. We oughts
therefore, to prepare the new generations for this attitude of mind
which is rendered necessaiy^ as a farm of modern c*lril life and as
the indispensable means for continuing eficiently the work of
huinaii progress.
We see as the result of observation the disccveries of the
Eontgen rays, the Hertzian waves, the vibrations of radium,
and similar great applications from the ^farconi telegraph.
MeaawUile, in no epoch to such a degree as in ours, has thought,
based upon positive research, thrown so miich light on philo¬
sophical speculations and on spiritiiai subjects. The theories of
matter themselves, after the discovery of radium, have led on to
metaphysical ideas.
So it might be said that by training the power of observation
we have also prepared ways leading to spiritual discoveries.
The education of the senses, by producing keen obser\”ers, not
only fulfils a generic office of adaptation to the present epoch of
civilization, but .also prepares directly for practical life.
Up till now, I consider we have been holding verc imperfect
view’s about wffiat is necessar}' for practical life. We have always
s'larted off w,ith ideas and followed up with practical work. The-
educationai method has always been to teaca inteiiectuaily, and
then proceed to action. Generally speaking, in teaching, we speak
of the object which interests tis^ and irj to induce the pupil, when
he has imderstood, to carry out a piece of work connected with
that object. ¥ery often the child who has grasped the idea finds
enormous difficulty in carrying out the work which has been
assigned to him, becau.se there is lackiiig in .his education a factor
of prime importance—the training of the senses..
190 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

It is worth while to iil'ostrate the principle by several examples.

We tell a cook to buy some fresh fish; she understands the idea
and proceeds to carry it out. But if the cook s sight and smell
have not been trained to recognize the signs of freshness in fish,
she will not be able to carry out the order.
Such a deficiency will be still more manifest in culinary opera¬
tions. T.ne cook may be able to read and may be wonderfully
well accuainted with the quantities and times set out in a cookery
book: she may be able to carry out all the manipulations necessary
to give the required form to the dishes; but when it comes to testing
by "smell the right moment in the cooking, or to deciding by sight
or taste the moment when a certain condiment should be added,
then the performance will break dowm if the cook s senses have
not been sufficiently trained. She will have to acquire this skill
through long practice and such practice is no other than late
education of the senses, which in the adult is very often no longer
effective.
The same thing can be said concerning manual work and
generally for the training for all the crafts of the labourer. Every¬
body must “learn by means of repeated exercises,” and this
‘ learning ’ includes a training of the senses which has to be under¬
gone at a later age. For instance, those who spin have to acquire
the capacity of using the tactile sense of their fingers to discriminate
the threads; those who weave or embroider have to acquire a
refinement of the eye to discriminate the particularities of their
work, specially for the discernment of colour.
Finally, learning a craft, specially if it is an artistic or refined
craft, means undertaking a development of the senses and of the
movements of the hand, and this movement of the hand is then
helped by a subsequent refinement of the tactile sense.
If this training is undertaken at an age in which in nature the
formative period is over, it becomes difficult, imperfect. The
secret of preparing anybody for a craft lies in the utilization of
that period of life, between three and six years of age, when there
is a natural tendency to perfect the senses and movement.
 EDUCATION OF THE SENSES 191

The same principle holds true, not only for mannai work, but
also for all those higher professions to which a practical activity
is associated.
The medical profession, gives ns an example. The medical
student studies theoreticaily the symptoms of the pUse* arid goes
to the patient’s bedside prepared and eager to recognize them, bn:
if his fingers are not capable of making the recognition his studies
and his goodwill will be useless. To become a doctor he is de£-
c,ieiit in the discriiniii,ative capacity for sense siiriruli. The same
may be said about heart-soimds which the student learns about
.in theory but which Ms ear cannot distinguish in practice: the same
applies to trembling and vibrations to which the hand is insensitive.
The thermometer is the mom indispensable to a doctor when his
cutaneous system is badly adapted to perceive stimuli from heat.
It is w^ell known that a doctor may be learned and extremely
clever and yet not be a good practical man, and that to become
so long experience is required. In reality this long experience is
nothing but belated and often ineffective trairiing of the senses.
After having mastered brilliant theories, the doctor finds himself
condemned to the unprofitable labour of collecting symptoms of
diseases, if .he is to obtain practica,! results from these theories.
Here we have then the beginner who proceeds methodically by
feeling, by tapping, by iistea.iiig, in order that he may recognize
the vibrations, the resonances, the tones, the murmurs, the noises
which alone can enable Mm to form a diagnosis. In this way
t,here arises the deep and sad discouragement, the disillusion of
these early years; besides this, there is the wTongness of carrying
on a profession of such, grave responsibility whilst uncertain of
discerniiig the symptoms. The whole a,rt of medicine is founded
on sense-activity, yet the schools prepare doctors by w’ay of classical
studies! Thus the wonderful intellectual equipment of the doctor is
made of no avail owing to the defective development of his senses.
One day I heard a surgeon giving popular lectures to mothers
on how to recognize the early sjniptoms of rickets in chiMren,
with the intention of inducing them to bring their rickety chEdren
292 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

to ite doctor in the eariy stages of the complaint, when curative

treatment might still be efScacious. The mothers understood the
idea, but they could not recognize the early deformities because
they had had no sense-training in fine discrimination of forms
slightiv divergent from the normal. Hence these lessons were
rendered useless.
if we tliiiik cErefiilH' we slisll perceive ttiRt almost all the
adulteration of food substances is made possible because of the
sluggish state of the senses in most people. Industrial fraud is
fostered by the lack of sense-education among the masses, just
as the fraud of the swindler depends upon the guilelessness of
the victim. We often see buyers relying upon the honesty of
the seller or putting faith in the trustworthiness of a firm
when deciding on purchases; and this is because they lack
the physical ability to gain knowledge directly, the power
to disiioguish by the senses the differentiating characters of
substances.
Finally in many cases intelligence is rendered useless
through lack of practice, and this practice is almost always
education of the senses. It is a fundamental necessity for every¬
one, in practical life, to obtain exact knowledge of the stimuli
derived from the environment.
But pretty often in the adult sense-education is difficult, as is
the education of the hand of an adult who wishes to become a
pianist. The education of the senses must begin in the for¬
mative period of life, if we wish later on to raise it to a high level
through education and to apply it to some special form of culture.
For this reason the education of the senses ought to begin
methodically in childhood, and then be continued during the
period in which the individual is being educated for the practical
life of the world he will live in.
Otherwise, we isolate the man from his surroundings and
prolong the time necessary to acquire a professional ability. In
fact, when we believe that we are completing education through
intellectual culture we are making thinkers fit to live only outside
 EDUCATK)N OF THE SENSES 195

the world, not practical men. And when, wishing to provide edit-
cation for the practical part of life, we cc-nhne ourselves to
practising actions, we neglect the fundamental par: of practical
education, that which places man in direct contact with the external
world. And so professional work is preparing a man to utilize
his surroundings. He must then, of necessity. SH up the great gap
in Ms education, by beginning again, now when his education is
completed, the trainmg of the senses necessary' te put himself into
direct contact with the world around.
Aesthetic and moral education also is linked up closely with
that of the senses. By multiphing the sensations and de\ eloping
the capacity" for assessing the smallest differential qualities among
stimiili, the sensibility is refined, and pleasure is intensified. Beauty
dw’ells in harmoiiy, not in contrasts, and hannoiiy mxeans affinity,
hence delicacy of the senses is required in order to perceive it...
The aesthetic harmony of natiire and of art escapes those whose*
senses are dull. The w"orM is then restricted and coniEion place.
In the world around us there exist inexhaiistible sources of aesthetic
enjoyment, in the midst of w’Mch men. move about as if they
possessed no senses, or like the iow-er aiiiin.als, seeking enjoyment.,,
in strong, sharp sensations, since only these come w’ithin their
powers of perception.
Very often wicked habits arise out of gross pleasures; it is a,
fact that strong, stimulants do not make more acute but rather
tend to w^eaken the senses, which, as a result, demand stronger
and stronger excitement.
From the point of view^ of physical education, the importance
of education of the senses is emphasized when we look at the
scheme of the refiex arc which represents in principle the functions
of the nervous system.
The senses are organs designed for the apprehension of images
from the ext.e.mal world necessary for the intelligence, as the hand
is the organ used to gain .a knowledge of the imterial things
necessary^ for the body. But both the senses and the hand can
be, perfected .far beyond such simple offices, becoiiiin,g more and
1.3
194 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

more worthy servants of the great internal motor which keeps

them in its senice.
Tlie education which improves the intelligence ought to
increase these two facilities wiiich are capable of indefinite
iiTiprovement.
CHAPTER XI

THE TEACHER

The mistress wlio wishes to equip herself for this special education
must, above all, keep clearly in front of her this idea^—that her
aim must not be to fill the child with knowledge about the qualities
of things, such as dimensions, shape, coloiir, etc. by means of
objects. Neither should the object be to train the child to be able
to use without mistake the material which is presented to him so
that he does an exercise well. That would place our material
in coxapetition with that of anybody else, of Froebel for
example, and it would demand continnally the active super-
vision of the teacher, who would have to be supplying infor¬
mation and hasteriing to correct every jrislake until the child
has learnt. . Finally, the material is rxOt a new means which is
placed in the hands of the old laborious teacher to help ia her
task as teacher.
With us, it is a matter of transfererxe of acthit}, with which
the teacher is at first invested, but which, by our meihod, is left
jnainly to the child.
The work of education, is divided between the teacher and
the environineiit. For the old teacliing mistress there is siibstimted
a much more complex co3iiibi:iiation, that is, there exist along with
196 THE DISCOW-RY OF THE CHILD

the mistress many objects (the means of development) which

co-operate in the education of the child.
The profound di&rerxe wliicli separates this method from
the so-called ^ object lessons ^ of the old style, is that the objects
are not an aid for the mistress who has to explain, that is they
do not constitute means oi teaching.
But they are an aid for the child who chooses them himself,
tahes possession of them, uses theni and employs himself with
them according to his own tendencies and needs and just as long
as he is interested in them. In this way^ the objects become means
of development.
The objects and not the, teaching given by the mistress form
the principal agent and as it'" is the child who uses them, it is he,
the child, who is the active being and not the teacher.
The mistress, nevertheless, fulfils many functions. Her co¬
operation is very^ far from being excluded, but it becomes prudent,
delicate and takes a varied form. There is no need for her words,
her energy, her severity, but what is needed is wisdom, keen-eyed
in obsewing, in seiw'ing, in approaching and in withdrawing, in
spiking and in keeping silent, in accordance with the occasions
and needs. She must acquire a moral alertness which has not
been demanded by any other method, a mingling of calm,
patience, love and humility. Virtues and not words form her
main qualification.
Summing up her principal duty in school practice, one may
state it thus—^the,mistress must explain the use of material. She
is, in the main, a connecting link between the material (the objects)
and the cliiM. A simple, modest, duty and yet much more deli¬
cate than when, in the old schools, the material tvas, on the other
.hand, a simple connecting link helping to establish intellectual
correspondence between the mistress who had to pass on her ideas
and the child who had to receive them.
In our system, the, mistress does nothing more than facilitate
and make clear to the child the very active and prolonged work
which is reserved for him in choosing objects , and employing
 THE TE,ACHER 197

liiraself with them. It is somewhat similar to wtiat takes place in a

oyinnasiiijii., w%ere teacher and apparaius are necessar}** There*
the master teaches the use of the parallel bars and the swings*
show's how weights are to be handled* etc. The pupils use these
objects, and through the iise of them are developed strength, agility*
and ail that can be developed w'hea mtisciilar energ}' is put ia
correction with the various means which the gtisiiasruin offers
for exercising it.
This gymnastic teacher is not a lecturer, he is a guide. And*
as he would never succeed by speeches on the theory of gvmnas-
tics, in making robust a single one of his pupils, so the old school
failed absolutely in strengthening the individuality and the per¬
sonality of the children. On the contrary, in our schools, where
the mistress limits herself to pointing out and directing, and there
is placed at the cMid’s disposal a g>"iiiiiasiiini of mental exercises,
he grows stronger, becomes an individual of robust character, is
properly discipliiied and acquires an inw^ard health w'hicli is the
direct and brilliant result of the liberation of the mind.
The study which the mistress must cany' out is tw^ofoM in
character, for she must know* very wxll the w’ork w'hich is expected
from her, and the function of the material that is the means of
development. It is difficult to train theoretically such a teacher, who
ought to fashion herself, w^'ho ought to learn to observe, to be
calm, patient and humble, to restrain her own impulses, and who,
in her delicate mission, has a task which is eminently practical.
She, 'In her turn, has more need of a .gymmasiuin for her mind than
of a book for her intellgence.
Yet what she has to do can be learnt easily and without mis¬
take, that part of it which regards the mistress as a person who
places the child in a position of activity. She ought to be able
to choose the appropriate object, and place it before hiin in such a
way^ as to .make him linderstand. it and arouse Ms keen interest in it.
, The teacher must therefore be well acquainted with the mate¬
rial and keep it present in the forefront of her mind at all times.
She must acxjuire exact knowledge of the technique which has
 196 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

the mistress many objects (the means of development) which

co-operate in the education of the child.
The profound difference which separates this method from
the so-called ‘ object lessons ’ of the old style, is that the objects
are not an aid for the mistress who has to explain, that is they
do not constitute means of teaching.
But they are an aid for the child who chooses them himself
takes possession of them, uses them and employs himself with
them according to his own tendencies and needs and just as long
as he is interested in them. In this way the objects become means
of development.
The objects and not the teaching given by the mistress form
the principal agent and as it is the child who uses them, it is he
the child, who is the active being and not the teacher.
The mistress, nevertheless, fulfils many functions. Her co¬
operation is very far from being excluded, but it becomes prudent,
delicate and takes a varied form. There is no need for her words'
her energy, her severity, but what is needed is wisdom, keen-eyed
in observing, in serving, in approaching and in withdrawing, in
speaking and in keeping silent, in accordance with the occasions
and needs. She must acquire a moral alertness which has not
been demanded by any other method, a mingling of calm,
patience, love and humility. Virtues and not words form her
main qualification.
Summing up her principal duty in school practice, one may
state it thus—the mistress must explain the use of material. She
is, in the main, a connecting link between the material (the objects)
and the child. A simple, modest duty and yet much more deli¬
cate than when, in the old schools, the material was, on the other
hand, a simple connecting link helping to establish intellectual
correspondence between the mistress who had to pass on her ideas
and the cMM who had to receive them.
In our system, the mistress does nothing more than facilitate
and make clear to the child the very active and prolonged work
which is reserved for him in choosing objects and employing
 THE TEACHER 197

iiimself witli them. It is somewhat similar to w4al takes place in a

gymnasium, where teacher and apparatus are necessary. There,
the master teaches the use of the parallel bars and the swings,
shows how w'eights are to be handled, etc. The pupils use these
objects, and through the use of them are developed strength, agility,
and ail that can be developed w^hen muscular energy is put in
connection with the various means w’hich the g^^mnasium offers
for exercising it.
This g}mnastic teacher is not a lecturer, he is a guide. .And,
as he W'ould never succeed by speeches on the theory of gy^mnas-
tics, in making robust a single one of Ms pupils, so the old school
failed absolutely in strengthening the individuality and the per¬
sonality of the cMldren. On the contrary’, in our schools, where
the mistress limits herself to pointing out and directing, and there
is placed at the cliild’s disposal a gymnasium of mental exercises,
he grows stronger, becomes an individual of robust character, .is
properly disciplined and .acquires an .inwurd he,alth wMch is the
direct and brilliant result of the liberation of the mind..
The study which the mistress must ca.rTy out is two.foM in
character, for she must know very well the W'Ork wMch is expected,
from her, and the function of the materia!, that is the means of
development. It is difficult to train theoretically such a teacher, who
ought to fashion herself, who ought to learn to observe,' to be
calm, patient and humble, to restrain her own impulses, and who,
in her delicate mission, has a task wMch is eminentiy practical
She, in her turn, has more need of a gymnasium for her mind than
of a book for her intelligence.
Yet what she has to do can be learnt easily and without mis¬
take, that part of it which regards the mistress as a persO'ii who
places the child in a position of activity. She ought to be able
to choose the appropriate abject, and place it before Mm in such a
way as to make hiin understand it and arouse Ms keen interest in it.
The teacher must therefore be well acquainted with the mate-
.rial and keep it present in the forefront of her mind at .all times.
She must acx|uire,.exact knowledge .of the technique which has
im THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

been experineEially determined for the presentation of the material

and for the treatment of the child that he may be guided aright.
This is the pan with which the training of the teacher is chieiy
concerned. She will be able to study theoretically certain general
principles of the highest importance for guiding her in practice,
but only through experience will she acquire those delicate varia¬
tions which var}= in the training of different individuals. She will
learn that she must not hold back minds already abnormally
developed by giving to them material less than their individual
powers can handle, which creates boredom; she will learn not to
offer objects which are beyond the capacity of the child, thus dis¬
couraging and destroying the first childish enthusiasm.

Knowledge of the Mxterial

In order to know*' the material the mistress ought not to

content herself w'ith looking at it, studying it with a book as guide,,
or learning the use of it through the explanations of a teacher.
She must exercise herself with it for a long time, trying in this way
to form an estimate by her experience of the difficulties or the
interest wfiich every piece of material may present, trying to inter¬
pret, however imperfectly, the impressions wffiich the child may
receive from it. If the mistress has sufficient patience to repeat
the exercise as often as a child might do, she is able to measure
in herself the energy and the endurance of wffiich a child of a
definite age is capable. For this last purpose, the mistress will be
able to grade the materials and thus test the activity which the
child is able to exert at successive ages, (vide later chapter on the
order for the exercises.)

Maintenance of Orderliness

• The mistress, besides putting the child in touch wiih the

material, .also puts him in touch with the arrangement of his sur¬
roundings., She imposes on him the rule on which is based an
extemai, disciplinary organization, very simple in character, but
 THE TEACHER 199

sufficient to ensure peaceful work. It is that every object must

have a definite place, where it is kept and where it remains when
it is not in use. The child may take a piece of material only from
tlie place where it is exposed for free choice, and when he has
finislied using it he must put it back in its place, in the same
condition in which he took it out. That is to say, no child may
leave off just when he has satisfied Ms own desires, but must
continue the work to the end, giving willing attention to the
environment and the rules which keep it in order. He must never
pass on his material to a companion, still less take it from one.
In this w^ay, from the start, ail competition is eliminated.. The
object which is not exposed does not exist for any one who is
seeking it. If he desires it intensely there is nothing to be done-
but be patient and wait till the companion has finished using it
and has put it back into its exhibition place.

Invigilation

Finally, the mistress keeps watch so that the child who is

absorbed in his work is not disturbed by any companion, and this
office of guardian angel of minds concent,rated in efforts which
are to elevate them is one of the most solemn duties of the teacher*.

Giving Lessons

The mistress, whilst she is guiding the work of the child with,
the 'm,aterial (the lessons of the mistress) must distinguish between
two different periods. In the first, she puts the child .into com¬
munication with the material, initiates him into its use, (Time of
initiation,)
In the second., she iniervenes to enii.ghten the child who
has already succeeded through his spontaneous exertions, in dis¬
tinguishing the differences between things. It is then that the
teacher can best make definite the ideas acquired by the child by
himself, if that be necessary, and supply the terms relative to the
differences observed.
C H A ' P T E R XII

THE TECHNIQUE OF LESSONS

F.IRST Period: Initiations

Isolating the Object. The mistress, when she is giving a lesson,

or wants to help the child to use the sense-material, regards it as
heing essential that the attention of the child should be isolated
from everything except the object of the lesson; to that end, she will
be careful to clear a table of all else and place upon it only the
material which she wishes to present.
Working exactly. The help which’ the mistress has to give
consists in presenting to the child the material so as to show
him how to use it, performing the exercise herself once or
Twice; for example: displacing the cylinders of the solid
insets, .mixing them up and putting them back in position by
trial; or mixing up the colour spools to be matched up, then
taking one of them by chance in the proper way without
touching the silk, and placing it alongside the identical spool;
■and so on.
Mousing Attention. When the mistress offers the object to the
child she must never do it coldly, but must display some vivacious
interest, as she calls the attention of the child to it.
 THE TECHNIQUE OF LESSONS 201

Prevention of Errors in Using Material The most efficient

prevention of misuse of the material lies in its presentation at the
.right moment of the child’s development. Another guarantee of
proper use lies in the exactness of the presentation. If, notwith¬
standing this, a mistress sees material being used in such a way
as to render it valueless for its purpose, that is, that it does nntfiing
towards the development of the child’s intelligence, she must pul
a stop to the work. She will do this with the utmost sweetness if
the child submits quietly and with good temper, but if he shows a
tendency to behave badly she will restrain him energet,icaily3
'.not so much as a punishment for noise and disorder, but offering
him the help of her authority.
Authority, in fact, becomes .in such a case the support which
.is needed by the child, who having lost co.ntrol of himself owing
to temporary lack of balance, needs a strong support to which he
can cling, just as. one who has stumoled needs to hang on to some¬
thing to maintain his balance. The work of helping means, at
such a moment, .the friendly hand of the strong he.M out towards
the weak.
When the child is working he is like a person poised in perfect
equilibrium, and it is material which he needs with which to
employ himself, just as the body striving after perfect mobility
would require a gymnasium.
We must distinguish clearly between two kinds of mistakes
which the child may make. : First, we have the error which is
controlled by the material itself, and wffiich arises from the fact
that the child, quite wilhng to carry out exactly an exercise which
he know^s. well, yet does not. succeed because of his immature
power of execution or because his senses do not appreciate the
various stimuli, or because he cannot execute definite movements
for which his mechanism is not yet far enough developed. For
example, he. makes a mistake in putting the cylinders into the holes,
because he does not yet distinguish the differences between them;
m for a similar reason, he places' a large cube over a small one
in building the tower, and so on.
202 THE DISCOTCRY of THE CHILD

Such errors are controlled by the material, which does not

allow the mistake to be continued without being found out; they
can be corrected only through the growth of the chUd’s powers,
through that modification, which will follow as a consequence
of long and correct manipulation of the material. Such errors
may be placed in the category' described when we say that we
learn by making mistakes; they are overcome by determination,
with the aid of the means which are offered from the outside.
The second mistake can be traced to naughtiness, or to care¬
less teaching as for instance, in dragging about the whole stand
of solid insets like a wheelbarrow, or in building houses with the
tablets of coloured silks, or in walking on the rods when laid out
in a row. or in wTapping one of the cloths used for fastenings
round the head like a scarf, and so on. Abusive use of material
which corresponds to disorder or to needs different from those
which the material can satisfy, means making no use of it; it results
in w'aste of energy, uproar; all the actions which prevent the child
from concentrating and therefore from improving and developing.
It is as if a hemorrhage of the body shed that blood which ought
to concentrate in the heart in order to maintain health and life.
It cannot be said of the above-mentioned errors that ‘ one learns
by making mistakes ’; the longer the mistake is kept going, the
fanher off is the possibility of learning.
It is in conditions such as these that the authority of the
teacher succours the erring httle soul, extending to him, now
gentle, now energetic help.
Respect for useful Activity. If, instead of using the material
wrongly, the child uses it either in accordance with the instructions
of the mistress or in some other way invented by himself which
shows inteUigent modifications, then the teacher will leave the child
to go on repeating the same exercise or making his own attempts
and experiments. She will let the child have as much time as he
wants without ever interrupting his activity, neither for the purpose
of correcting small errors, nor by stopping the work through fear
of tiring out the child.
 THE TECHNIQUE OF LESSONS 203'

A Good Finish. When the child has voluntarily given up his-

work, which means that the impulse which urged him to make'
use of the material has been exhausted, the mistress, if need be,,
may, indeed must intervene in order to see that the child puts the
material back in its place and that ever>'thing is returned in prefect
order.
Second Period: The Lessons
The second period is that when the teacher intervenes in order
to fix. more securely the ideas of the child, who after having
been started, has already carried out many e.xercises and has
succeeded in identifying the differences presented by the sense
material.
The first intervention consists in teaching the exact names of
things. This helps the child to speak correctly, which is easily
done at this tender age.
By our method one of the most delicate tasks of the teacher
must be that of presenting words which are exactly fitted to convey
the idea which the material has to fix in the mind of the child.,
In giving these words the teacher pronounces them correctly and
clearly, breaking them up into their component sounds, without
however, adopting a style differing from ordinary speech, that is
without any exaggeration.
The Lesson in Three Stages
For this purpose I have found to be excellent even for normal
children the lesson divided into three stages, used by Seguin, to
obtain in the defective child the association between the object
and the corresponding word; this form of lesson has been adopted
in our schools.
First Stage: The Association of Sense-perception with theName^.
The teacher must first of all pronounce the mcessBxy names and
adjectives, without adding another word, pronouncing the words
very distinctly and in a loud voice, so that the various sounds of
which the word is composed may be distinctly and clearly appre-
hended by the child.
-204 THE DISCOWRY OF THE CHILD

for example, in the first exercises on the senses, the

:itiboth card and the roBgh card having been, touched, she
■will say: “It is smooth,” “It is rough,” repeating the word a
„great many times, with various modiilations of the voice, but
-always with clear vowel tones and with distinct enunciation,
Smootli, smooth, smooth,” and “ Rough, rough, rough
in the same way, when dealing with heat sensations, she will
say: “It is cold,” “It is warm,” “It is frozen,” “It is tepid,”
is burning.” Then she will begin to use the generic term
heat ”; also “ more heat,” “ less heat ”.
In this way the lesson in nomenclature ought to consist in
‘establishing the association of the name with the object or with
• the abstract idea w'hich the name itself represents. The object
- and the name must appeal to the child’s understanding at one and
'the same time. It is, however, imperative that no word other than
-the name should be pronounced.
Second Stage: Recognition of the Object Corresponding to the
„ Name, The mistress ought always to test the success of the lesson
' which she has given.
The first test will be that of finding out whether or not the
name has remained associated with the object in the memory of
The child. For that, she will have to allow a requisite time to
•elapse between the lesson and the test, that is, several moments
■ of silence should interv^ene between them. Then she will ask the
•child, pronouncing slowly and with very clear pronounciation only
the name (or the adjective) which had been taught: “ Which one
,is smooth? ” “ Which one is rough? ”
The child will point to the object, and the mistress will know
■ whether or not the association has been established.
This second time is the most important of all and contains
■ 'the real lesson, the real mnemonic and associative aid. When the
.mistress is satisfied that the child is in touch with her, has under-
'Stood and is interested, she will repeat over and over again the
■same questions: “Which one is smooth?” and “Which one is
.rough?”
 THE TECHNIQUE ^OF LESSONS 2D5:

In repeating the question a great many times the t^^er

repeats that word which finally will he remembered, and at eve:ry"
repetition the child, responding by pointing to the object, has
repeated the exercise of associating with it the word which he is .
learning and fijting in his mind. If, however, the mistress notices.,
at the very start that the child is not disposed to pay attention to-
her and makes mistakes -in answering without making any effort
to do well, she ought, instead of correcting and insisting, to suspend
the lesson and start it again at another moment, on an-other day.
Why should she correct him? If the child did not succeed in asso*--
ciating the name with the object, the only way in w^hich he can-
succeed wi,ll be to repeat the act of sense stimulus as well as the-
name, namely to -repeat the lesson. But .when the child has’made-
a mistake, it means that, at that moment, he was not disposed:
towards the-mental association which was hoped for from him;:,
therefore it would be necessary to choose another moment.
Supposing that .along with the correction one had said: ‘‘No,,,
you have made a' mistake, it is this,” all these words which contain
a reproof, would have made much more impression on him than
the other (e.g. smooth, rough); they would have r.emained in the-
child’s mind, retarding the learning of the names. Instead of that,,
the silence which follows the. error leaves clear the field of the
child-mind and the next lesson will follow on the first successMly...
Third Stage: Remembering the Name Corresponding to the-
Object. . The third stage is a rapid verification of the lesson taken
first. The mistress asks.the child: “.What is this like?” and if
the child is ready to do so he will reply with the correct word:
“ It is smooth,” “ It is. rough.”
Since the child is often uncertain in his pronunciation of
these words, often new to him, the mistress may insist on having,
them repeated once or twice, exhorting the child to pronounce
them more clearly, saying: “ What is it like? ” “ What is it hke? ”
If the child shows marked defects in speech, this is the time to-
make them perfectly clear so that definite corrective exercises in,
pronunciation may be. given afterwards. ■ . .
:206 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Illustrative Applications: Guide to the

VLatemal Solid Insets

Dimemions, The teacher, after the child has had long practice
in handling the three solid insets and lias accjiiired confidence in
the exercise, takes all the cylinders of equal height and spreads
them, o'lit Oil the table close together. Then she chooses the two
extremes saying: '^‘This is the thickest,” and ‘‘This the thinnest
'She places them side by side to make the comparison more telling,
and then, taking each one of them by the knob, she places them
'base to base in order to m.ark the extreme difference. Then she
places them close together again and upright, in order to show
that they are of equal height. Meanwhile she may be repeating
many tim,es: “Thick, thin”. She .must every time follow the
other stages of veriflcation in which she asks: “Give me the
thickest, the thinnest,” and finally the language test: “ What is it
like?” In later lessons the teacher removes the two extremes and
repeats the lesson with the two remaining at the extremities.
Finally, she uses all the pieces, chooses one of them by chance,
and asks: “Give me one thicker than this, or thinner than
this.”
The teacher proceeds in the same way with the second set of
solid insets. In this case she places the pieces upright, all of them
having a base wide enough to maintain them in this position.
"She says: “It is the tallest, it is the ..shortest,” Then she places
the extreme pieces in juxta-position, having removed them from
the row; she places their bases, end to, end, showing that they are
equal. From the extremes she passes to the m,iddle pieces, as in
the first exercise.
With the third,set of soli.d insets, the teacher, after having
, .placed all the pieces in ,a graduated row, points to the first, saying:
*''li is the .largest,” .and to the,last saying: “ It is the smallest.”
Then she places them close together and points out how they differ
in height as well as in the size of the base. The proceeding is
similar to that in the two preceding exercises.
 THE TECHNIQUE OF LESSONS 207

The same plan is followed with the graduated systems of

-prisms, rods and cubes. The prisms are thick or thin in one set,
and high and low in another and of equal length. The rods are
long and short and of equal thickness. The cubes are large and
sjii.all and differ in all three dimensions.
Form. The teacher, after the child has shown that he can
with certainty identify the shapes of the fiat insets, begins the lessons
in nomenclature with the two contrasted forms, the square and
the circle, following the usual method. She will not teach all the
names relating to the geometrical figures but only some of the
principal ones, such as the square, circle, rectangle, triangle, oval,
pointing out specially that there are narrow, long, rectangles whilst
others are wide and short, and that the squares have equal sides
and can only be large and small. This is pretty easily shown with
the insets; no matter in what direction the square piece is turned,
it always enters its hole. Instead of that, the reefangle, if placed
across the hole, will not fit into it. The child works away very
cheerfully at this exercise, for which he arranges in the frame .a
square and a series of rectangles having the longer side equal to
the side of the square, and, the other side gradually decreasing in
the five successive pieces.
By similar procedure there is demonstrated the difference be¬
tween the oval, the ellipse and the circle. The circle can be
embedded in its socket, however it may be turned round; the ellipse
does not enter when placed.c.rosswise, but, provided that it is placed
lengthwise it can be reversed as regards its ends; the o.val, on the
other hand, not only will not enter when place.d across, but its
ends.are not interchangeable, and .if must be placed with the wide
curve towards the wide part of the cavity, and the narrow towards
the, narrow part. The circles, large ,and. small, enter their beds
when turned .aU w,ays. I advise teaching the difference between
the. oval and the ellipse at a much later stage, and not to all the
children, but to those, who show themselves particularly interested
in ..form .either, by their, frequent choice of the game or by their
requests... (I. would . prefer that such a difference should be
208 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

recognized by the cliiMrea spontaneously much later, for example,

in the elementaiy^^ schools.)
The Chad's Guide. The work of the new^ mistress is that of
a guide. She guides in the choice of material in finding exact
W'Ords, in facilitating and explaining w^ork, in preventing waste of
energt^ in ci^iielliiig chance disturbances. Thus she affords the
help necessary for proceeding surely and swiftly along the road to
intellectual development.
A sure guide on the path of life, she neither urges forward
nor holds back, satisfied that she has done her work when she
has guaranteed to this precious traveller, the child, that he is on
the right road.
In order to be a sure and practical guide the mistress needs a
great deal of practice. Even after she has grasped the fact that
the periods of initiation and intervention are very diverse, she very
often is uncertain about the condition of the child’s mind in
passing from one to the other. She waits too long whilst the
child is finding out differences by himself before intervening to
teach nomenclature.
I once found a child five years old who could already make
up all the words, knowing the alphabet very well (he had learnt it
in fifteen days); he could write on the blackboard; in free drawings
he showed not only that he was an observer but that he intuitively
grasped the idea of perspective by the way in which he had drawn
a house and a table. As for the exercise in colour sense, he mixed
together the seven shades of the nine colours we used, that is, he
mixed sixty-three tablets each covered with silk of one colour of
a different shade; he rapidly separated all the groups, and then,
arranged in a graduated scale the individuals of each group, filling
up a whole table with the classification of them, and partly extend¬
ing it over a,coloured mat. 1 made the experiment'.of showing
the child, in. the. Ml light of a, window a coloured card, telling him
to look at it ,well that he ini.ght remember; I,then sent him to
the table on which were spread out all the shadesTn order to find,
the mm shade. He made only^ very slight mistakes; often^he
 THE TECHNIQUE OF LESSONS 209

selected the identical tint; very often, the nearest; very rarely, a
tint two tints removed. He possessed a discriminating power and
a memory for colours which were almost prodigious. This child,,
like most others, was devoted to the colour exercise.
Having been asked the name of the colour white, the child
hesitated a long time, and only after a number of seconds did he
say uncertainly “ white Now so intelligent a child, even without
special help from the mistress, might have learnt the name in.
the family life.
The Directress told me that having noticed that this child had
special difficulty in naming the colours of things, she had limited
him up till now to the sense exercises. She thought it better not
to intervene yet in the teaching.
Certainly the education of this child was somewhat confused.,
and the control left excessively free the spontaneous explanations,
of mental activity.
Although it is most praiseworthy to give to ideas a basis of
sense education, it is nevertheless essential to associate language'
and perceptions at the same time. The mistress ought to avoid
the superfluous, but not forget the necessary. The existence of
the superfluous and the absence of the necessary are the twO"
principal mistakes made by the teacher; the middle course between.
the two marks the level of her perfection.
The end to be attained is the orderly stabilization of the-
spontaneous activity of the child. As no master can give the pupil
the agility which he acquired by gymnastic exercise but the pupil
must improve himself by his own efforts, so it is here by close:
analogy for the education of the senses and for education in,
general.
We think of wflat the teacher of the pianoforte does. He
teaches his pupil how to place his body, teaches him the notes,
shows him. the relation between the w’'ritten note and the key to
be touched, as well as the position of the fingers;, then he leaves
him by himself to practice. If from this pupil there is to be pro¬
duced a pianist, there will have to intervene between the instniction
14
210 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

given by the teacher and. the musical performances a long patient

course of the exercises which serve to give flexibility to the finger-
joints and to the tendons, to render automatic the co-ordination
of special muscular movements, and to strengthen by repeated use
of the organ the muscles of the hand.
The pianist will therefore have to make himself by his
own efforts, and will have succeeded in doing so in the pro¬
portion in which his natural genius would induce him to
persist in his exercises. Nevertheless the pianist would never
have created himself by practice alone, without the guidance of the
master.
One might say that the same thing happens in every branch
of education; a man’s value depends not on what masters he has
had, but on what he has done.
One of the difficulties met with in teaching our method to
mistresses of the old style is that of hindering them from interfering
when the child is worried for a long time about some mistake and
is Tnflking repeated attempts to put it right. Then the old-time
mistresses are seized with pity, and nothing can prevent them from
coming to the child’s assistance. ’When one prevents this inter¬
ference, they speak pityingly of the small pupil; but very soon the
latter shows in his smiling countenance the joy of having overcome
an obstacle.
Normal children repeat these exercises many times more or
less, according to the individual; some are tired of them after five
or six times, but others go on for more than twenty times displacing
a.nd rearranging the pieces without ever losing their keen expression
of interest.
On one occasion, after I had counted sixteen exercises done by
3l little girl of four, I had a hymn sung to her in order to distract

her attention; but she contiitued, unperturbed, to displace, mix up

and replace the cylinders.
An intelligent mistress might carry on interesting studies in
individual psychology, and up to a certain point, measure the
ti-mpR of resistance of the attention to different stimuli.
 THE TECHNIQUE OF LESSONS 2ii

Indeed, wlien the child is educating himself, and the control

and correction of error is given over to the material, there is
nothing left for the teacher to do but to observ^e.
'^ith jny methods, the mistress teaches little, observes a great
deal, and above all, hers is the function of directing the mental
activity of the children and their physiological development. For
this reason I have changed the name of teacher to that of directress.
In the early days this name made people smile, for everybody
asked who it was that this mistress would direct since she had no
one under her sway and had to leave her little pupils at liberty.
But her direction goes much deeper and is more important than
what is commonly understood, since she directs life and souls.
The directresses of the Children’s Houses must have a very clear
■conception of two factors—^the guidance which is the function of
the teacher, and the individual exercise, wliich is the work of the
child.
Only after having fixed in their minds this idea can they
proceed rationally to the application of a method for guiding the
spontaneous education of the child and for imparting the necessary
ideas.
The personal skill of the educator is revealed by the oppor¬
tuneness and the efficiency of. her intervention.
c H A p T E R Xlli

OBSERVATIONS ON PREJUDICES

The tralEing of the teacher for our method is greatly simplified,

as compared with that of ordinary teachers. The necessary is
pointed out; she is taught to avoid the superfluous, which is
harmful as being an obstacle to the progress of children; there is
indicated a limit as perfection. Ordinary teachers, on the other
hand, are preoccupied with many things, tire themselves out by
doing many things whilst one thing only is necessary.
In order to help the teacher to free herself from old precon¬
ceptions and prejudices I will refer briefly here to some of the
needless difficulties which dissipate the energy and the attention
of the teacher. They are particularly concerned with the degrees
of difficulty which the pupil must overcome and with the repose
of the child.
Prejudices respecting the ease and difficulty of learning form
one of the stumbling-blocks from which we have saved the teacher.
Ease and difficulty in doing things „ cannot be judged tlirough
preconceptions, but by direct experience after difficulties have been
; analysed one-by one.
For example, it strikes many people that in teaching geome-
tricai forms we are teaching geometry, and that this is premature
 OBSERVATIONS ON PREJUDICES 213
in infant schools. Others are of opinion that if we wish to present
geometrical forms we should use solids instead of plane figures.
I thinlc a word is necessary to combat such prejudices.
Observing a geometrical form is not analysing it; it is with analysis
that the difiiculty begins. When, for example, we talk to the child
of sides and angles, and explain to him, perhaps by the objective
method as Froebel chooses, that the square has four sides and can
be constructed with four equal rods—then we really enter the field
of geometry; and I think that early childhood is too immature for
this step. But observ'ation of form cannot be unsuitable at this
age; the plan of the table at which the child sits to eat his soup is
probably a rectangle; the plate which contains the meat he likes
is a circle; and we certainly do not consider that the child is too
immature to look at the table and the plate.
The inset pieces W’hich we present simply call attention to
form. As for the name, it is analogous to other names in nomen¬
clature. Why should we find it premature to teach the child the
words “ circle,” “ square,” oval,” whilst, if at home he repeatedly
hears the word “ round ” applied to plate, it does not strike us that
this is an injury to his tender intelligence? Very often too at home
he will hear spoken of the square table, the oval table, etc.; and
these common words will remain confused in his mind and in his
language for a long time, if there is not interposed assistance
similar to that given by us in the teaching of form.
One must remember that very often the child when left to
himself makes an effort to understand the language of adults and
the things which surround him; teaching, when applied at the right
time, forestalls this effort and therefore the child is not wearied
out, is given rest, and has his craving satisfied.
In this case also there is to be found prejudice—that when
the child is left entirely to himself his mind is at rest. If that were
so, he would remain a stranger to the world; instead of which we
see him, little by little, by his own efforts, acquiring ideas and
language. He has come as a traveller into life, one who takes
notice of the new things which present themselves to him and tries
214 THE DISCO¥ERY OF THE CHILD

to learn tlie nnknowE language of those around him; he makes

great spontaneous efforts to understand and to imitate. The
teaching gi’/en to the little ones ought to be directed to lessening
such efforts, changing them into the enjoyment of easier and more
extended success. We are the guides of these travellers who are
making their tntiy into the human life of thought, and we help
them to avoid wasting time and strength over useless things.
The other prejudice to which reference has been made is that
it is more suitable to present to the child geometrical solids rather
than plane igures.—sphere, cube, prism, etc.
Leaving aside the physiological question, which shows how
the vision, of solids is more complex than that of plane figures, let
us restrict ourselves to the more pedagogic field of practical life.
The objects which present themselves to our vision .in the
greatest numbers in our surroundings are comparable with our
plane insets. In fact, the cupboard doors, the panel-work, the
window and picture frames, the wooden or marble top of a table,
are certainly solid objects but have one of the dimensions greatly
reduced so that the tw^o more noticeable dimensions determine
the shape of the plane. As a result the shape of the plane surface
predominates, and we say that such and such a window is
rectangular, such a frame is oval, a certain table is square.
The solids determined in form by the surface which shows the
greatest dimensions are those which really and almost solely meet
our eyes. And it is precisely these solids which are represented
by our solid insets. The child will very often recognize in his
surroundings the forms thus learnt, but very rarely will .he recognize
the forms of geometrical solids.
That the long prismatic legs of a table is a prism, and the
rotunda is a truncated cone or an elongated cylinder, he will see
much later than the rectangular top of the table on which he places
the objects whilst at the same time he looks at it. We do not
speak then of the fact of recognizing that a cupboard, and much,
less a house, is a prism or a cube. For the time being there never
exist pure geometrical solid forms in the objects around, but
 OBSERVATIONS ON PREJUDICES 2i5
combinations of forms. There is enormous diffienlty in embracing,
wit.h the eye the complicated shape of a cupboard; the child ought
to recognize in it an analogy of form, not an identity.
On the other band he will recognize the geometrical forms
perfectly represented in all the windows, doors, surfaces of the
solid domestic objects, the p,ictures which adorn the walls, the
walls themselves, the floors, the tiles of the floor.
In this way the knowledge presented to him i,n ihe flat insets
will be for him a kind of magic key for the interpretation of all
the surroundings, and he will be able to give himself the consoling
illusion that he knows the secrets of the w^orld.
I once took with me for a walk on the Pincian Hill a boy
from an elementary school who was studying geometrical drawing
and was fam,iliar with the analysis of flat geometrical figures. W,hen
we reached the lofty terrace from which one looks down on the
Piazza del Popolo and the wide expanse of the city, I said to him:
See how all man’s work forms a great collection of geometrical
figures. Very plain to be seen we,re the rectangles, ellipses,
triangles, semicircles, which perforated and adorned in a hundred
different ways the gray rectangular facades of the bii,iMings. Such
widespread uniformity seemed to prove the limitation of human
intelligence. In contrast, in a neighbouring plot, grass and flowers
displayed in supreme degree the infinite variety of Nature’s forms.
The child had never made these observations; he had studied
the angles, the sides and the construction of the geometrical figures
drawn, without thinking of anything else, and feeling only bored
by the dull work which he had to do. At first he laughed at the
idea of man piling up geometrical figures, then he grew interested
and gazed for a long time; I saw in his face a keen expression of
thought.
To the right of the Ponte. M.argherita a building was in the
process of construction, and the body of it consisted of rectangles.
“ How hard they are working,” I said, alluding to the workmen.
Then we went to the grass-plot, and remained silent for a time:
looking at the grass which grew spontaneously. “ It is beautiful,”
2i6 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

said the boy, but that ‘ beautifiil ’ referred to the inner movement
of his o\\ii mind.
I thought then that in the observation of the geometrical forms
in the flat insets, and in that of the plants cultivated by the children
and seen growing under tlieir own eyes, there exist precious sources
of spirituai education also.
Another preoccupation of the ordinary teacher is that she has
10 widen the knowledge of the child through continual applications
to the surroundings, or through generalizations. Making him
see everythingf’ ‘‘reflect on everything” is an anxious business,
and unfortunately destroys his youthful energy, deprives him
craeliy of everytliing which w-ould create interest in him. It is the
spiritual part of that fatal intervention of the adult who wants to
substitute herself for the child and.act for him, and in doing so,
erects the most serious obstacle to his development. Beauties
which, wYen discovered by the child himself in the world which
surrounds him, would bring him time after time, joy and satisfac¬
tion, give rise to the tedium of mental inertia when the gay flowery
path becomes the subject of instruction by .an adult.
Let .the m.istress then cease .from worrying herself about
applications,’’ urged by the fear that the child, as so many want
to insi.nuate, will be miserably held up by the material which we
have limited and which we have substituted for the greatness of
variety in the things offered by nature and by the vast environment
which surrounds the child in the school and at home.
If the child, by exercising himself with the sense-material, has
■strengthened his power of distinguishing one thing from another,
and has opened up the pathways of his mi.nd to a continually
,grow.ing avidity for work, he has certainly become a more perfect
and intelligent observer than at first, and .anyone who is interested
in things on a small scale will be".the m.ore interested .in great things.
We ought to expect .from no.rmal children the spontaneous
enquiry into the surroundings, or as I put it, the voluntary explo¬
ration of the environment. In this,case the children are overjoyed
with every new discovery which they m.ake; that gives the-m. a sense
 OBSERVATIONS ON PREJUDICES 217
=of dignity and satisfaction, wliicli encourages them to go on
indefinitely to seek new sensations in the surroundings and renders
them voluntary observers.
The teacher ought to limit her efforts to keeping watch with
the utmost vigilance for the time when the child reaches general¬
izations in ideas. For example, on one occasion one of our little
ones aged four whilst he was running on the terrace, stopped to
ory^ out, “ Oh, the sky is blue! ” and stood still for a long time
to gaze at the expanse of the heavens.
One day, on entering one of the Children’s Houses, five or
•six little ones came to a standstill round me, all silent, gently
caressing my hands and my dress, saying—“ It is smooth,” ‘‘ It is
velvet.” Then many others drew near and all of them with
serious countenances and expressions of intense attention said, as
they touched me, the same words. The mistress wanted to inter¬
fere to set me free; I made a sign to her not to move and I myself
_ stood motionless and silent, admiring that voluntary activity of
the little ones. The greatest triumph of our educational method
will always be this—to obtain the spontaneous progress of the
child.
On one occasion when a child was making a drawing by filling
in with coloured pencils a figure already drawn in outline—a tree,
to be precise—^he laid hold of a red pencil with which to fill in the
colour of the trunk. The mistress wus about to intervme saying,
^‘Do you think trees have red trunks?” I restrained her and
allowed .the child to colour the tree red. This drawing was
precious for us because it revealed the fact that the child was not
an exact observer of his surroundings. But he continued in class
the exercises in colour sense. He used to go with companions into
the garden and had many chances of observing the colour of tree-
trunks; when the action of the senses became strong enough to
direct the attention of the child naturally to the colours around
Mm,there would come one wonderful moment when he w^ould see
that the trunk, of a tree is not red; just as, the other, child, wMist
racing about, discovered that the sky was blue. Indeed, one day
218 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

he took up a brown pencil to colour the trunk and made the

branches and the leaves green. Later on, he coloured all the
branches brown also, using green only for the leaves.
In this way we gain proofs of the intellecfuai progress of the
child.
We do not create observ'ers by saying, “ Observe,” but by
supplying the means of observation; and this material educates
the senses. Once this connection betw^een the child and his
emironment is established, his progress is assured, because the
more acute senses enable him to observ^e his surroundings better,,
whilst the latter, attracting his attention by their variety, continue
the sense education.
If, instead of this, w^e leave out sense education, recognition of
the properties of bodies comes to form part of culture, which is-
ii,inited precisely by recognitions learnt and remembered; and they
remain sterile. That is to say, when the teacher has taught,
according to the old methods, the names of the colours, she has
imparted knowledge about determinate qualities, but she has not
developed the interest in colour.. The child will learn those colours
forgetting them over and over again, and he will not go beyond the
limits of the teacher’s lessons. When the teacher in the old style
has suggested the generalization of the idea by saying, for example,
“What is the colour of this flower, of this ribbon?” probably the
attention of the child will remain fixed in dull fashion on the
specimens o,ffered him by the teacher.
If we compare the child with a watch or any other complicated
mechanism, we may say that the old method can be likened to
what we do when we press with the thumb on the teeth of the
motionless wheels to make them go round, in which case the
‘ turning ’ corresponds exactly with the driving force applied by
the thumb. This is the equivalent of the culture which is limited
to the work of the teacher. The new method, however, resembles
winding-up, which sets into independent motion aU the mechanism,
motion which is directly dependent on the machine and not on
the work of the person who, has wound it up. Similarly, the
 OBSERVATIONS ON PREJUDICES 219^.

independent mental development of the ckild continues indefinitely

and is in direct dependence on the mental powers of the child
himself and not on the teacher’s w^ork.
The movement which is independent mental activity, arises in
our case, from the education of the senses, and is niaintained
by intelligence as an observer. The sporting dog owes Ms»
cleverness to the special acuteness of his senses and not to
education given by his master; moreover, the practice wkich he-
gets in hunting by continually sharpening the sense faculties, gives.,
the dog pleasure in the chase and then a passion for it. The same-
may be said of the pianist who, improving his musical sense as
well as his manipulative skill, develops a growing love for extract¬
ing new harmonies from, his instrument whilst the exercise is stilts
further strengthening the sense and the dexterity. He is thus
launched on the way to a perfection which will have as its limits-
only his own personal powers. A physicist., on the contrary,
might know all the laws of harmony which will form part of his.,
scientific training, yet he may not be able to execute the simplest
musical composition; his culture,, however extensive, wil have
limits defined by the branch of his science wfiich deals with
acoustics.
Our educational aim for early childhood should be that of
helping development, not conferring culture. Therefore after having.
offered to the child the material suitable for the development of
the senses, we ought to wait, for the faculty of obseiwutio.ii to
unfold itself.
The Touchstone. Very often one is am.azed by the .fact that
children not only make ind.ependent observations on their environ- ■
ment, noticing things which at first they did. not distinguish in it,....
but that they seem to observe and to compare them with what
they remember. ■ They express opinions which seem marveUous,....
for they reveal to us that some children form within themselves a.
kind of * touchstone’ which we do not possess. They compare-
external things with the images which they have fixed in their-
..minds, and they show judgment which is surprising in its accuracy..
:220 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

On one occasion in a classroom, in Barcelona, a workman entered

carrying in Iiis hand a pane of glass which, was to be replaced in
one of the classroom windows. ,A child, five years old, called out:
'"The glass does not fit, it is too sibrIV Only when he applied
t,lie glass d,id the workman find that it was too short by about a
centimetre.
Two children of five and s.dc in a Children’s House in Berlin,
carried on the following discussion: “Do you think that the
ceiling is three metres high?” “No, it is about three metres,
tw^enty-five ce,iitimetres.” When measured the distance proved to
"be somewhat over three m.etres.
A c.h.iM, five years old, on seeing a lady enter, said to her,
“ The colour of your dress is exactly the same as that of the flower
which is out tiie.re.” The lady went into the next room where she
found a flower wMc.h was not visible from the room she had entered,
and comparing the flower with her dress, found the two colours to
be amazingly alike. Apparently the lady’s ability was lim,ited to
recognizing the identity of the colours wLen they were placed side
by side; but the child possessed a powder beyond this; he had an
inward fixed standard to w-hich he could refer both the flower and
the dress, just as w'e have a fixed unit of measure which permits
us to judge the relationships between things to be measured and
■a fixed stone of comparison by which other stones can be judged.
The touchstone, which produces such wonderful results in
'■ children and w^hich sets them o.n ,a plane very different from ours
and often inaccessible to us, is worthy of being considered as a
fact unknown until today. It seems that at certain periods in
■fife there exist possibilities of making mental acquisitions which
are no longer possible at other ages. A fact which is clearly evident
to everybody is the capacity many times mentio,ned which little
children ..have for remembering and reproducing the sounds of
l.anguage and, for learning the words of it.
The age at which language is imprinted in indelible fashion
is the period at which nature has established an extraordinary
‘.'Sensitivity adapted to fixing accents and words. In life one cannot
 OBSERVATIONS ON PREJUDICES 221'

go backwards, and what the mind acquired during its sensitive

period is a permanent possession for all life, one which can never
be acquired at any other period. Thus in the early acquisition
of sense impressions and in the fixation of movements there are
periods in childhood which, if they pass without bearing fruit, can
never be replaced in their effects.
Once our attention is directed to this fact, we will see small
variations which often illustrate it. The child of three is able to
repeat forty times in succession an exercise (e.g. the solid insets)
w'hich the child of six cannot repeat more than five or six times
in succession. However, the child of six can do things of higher
standing than those possible to the child of three, things of which
the very small child would not only be incapable but which would
be quite strange to him.
This interesting fact is repeated in normal matters. The in¬
tensely formative period of early childhood is also that in which
there may be established a form of perfect obedience, the e.xtemal
element of which was fixed as a tendency to imitation. When,,
however, one goes deeply into this phenomenon and when sur¬
rounding circumstances are favourable to the development of the
child and therefore to his deepest expressions, one sees that there
exists in the child a tendency towards a wonderful adaptability to
the human beings who surround him, a trait in which we ought
to seek to establish a base for love and good feeling towards all
human beings. Later on, except in cases of unusually lofty' moral
perfection due to exceptional forces, there will no longer exist this
form of obedience; there wifi, be only reasoned agreement or
enforced submission.
The same phenomenon is shown with extraordinary clearness
in the development of rehgious feehngs. The little child has a
tendency which one cannot describe better than by calling it the
sensitive period of the soul when it has intuitions and rehgious
urges which are surprising to anyone who has not observed the
child to whom it was made possible to express the needs of his
inner fife. It seems then that httle children are exceptionally
"222 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

endowed mitli superaatiirai intEitions, are iiiiraculoiisly called by

divine grace, tkoiigli rationally it is not possible to give them that
religious education which later, in the so-called age of reason, the
cliild can absorb, whilst the man will grow greater through intelli¬
gence illominated by faith.
The sensitiie period is always a base for wonderful acquisitions
w^hich ilie man will no longer be able to gain at a different age.
MeniCi Order. The mind of the little child is certainly not
void of knowledge or ideas when the education of the senses begins,
but the images are confused together on the edge of the abyss.
That chaos of the mind has no need of other new things, but it
does need order among those which exist in it. It begins to dis¬
tinguish all the characters of things. It distinguishes quantify
from quality, and separates what is form from what is colour.
It -distinguishes dimensions according to their frequency of occur¬
rence, in objects long and short, thick or thin, large or small. It
separates colours into groups calling them by their names—white,
green, red, blue, yellow, violet, black, orange, brown, pink. It
distinguishes colour in its intensities, calling the two extremes light
and dark. Taste is separated from odours; smoothness from
softness; sounds from noises.
As the child had learnt to put everything in its place in its
surroundings, one result of the education of the senses was the
orderly arrangement of mental image. That is the first orderly
act which has to be done in the mind; it is the first point of
departure because mental life unfolds by avoiding obstacles.
The conquest of the external world in its sense aspects will
now be easy and orderly. The orderliness which has been started
has prepared the conditions.
This was what was done by those men who have be¬
come brilliant in the opinion of the world. They began by
distinguishing things, grouping them, classifying them, inventing
names by which to identify them, and deciding to' what uses
they could be put._ They wedded exact knowledge with scientific
language.
 OBSERVATIONS ON PREJUDICES 223
And this was the beginning of all the sciences which deal with
existing things, was the first chapter in the history of future
discoveries. It was the man trained in this knowledge of the world
who proceeded in the light of knowledge to create progress, the
man who looked across the darkness of ignorance, a dark abyss,
impassable and immutable.
c H A p T E R X!V

ELEVATION

Silence: Abstractions Materialized

One^ of the differences between our method and those generally

used in the schools for the education of normal children bears
reference to the way of education.
Perhaps the ‘ silence ’ may serve to illustrate the idea.
In the ordinary schools there is discussed a state of normal
order which is accepted although it has never been dejOned. It is
that state in which the behaviour of the class makes it possible for
the master to give a lesson.
As, however, the class is acting under compulsion the tendency
is to drift from that mediocre state of order into a disorder in which
movements of all kinds, unco-ordinated and purposeless, create
noise and restlessness which make the giving of a lesson difficult
or impossible;,that is, it disturbs the working order. There must
in such a case be an energetic call for ‘ silence ’ indicating with
this very word the working order.
So the ‘ medium order ’ is not only something already attain¬
ed, but is normal and customary; a simple command suffices ta
obtain it.
 ELEYATION 225

By our method, the medium order (which, howwer, has an¬

other form which results from the indhidual labours of the pupis)
is a point of departure for climbing to a higher level by means of
a step not yet reached and unknown. Silence is then a positive
victory which must be gained through knowledge and experience.
Knowledge, therefore, is applied to considering the slightest
movements, to controlling actions in every detail in order to
obtain the absolute immobility which leads to silence—a striking
idea, new, never before evaluated. In the ordinary schools the
call, for silence is intended to bring back affairs into their normai
condition.
By contrast, the silence of immobility suspends the normal
life, suspends useful work and has no practical aim. AM its impor¬
tance, all its fascination, springs from the fact that by suspending
the communal life it raises the individual to .a higher level where
utility does not exist but where it is the conquest, of self which,
calls him.
When we find that little children of three or four ask to have
the silence ’' or when having been invited, they respond at once
with the keenest interest, we have plain proofs that children have
a tendency towards elevation and that they enjoy the higher
pleasures. Many people,have been present on some one of these
astonishing occasions when a mistress having begun to “write on,
the blackboard the word ‘ silence ’ in order to obtain it, even before
she has completed the word they perceive that profound silence
has invaded the place where, an- instant before, forty or fifty little
ones had been intent on their occupations.
The motor life was suspended by contagion instantaneously..
Some child had read the first letters and had understo,od that the
order for silence was coming; by suspending his own movements,,
he started the performance which each of the others at once guessed'
at and joined in with him. And so silence called ■ for silence,
without a single voice having asked for it by speech.
Similar . comparisons may be made with respect to all the
activities of the two different types of schools.
15
c H A p T E R XIV

ELEVATION

Silence: Abstractions Materialized

One of the differences between our method and those generally

used in the schools for the education of normal children bears
reference to the way of education.
Perhaps the ‘ silence ’ may serve to illustrate the idea.
In the ordinary schools there is discussed a state of normal
order which is accepted although it has never been defined. It is
that state in which the behaviour of the class makes it possible for
the master to give a lesson.
As, however, the class is acting under compulsion the tendency
is to drift from that mediocre state of order into a disorder in which
movements of all kinds, unco-ordinated and purposeless, create
noise and restlessness which make the giving of a lesson difficult
or impossible; that is, it disturbs the working order. There must
in such a case be an energetic call for ' silence ’ indicating with
this very word the working order.
So the ‘ medium order ’ is not only something already attain¬
ed, but is normal and customary* a simple command sufl&ces to^
obtain if.
 ELEVATION 225
By our method, the medium order (which, however, has am
other form which results from the individual labours of the pupils)
is a point of departure for climbing to a higher level by means of
a step not yet reached and unknown. Silence is then a positive
victory which must be gained through knowledge and experience.
Knowledge, therefore, is applied to considering the slightest
movements, to controlling actions in every detail in order to
obtain the absolute immobility which leads to silence—a striking
idea, new, never before evaluated. In the ordinary schools the
call for silence is intended to bring back affairs into their normal
condition.
By contrast, the silence of immobility suspends the normal
life, suspends useful work and has no practical aim. All its impor¬
tance, all its fascination, springs from the fact that by suspending
the communal life it raises the individual to a higher level where
utility does not exist but where it is the conquest of self which
calls him.
When we find that little children of three or four ask " to have
the silence’ or when having been invited, they respond at once
with the keenest interest, we have plain proofs that children have
a tendency towards elevation and that they enjoy the higher
pleasures. Many people have been present on some one of these-
astonishing occasions when a mistress having begun to write on
the blackboard the word ‘ silence ’ in order to obtain it, even before
she has completed the word they perceive that profound silence
has invaded the place where, an instant before, forty or fifty little
ones had been intent on their occupations.
The motor life was suspended by contagion instantaneously..
Some child had read the first letters and had understood that the
order for silence was coming; by suspending his own movements,,
he started the performance which each of the others at once guessed
at and joined in with him. And so silence called for silence,
without a single voice having asked for it by speech.
Similar comparisons may be made with respect to all the
activities of the two dilBferent types of schools.
15
226: THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

A certaia medium level represents " good ’ in the ■ ordinary

schools—a " good ’ which is not defined, but which as a matter of
custom restricts the scholastic level aimed at.
In our schools we set out from a medium ‘ good ’ which is
that attained spontaneously by individual work, in order to rise
to a higher condition, towards a goal of perfection.
It is evident that if the tendency which renders this elevation
possible does not exist in the child as a matter of necessity it will
never be reached in practice.
If it does exist and if it shows itself in undoubted success,
we ought, as educators, to feel that a new duty illumines our
mission.
The education of the senses may serve to illustrate this idea.
It is known that many educationists have considered education of
the senses to be a mistake. That is because, by taking the
“‘medium’ life as the end, the education of the senses causes a
deviation from the natural way of learning.
Objects are regarded in their entirety as a combination of
•qualities, as possessing many characters. The rose will have its
colours and its odours; the marble vase its form and its weight,
and so on. The lesson on actual objects just as they are is then
the correct thing. This is the reasoning which regards as finality
the medium order of things.
If, however, we consider the medium order not as a fixed end
but as a point of departure we may find out by intuition that little
children notice spontaneously much more than the object lessons
dream of explaining, because, naturally, they are left free to observe
in accordance with their own instinct; they are not hindered by
organic inhibition, that is, by the fear of acting by themselves.
I say “intuition” because even if we have not studied
methodically spontaneous child reactions we can understand such
a truth empirically. The child possesses a vital tendency to explore
his surroundings, however great, as he also tends to listen to
language; he must get to know the external world, he must learn
to speak, driven by a pressing instinct. It is, we say, a period of
 ELEVATION 227

tiie senses in his life which makes him observe in this way the
things around him like the sounds of the human voice.
There is no need to illustrate objects for him; the only need
is to refrain from stifling the instinct of observation which nature
has given him.
If we want to help him we must place ourselves on a higher
level. We must give him more than he could obtain by his
unaided efforts.
May I be permitted to make a strong assertion that we ought
to give him the philosophy of things?
Let us begin with abstraction. Abstract ideas are synthetic
conceptions of the mind which, detached from actual objects,
abstract from them some qualities held in common which do not
(exist of themselves but exist in the actual things. For example,
weight is an abstraction; it does not exist by itself; only heavy
objects exist.
In the same way one considers form and colour. These words
stand for abstractions which are synthetic in themselves because
they mass together in one single idea in an abstract manner, a
quality scattered in various ways over an infinite number of real
things. The children who love to stroke things materially rather
than just to look at them appear to have minds which are less
•open to abstract ideas. But here comes in a fine distinction.
Is it the absence of the object which makes the abstractions
inaccessible to the child, or is it real mental incapacity for grasp¬
ing that synthesis of many things which is an abstract idea of
quality?
If we succeed in materializing the idea, presenting it in a form
adapted to the child, that of tangible objects, will his mind be
capable of grasping it, of interesting himself deeply in it?
The sense material may certainly be considered from this
point of view as materialized abstraction. It presents colour,
•dimension, form, odour, sound, in a tangible and distinct manner
and arranged in grades which permit of the classification and
analysis of qualities. *
228 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

When the child finds himself in front of the material he applies

himself to it with a serious, concentrated effort which seems to
draw out the best there is in him. It actually appears that children
are found making conquests greater than their minds are capable
of; the material opens up to their intelligence ways otherwise
inaccessible in the age of childhood.
It is by way of this material that concentration is attained, for
it includes things fitted to absorb the intense attention of the child.

A Comparison between the Education of Normal

Children and That of Those Mentally Deficient

Knowing that this educational method for normal children

has its origin in the method which Itard and Seguin elaborated for
children mentally deficient, many have objected that it is impossible
to apply one and the same treatment to the two classes of children.
At the present time more and more is the tendency to distinguish
mental levels with increasing accuracy, recognizing and treating
differently those who from the point of view of intelligence are
differently endowed, e.g. the supernormal.
I think it well, therefore, to point out the difference which our
method recognizes so clearly between children rich in vital spirit
and those who are poor in it. The same means used in both cases
provoke different reactions and serve to establish an extremely
illustrative comparison.
The first and fundamental difference between a child mentally
inferior and a normal child, when placed in front of the same
material, is that the defective child does not show spontaneous
interest. It is necessary to ask for his attention continually and
actively, inviting him to observe, to compare, exhorting him to do
something.
Let us suppose that we are using as our first object a piece of
the solid insets. The exercise, as we know, consists in taking the
cylinders out of their places, putting them on the table, mixing
them up, and then replacing them, each in its own place.
 ELEVATION 229
For the child who is apathetic and meatally weak, it would
be necessary, however, to begin with exercises in which the stimuli
are more strongly contrasting and would be reached in this exercise
after many others had been taken.
For normal children this is the first object which may be
presented, and from among all the sense material this is the object
preferred by little children of two and a half to three and a half
years of age.
For defectives, when they reached this object, it was necessary
to attract their attention continually and firmly, inviting observation
and comparison; the child, having gathered all the cylinders once
into their places, stopped, and the game was finished. When the
defective made mistakes, he had to be corrected, or urged to correct
himself, and even when he managed to recognize a mistake it
generally left him indifferent.
It is different with the normal child who of his own free will
takes the liveliest interest in the game, corrects himself, while the
correction itself leads to an intensification of his attention on the
differences in dimensions and in making comparisons among them.
When the normal child is absorbed in his work he refuses
interference from those who want to step in and help him; he
wants to be left alone with his problem. The result is a voluntary
activity which has a much higher value than simply clearing up
the differences between things. Used in this way the material
reveals itself as a key which puts the child in communication with
himself and opens his mind to expression and activity.
Concentration on a voluntary exercise repeated a great many
times is the index to the superiority of the normal child.
Another difference is found in the distinction which the normal
child is capable of making between essential things and secondary
things which often serve to throw the others into relief.
It has been said that there enters into the education of
the senses the isolation of the sense which is to be exercised.
Thus, when establishing tactile differences, it is a good plan to
isolate the child from visual impressions either by making the
230 THE DISCOVERY'OF THE CHILD

surrouEdings dark or by covering up his eyes with a bandage „

In other cases, silence is what is required.
All these methods are instrumental in helping the norma!
child to concentrate on one isolated stimulus; they strengthen his
interest in it.
On the contrary, the defective child is easily distracted by these
very methods; he is led away by them from the principal subject
which ought to be claiming his attention. In darkness, he easily
falls asleep, or he becomes unruly. It is the bandage which attracts
his attention instead of the sense stimulus on which he was expected
to fix his mind; thus the exercise degenerates into a useless game
or an outburst of meaningless joy.
Finally, there is another fact specially worthy of notice; it is
that both among defectives and normal children, excellent results
are produced by Seguin’s " lesson in three stages,’ which so simply
and so clearly Inks up the word with the idea acquired.
That ought to make us reflect that the difference between the
higher and the lower mentality diminishes and becomes less notice¬
able when the child is in a condition to receive, like a passive
creature, lessons based on the activity of the teacher who acts
over him.
The simple and psychologically perfect lesson of Seguin suc¬
ceeds in its aim in both cases.
This is clear and eloquent proof that individual differences are
revealed and intensified only through spqntaneous work and in
expression which has not been incited—that is, in the direct
manifestations of the inner impulses.
The association of the name with the sense perception in
Seguin’s lesson succeeds not only in fixing that association in the
mind of the defective child, but also partly in increasing his
perceptive power. The defective is helped by that lesson to observe
the object better; it seems now to be doubly attached to him—by
appearance and by name.
The normal child has no need of this help in observing. His
observation is at a stage preceding the need for the lesson. He
 ELEVATION 231

receives the lesson with great joy when he has already fixed the
sense distinctions. The lesson on the name then clarifies and
completes his own voluntary work. The idea is known, it lives
through his own work; and now comes the baptism, the name, the
consecration. It is interesting to watch the child’s intense joy
when he has associated a name with something about which he
has learnt something through his senses.
I remember having taught one day to a small girl who was
not yet three the names of three colours.
I got the children to place one of their little tables in front of
the window and having seated myself in one of their chairs, I
made the child sit down in a similar one, on my right hand- I had
on the table six pieces of colour, in pairs of the same colour;—^red,
blue and yellow. As a first exercise I put before the child :one of
the tablets and asked her to find its match; and this I repeated for
all three colours, getting the similar pairs arranged in a column.
Then I passed on to Seguin’s three stages. The little one, learnt
to recognize the respective names of the three colours.
She was so delighted that she looked at me for a long time
and then began to dance about. As I watched her dancing in
front of me, J said to her laughing: “ Do you know the colours? ”
And she always replied as she danced on:“Yes”. This joy of
hers had no end; she continued to dance round that she might
hear the same question repeated, and answer it with; her enthusiastic
“Yes”.
The defective child, on the contrary, is helped by the lesson
to understand the material; his attention is directed insistently on
the contrasting differences, and in the end he gets interested in
them and begins to work; the object in itself did not possess a
stimulus strong enough to rouse his energy.

A Comparison between Our Teaching and

Experimental Psychology
There is generally neglected a very interesting comparison
between the research of Itard on the education of children who.
232 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

are deaf-mutes and defectives, and that attempt which was made
much later through the work of the Germans, Fechner and Weber
and then Wundt, to subject psychology to experimental research
made by means of instruments and measurements.
Itard, who lived about the time of the French Revolution,
was led by his scientific studies on diseases of the ear to experi¬
ment the education on a positive basis, looking for reactions which,
by exciting the senses systematically, would stimulate attention and
awaken intelligence and motor activity. The objects which he had
in mind had therefore the real meaning of stimuli.
Later, Fechner, Weber and Wundt tried to found a psycho¬
logy on experimental basis, beginning by testing the sensitivity
which existed in normal individuals in respect of minimum stimuli;
aiming at determining with mathematical exactitude what times of
reaction to the stimuli were displayed by the various subjects which
were acted on. Importance was given to the objects by the
possibility of their being more or less directly a means of measure¬
ment. They formed the instrumentarium of estesiometry^ the
measurement of sensibility.
The two lines of research, born independently, were carried
on independently, the first creating, as it expanded, schools for
deaf-mutes and mental defectives, the second founding institutes
of estesiometry which had for their purpose experimental research
directed to the building up a new science.
All these research workers, however, seeing that they based
the construction of their instruments on the sensitive reactions of
the man, arrived at a determination of objects for the most part
analogous and similar to one another, although they would con¬
stitute in the one case material for the education of the senses and
in the other a kind of arsenal for psycho-sensational measure¬
ments.
The aim of the two lines of research, so much alike in the
matter of their constructive bases, is therefore quite opposite.
As a matter of fact, estesiometry is seeking for the smallest
stimuli perceptible to a man already fully developed or to a child
 ELEVATION 233

developed to a standard corresponding to his age, by pure and

simple demonstration.
The importance of such demonstrations was to show that
mental facts are susceptible to mathematical measurement. And
it included the idea, which was considered almost as an axiom,
that the manner of feeling, or rather of perceiving (that is recog¬
nizing) stimuli was an absolutely natural quality, not dependent
on knowledge, or on the methodical working of the mind, or on
inteUectual education; that is, it was not dependent on those
artificial mental differences which result from education.
Seeing if one thing is larger or smaller than another, feeling
if a minute object has come into contact with our skin, etc. are
experiences common to all, and individual differences are characters
derived from nature which normally creates its own variations,
and which therefore make men more or less sensitive just as they
make them more or less intelligent, more or less markedly dark
or fair. Its judgments therefore were considered as judgments
on the man in his natural mental development. In fact psycho¬
logy is intended later to determine the characters corresponding
to the various mental levels associated with each age and asso¬
ciated with individual variations (of normal, sub-normal people,
etc.).
In place of this method, Itard proposed to set up maximum
stimuli which were in strong contrast in order to attract to them
the sense faculty of children shut out from their environment and
incapable of obtaining in the ordinary way precise knowledge of it;
he meant to lead them on by repeated exercises, to perceive, step
by step, contrasts less abrupt and differences more minute in the
separate qualities presented to them. In this case it is not a
simple test which is being carried out on the subject in order to
demonstrate his mental condition but a modifying action which is
directed towards the intelligence in order to awaken it, to kindle
contact with the external world, to estimate its characters with
precision and to bring into a harmony of interests the intellect and
the outer realities.
234 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

A modifying action which increases the power of discrimina¬

tion is a true and proper educational action.
Education of the senses leads to a perfecting of the differential
perception of stimuli by means of repeated exercises.
There exists, therefore, a sense education which generally is
given no consideration in researches made in mental development,,
but which is a factor which has to be considered.
For example, I have often seen used as mental tests cubes
varying in size and placed at different distances. From among
these the child had to recognize the smallest and the largest,,
whilst the chronometer was measuring the time of reaction which
elapsed between the command and the response, and the error
was noted.
I used to repeat that in such an experiment the factor of
education was forgotten, and by that I meant sense education.
Our children have, among the teaching material used for the
education of the senses, a series of ten cubes graduated in their
dimensions. The exercise consists in placing on the ground on a
dark-coloured rug all the cubes which are coloured pale pink,
and then building up the ‘ tower,’ placing at the base the largest
cube and then the others in succession up to the smallest. The
child must choose from the carpet, every time, the largest cube.
This game is found to be most amusing even by children of two
and a half years old, who, directly they have built up the tower,,
knock it down with little blows, admire the pink shapes as they
lie on the dark background, and begin the construction all over
again, for an indefinite number of times.
If one of my children between three and four years of age,,
and one of the children from the first class in the elementary school
between six and seven years of age were exposed to these tests,,
mine would undoubtedly show a shorter reaction period and would
be much readier to choose the largest cube and the smallest from
the heap, and would make no mistakes.
The same may be said about tests in colour sense, tactile-
sense, etc.
 ELEVATION 23:5’

This fact, in a fundamental manner, strikes at the intentions of

psychometry (and in general of all experimental psychology based
on tests), because it displays in age the mental levels which it
considered absolute as a natural variation in individuals.
This educational method may also be taken into consideration
by the advocates of experimental psychology who hope to estimate-
by means of instantaneous reactions the level of mental develop¬
ment, almost making an absolute measure of the whole through
one detail, as one would do if one were to calculate the growth
of the body at various ages by measuring the height. Systematic
exercise of the senses would upset these proportions, showing
that they have not demonstrated an absolute feature in mental
growth.
If it is desired to obtain from experimental psychology a
practical application, wherever it may be attempted, to the reform
of educational methods in schools, then the, mistake in principle
becomes all the clearer.
If scientific pedagogy is to be established it will have to take
as the Starting-point active and modifying stimuli and not
measuring stimuli.
This standard constituted the very beginning of my researches.
In practice it succeeded in establishing an experimental pedagogy
for normal children, and at the same time, in revealing mental,
qualities which had not previously been known in children.
The psychology of the study, with its reactions and its tests,,
introduced into elementary schools to reform them, has not suc¬
ceeded in influencing the practical work in the school itself or
changing its methods of education.
The logical consequence has merely been to catch a glimpse
of the possibility of modifying examinations, that is tests of the
scholar, and for a time English-speaking America seemed very
keen on considering seriously the substitution of the scientific
examination of individual attitudes for the old examination
for testing of what had been learnt. There was thus placed
at the end of the studies the same examination as that adopted im
236 THE DISCOVERY O'F THE CHILD

institutes of a professional character for the admission of men

to work.
On the other hand, Itard’s studies had immediate practical
results in the heart of education and resulted in the curing of
partly deaf children, who regained their hearing by the strength-
■ening of their auditory faculty by means of exercise; and at the
same time they regained speech. From this beginning there arose
the education of the real deaf-mutes and then of the defectives.
The schools established throughout Switzerland, Germany,
France and America spread this work of redemption of unhappy
children and raised the mental and social level of all the children
who were affected by them.
And directly the same methods were introduced into the
schools for normal children, a profound change in the school was
the result, an elevation of the personality of the child which has
spread through the whole world the social conception of indepen¬
dence and the liberation of the child.
C H A P T E R XV

WRITTEN LANGUAGE

Ought our pedagogic conception of aiding the natural development

of the child to be arrested by an artificial acquirement derived
exclusively from the work of civilization; by this I mean written
language? How does this concern writing and reading? Here we
have clearly a question of teaching, and this teaching does not take
into account the nature of man. We have reached the moment
in which it is necessary to face in education the problem of culture
and therefore of the effort necessary to acquire it, even by the sacri¬
fice of natural impulses. Every one knows that reading and writing
form the first tasks of the school; the first affliction of the man who
has to sacrifice his own nature to the requirements of civilization.
With regard to this question, those who were concerning,
themselves with the child himself, came to the conclusion that
it was best to delay as long as possible so painful a task, and they
considered the age of eight years just suitable for so difficult a
problem. Generally speaking, the teaching of the alphabet and
of writing begins at the age of six, it being considered almost
a sin to introduce early childhood to the alphabet and written
words. Written language" is in fact, like the second dentition, off
use only in an advanced stage of development. It is language.
:238 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

which enables us to express thought which is already logically

organized, and to obtain from, books the ideas of a vast number
of distant, unseen people, or of those who have died in ages long
past. As long as the child is incapable of using this language
because of his immaturity, he may be excused from the hard labour
of learning it.
We, however, believe that the solution may be arrived at
through a more profound study of the problem. Above all there
will have to be considered an infinite number of errors in the
method of teaching writing. This is not the place to discuss them,
Lut one example, that of the method used by Seguin to teach
writing to defectives, will suffice to illustrate our point. Another
problem for study is that of considering writing in itself, analysing
it into its factors. By trying to separate them into independent
■exercises, they can be adapted to various ages and thus distributed
according to the natural powers of the child. This is the principle
inspiring our method which will be illustrated in the following
pages.

THE OLD METHODS OF TEACHING

READING AND WRITING

Criticism of Seguin’s Method of Teaching Writing

Seguin does not present in his treatise on teaching any reasoned

•out methods for teaching writing. Here is the substance of his way
of teaching writing.
‘‘ In order to carry a child on from drawing, strictly so-called,
to writing which is the immediate application of it, the teacher
needs only to call the letter D a portion of a circle supported at its
extremities against a vertical line, and two sloping lines joined
at the top and crossed by a horizontal line, and so on,”
‘‘ It is no longer then a question of knowing how the child
will learn to write; he draws,. tAen he will write. After that it is
not necessary to say that the letters must be drawn according to
 WRITTEN LANGUAGE 239
the laws of contrast and similarity; thus O next to I, B opposite
P, T along with L, etc.”
According to Seguin, then, it is not necessary to teach writing;
the child who draws, will write. But writing is, for this author,
the printed capital letter! Neither does he go on to tell us whether
or not the idiot will write in any other way. Instead, he enlarges
on a description of the teaching of the drawing which prepares for
writing and which includes writing-teaching which is full of diffi¬
culties and which is methodized by the joint efforts of Itard and
Seguin.
“Chapter XL. Drawing.—In drawing, the first ideas to be
acquired, in the order of their importance, are that of the plane
surface intended to receive the drawing, and secondly, that of the
lines traced on it.
“ Within these two ideas are comprised all writing, all drawing,
every linear creation.
“ These two ideas are correlative; their relationship generates
the idea, the capacity for producing lines in this sense, because
lines deserve their name only when they follow a methodical and
rational direction; the mark made without a direction is not aline;
it is produced by chance, it has no name.”
“The rational mark, on the contrary, has a name, because
it. follows a direction, and since all writing or drawing is none
other than a mixture of different directions which a line follows,
it is necessary, before dealing with writing properly so-called, to
insist on these notions of plane and line which the normal child
acquires by intuition, but which one has to make precise and clear
for idiots, in all their applications. Through methodical drawing
they will come into rational contact with all parts of the plane,
and will produce, at first by imitation, simple lines at first,
complicated later on.
“ In successive stages they will be taught—(1) to draw different
kinds of lines, (2) to draw them in various directions and in posi¬
tions differently related to the surface, (3) to join these lines so as
to form figures graduated from the simple to the complicated.
240 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Hence they must be taught at first to distinguish between straight

lines and curves, verticals and horizontals and between the vast
variety of sloping lines; then, lastly, the principal points of union
of two or more lines to form a figure.
“ This reasoned analysis of drawing, from which writing will
be born, is so essential in all its parts that a child who was able to
draw many letters before being entrusted to me, spent six days in
drawing a perpendicular and a horizontal line, fifteen days before
he could reproduce a curve and a sloping line. Most of my pupils
are for a long time incapable of imitating the movement of my
hands on paper before being able to draw a line in a definite
direction.
“ The more imitative or the less stupid produce a mark dia¬
metrically the opposite of that which I have shown them, and all
of them confuse the points where two lines meet, even the easiest
to understand like the top, the bottom, the centre. It is true that
the thorough teaching which I have given them about the plane,
the lines and configuration makes them later prepared to grasp
the relationships which have to be established between the plane
and the different lines with which they must cover the surface; but
in the research made necessary by the abnormalities of my pupils,
the progression from the vertical to the horizontal, the oblique
and the curve, must be determined by consideration of the diffi¬
culties of comprehension and of execution which each one of them
offers to a dull intelligence, and to an unsteady and unsure hand.
Here one has no longer merely to make them carry out a difficult
job since I have prepared myself to help them to overcome a series
of difficulties. I have, therefore, asked myself if these difficulties
might not vary in degree and if sometimes they might not originate
in theories. Here are the ideas which have guided me in this
matter.
The vertical is a line which the eye and the hand follow
directly, raising and lowering themselves. The horizontal is not
natural either to the eye or the hand, which lower themselves and
follow a curve (like the horizon from which the name is taken).
 WRITTEN LANGUAGE 241
starting from the centre to go to the lateral extremities of the plane
if they are not kept in proportion to the'distance which they
traverse.
“ The sloping line involves ideas comparatively more complex;
and curves exact steadiness and differences with respect to the
plane so variable and dijfficult to grasp that it would be a waste of
time to begin the study of lines with these. The simplest line is.
therefore the vertical, and this is how I got the children to
grasp the idea.
“The first geometrical formula is this: from one point to-
another we can draw only one straight line. Starting from this,
axiom, which the hand alone can demonstrate, I fixed two points
on the blackboard, and joined them with a vertical line. My
children tried to do the same between two points which I had
marked on their papers; but some came down with the vertical
to the right of the lower point, others to the left; there were others,
whose hand wandered over the page in all directions. In order
to get rid of these various divergences, which are very often due
more to intelligence and sight than to the hand, I thought it would
be a good plan to restrict the usable area of the surface, by drawing,
two verticals, one to the right and one to the left of the points which
the child was to join with a line parallel to and intermediate with
the other two, which serve, so to speak, as banks. If these two
lines were not enough I fixed vertically on the paper two rulers
which completely stopped the hand from wandering. But these-
material barriers are not useful for long. We first remove the
rulers and then turn to the use of the parallel Hnes, between which
the idiot is not long before he interposes the third vertical. Then
one of the directive verticals is taken away, and there is left some¬
times that on the right, sometimes that on the left, in order that
they may prevent any deviation which presents itself. Finally the
last line is suppressed, then the points, beginning by cancelling
that at the top which indicates the starting point of the line and
of the hand; the child learns in this way to draw a vertical line,,
alone, without any assistance; without any points of comparison.
16
242 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD
“ The same method, the same difficulties, the same means of
direction apply- to the straight horizontal lines. If by chance they
are begun fairly well the child may be expected to curve them,
tending to go from the centre to the extremities, as nature compels
him, for the reason which I have explained. If points marked at
intervals are not enough to keep his hand up, it is kept within
limits by parallel lines which are drawn on the paper, or by rulers.
“ Finally, the child will be made to draw the horizontal line
whilst a set-square is placed against a vertical line forming with it
a right angle. The child will thus begin to understand the meaning
of the vertical line and the horizontal line, and will be able to
catch a glimpse of these first two ideas for drawing a figure.
“ From the order in which the lines are introduced it might
appear that the study of oblique lines should follow immediately
after that of the vertical and horizontal, but it is not so. The
oblique, which shares with the vertical in its inclination and with
the horizontal in its direction, and which shares with both in its
character because it is a straight line, presents, because of its rela¬
tionship both with the plane and with other lines, too complex an
idea to be appreciated without preparation.”
In this way Seguin continues for several pages to speak of
lines sloping in all directions, which he has drawn between the
parallels. He goes on to the four curves, which he has drawn to
the right and to the left of a vertical, and above and below
a horizontal. He concludes: "‘In this way were solved the
problems which I was investigating—^the vertical, the horizontal
and the sloping lines, and the four curves the union of which forms
the circle, the whole containing in principle all the lines possible
in writing.
“ Having arrived at this point, Itard and I stopped for a long
time. The lines being known it was a suitable time to get the child
to draw some of the regular figures, beginning of course with the
simplest. Speaking from his experience, Itard had advised me to
begin with the square, and I followed this advice for three months
without succeeding in making myself imderstood.”
 WRITTEN LANGUAGE 243
After a long series of experiments and following the guidance
of ideas about the origin of geometric figures, Seguin found out
that the easiest figure to draw was the triangle.
“When tluree lines meet together in this way, they always
form a triangle, whilst four lines may meet in a hundred directions,
■without keeping exactly parallel, and therefore presenting an
imperfect square.
“From these experiments and observations, confirmed by
many others which it would be superfluous to quote, I deduced
the first principles of writing and drawing for idiots—principles the
applications of which is too simple for me to dwell longer on it.”
The above describes the methods used by my predecessors in
teaching writing to defectives. To teach reading, Itard proceeded
in the following way. He hung from nails on the wall geometrical
figures like triangles, squares, circles; then he drew the exact repro¬
duction of them on the wall. After that, having removed the
figures, he had them replaced on their respective nails by the
Savage de T Aveyron, who had to be guided by the drawings.
It was from these drawings that Itard took the idea of the flat
insets. Finally, Itard made letters of the alphabet in printed capitals
and used them in a way similar to that which he had used for the
geometrical figures; that is, he drew them on the wall and placed
nails at such a height that the child could hang up letters over the
drawings. Later on, Itard used a horizontal plane instead of the
wall, drawing the letters on the bottom of a box and getting the
drawing covered with the solid letters.
Twenty years later, Seguin had not changed his method.
Criticism of the method used by Itard and Seguin for teaching
writing and reading seems to me superfluous. There are inherent
two fundamental mistakes which make it inferior to the methods
in use in schools for normal children. The first is that of teaching
writing with printed capital letters; the second lies in preparing
for writing a study of rational geometry, which we reserve
today for pupils in secondary schools. In doing this Seguin really
confuses ideas in a way which surprises us. He suddenly jumps
244 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

from the psychological obsen^ation of the child and his relationship

to his environment, to a study of the origins of lines and figures.
■ and of their connection with the plane surface.
He says that the child wifi draw a vertical line easily but the
horizontal will very often become a curve because ‘ nature orders
it’; and that this command of nature is represented by the fact
that man sees the horizon as a curved line!
Seguin’s example is valuable as being an illustration of the
necessity for special education fitted to train man in observation
and to direct logical thought. Observation ought to be absolutely
objective, free from aU preconceptions. Seguin’s perception
in this case is that geometrical design must prepare for writing,
and that prevents him from discovering the truly natural method-
necessary for such preparation. Another of his preconceptions is
that the deviations of the lines or the inexactitute with which the
child draws them, is due to the mind and the eye, not to the hand;
therefore he wearies himself out for weeks and months in explain-*
ing the direction of the lines and in directing the vision of the
idiot.
Seguin’s idea seems to be that a good method ought to start
from above; geometry, the intelligence of the child, and certain
abstract relationships are alone worthy of being taken into
consideration.
Is this not a common mistake?
A great deal of time and intellectual energy are lost in the
world because falsehood seems to be great and truth small.
Seguin’s method of teaching writing illustrates the tortuosity
of the paths which we follow in teaching, and that because of an
innate tendency to complicate things, analogous to that , which
makes us attach value only to complicated things. So we have
Seguin teaching geometry in order to teach writing, and making
the child-mind undertake the great effort of understanding geo¬
metrical abstractions in order to relieve him from the much simpler
task of drawing a printed D. Further, will the child not have to
make the effort of forgetting the printing, in order to learn cursive
 WRITTEN LANGUAGE 245

■writing? And would it not have been simpler to begin with cursive
writing?
Would many not believe that in order to learn to write it is
necessary to make children draw little strokes? This used to be a
deep-seated conviction. It actually seemed natural that, in order
to write the letters of the alphabet which are all round, it was
necessary to begin with straight lines and with strokes giving a bend
at an acute angle. Need we really marvel then that the beginner
experienced such great difficulty in getting rid of sharp angularity
when attempting the beautiful curves of the letter O, or how much
effort he and we expended in getting him to make strokes and
write with acute angles? Who is it who revealed to us that the
first drawing to be made ought to be a straight hne? And why are
we so determined to use angles to prepare the way for curves?
Let us rid ourselves for a moment from such preconceptions,
and let us travel along a simpler track. Perhaps it will bring us
great relief, sparing future humanity every effort needed to learn
to write.
Is it necessary to begin with strokes ? Logical thought at once
answers “ No ”. The child expends too painful an effort in such
an exercise, for the strokes must form only the minor difficulty
which has to be overcome.
Also, if we notice carefully, the stroke is the most difficult
exercise to accomplish; only a first-class writer can complete with
regularity a page of strokes, whilst a person who writes moderately
well could offer a page of presentable writing. In fact, the straight
line is unique, indicating the shortest distance between two points.
On the contrary, every deviation from this direction means a line
which is not straight; the infinite deviations are therefore easier
than the unique line, which represents perfection. If the order is
given to draw on the blackboard a straight line without any other
limitation, every one will draw a long line, in different directions,
beginning sometimes on the one side, sometimes on the other and
almost all 'vyill succeed in it. If one asks for a straight line to be
drawn in some particular direction and begimung from a definite
246 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD
point, then the abihty first shown will he much less, and there will
appear a pretty big series of irregularities, that is mistakes.
Almost all the lines will be long, because the individuals have-
to make a dash in order to carry out their intentions.
Let us now give directions that the lines must be short and'
kept within defined limits; the errors will increase because the dash
which had helped to keep the direction straight is prevented. Now
let us add that the writing instrument must be held in a particular
way, not as each one chooses.
In this way do we approach sensibly the first attempts at writ¬
ing which we expect from children—attempts which also demand
the preservation of parallelism among the separate lines drawn,,
and which will make a dull, very difficult piece of work, because
they have no aim for the children who do not understand them..
I noticed in the copybooks of deficient children visited in
France (and Voisin also mentions this fact) that the pages of
strokes, although they begin as such, finished with the lines of the
lettei C; that means that the defective child whose attention is-
less resistant than that of the normal child exhausts, little by little,
his first effort at imitation, and natural movement is gradually
substituted for that which was imposed. Thus the straight lines
are changed into curves often resembling those of C. Such a
phenomenon does not appear in the copy-books of normal children,,
because they maintain their effort up to the end of the page, and,
as so often happens, they cover up the error in teaching. But let
us examine the spontaneous drawings of normal children when,
for example, they are drawing lines on the sand of the garden
paths with a branch which has fallen from a tree; we will never see
short straight lines, but long curved lines variously interlaced.
Seguin saw the same thing when he made the children draw hori¬
zontals which at once became curves, an occurrence which he
considered was due to imitation of the horizon.^

forml here, when there have to be analysed alphabetical

lorms which include both straight lines and curves.
 WRITTEN LANGUAGE 247
The labour which we had thought necessary to learn to write
is quite artificial work, demanded not by writing but by the methods
of teaching it.

My First Experiments with Defective Children

Let us discard for the moment all the old dogmatism which
pertains to the subject. Let us disregard culture. Let us drop
all interest in the question of how man began to write as well as
in the genesis of writing itself. Let us drop the conviction which
established custom has given us of the necessity for beginning
writing with strokes; and let us imagine ourselves to be stripped
bare in spirit, like the truth which we want to discover.
Let us observe an individual who is writing, and try to analyse
the moves which he makes as he writes—the mechanism which is
concerned in writing.
This would mean carrying out a psycho-physiological study of
writing; it would mean studying the individual who is writing—^the
subject, not the object.
It was always by beginning with the object, by beginning with
the writing, that a method was built up.
A method which started from the study of the individual
rather than from that of the writing would really be original, very
different from any method which has preceded it.
If I had thought of giving a name to this new method when
I undertook the experiments on normal children, before I had
learnt the results of it, I would have called it a psychological
method, because of the source of inspiration. But experience has
given me, as a surprise and as a gift from nature, another title
—the method of spontaneous writing.
During the time when I was teaching defectives I happened to
notice the following fact. An idiot girl, eleven years old, whose
motive power and strength of hand were normal, could not learn
to sew, could not even master the first stage, that of pushing the
needle in and out in succession under and over the cloth, taking
and leaving a few threads.
248' THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Then I set- this girl to work at FroebeFs weaving exercise

which consists in threading a roll of paper transversely through
vertical rods also of paper, fixed at the top and the bottom. I was
led to think of the analogy between the two kinds of work, and was
greatly interested in my observations. When she had become
skilful in FroebeFs weaving I put her back to her sewing and was
pleased to see that she succeeded in executing the needlework.
I considered that the necessary movement of the hand had
been prepared for the sewing without sewing, and that really it is
necessary to find out the way to teach before having it done.
Especially is this true when it is a question of preparing movements
which might be stimulated and also limited by repeated exercises,
outside the direct work for which they are preparing. In this way
it would be possible to be able to carry out the work when they
attack it, without having yet put a hand to it directly and to
Accomplish it perfectly at the first attempt.
I thought that this idea might usefully be applied to writing.
The thought interested me intensely and I wondered at its simpli¬
city. I was surprised that I had not thought at first of the plan
which the observation of the girl who could not sew had sug¬
gested to me.
Since I had made the children touch the outlines of the
geometrical figures in the plane insets, there remained only to make
them trace with their fingers the shapes of the letters of the
alphabet.
, I had made for me a splendid alphabet, the letters being in
the form of cursive script, the body of the writing 8 cms. high, the
rest in proportion. The letters were made of wood, | cm. thick,
in coloured enamel, red for the consonants and blue for the vowels,
except underneath where there was a very elegant brass cover fixed
by small studs. To correspond with the alphabet (of which there
was only one example) cards were made on which were painted
the letters of the alphabet in the same colours and of the same
size as the movable letters, and grouped according to contrasts and
similarities of shape.
 WRITTEN LANGUAGE 249

To every letter of the alphabet there corresponded, a, picture

painted by hand'in water-colour, in which was reproduced in
colour and size the cursive letter; and, close by, much smaller,
was painted the same letter in small printed, character- In the
picture were represented objects the name of which began with
the letter in question; for example, for m there was mam (hand)
and martello (hammer), for g, gatto (cat), etc. These pictures served
to fix the sound of the letter in the memory.
The pictures certainly do not represent a new idea, but they
complete a whole which did not exist previously.
The interesting part of my experiment was this, that after the
movable letter had been superposed on the corresponding letter
drawn on the cards on which they were grouped, I made the
children trace the letters in imitation of cursive writing many
times over. These exercises were then multiplied on the letters
drawn simply on the cards; in this way the children succeeded in
mastering the movements necessary for reproducing the forms of
the graphic signs without writing. At that stage I was struck by
an idea which had not entered my mind before: that in writing
are employed two different kinds of movement, namely besides
the already mentioned movement which reproduces the form there
is that of handling the instrument of writing. Indeed, when
defective children had become expert in tracing all the letters of
the alphabet according to their forms, they were not yet able
to hold the pen in their hand. Holding and manipulating a
rod with certainty needs a special muscular mechanism which is
independent of the movements involved in writing; it is in fact
contemporaneous with the movements necessary for tracing all the
different letters of the alphabet. It is, therefore, a unique mechanism
which ought to exist along with the motor memory of the separate
graphic signs. There remained the preparation of the muscular
mechanism for holding and manipulating the instrument of writing.
That I tried to obtain by adding to what has already been described
two other exercises. In the first, the letters were touched not only
with the index finger of the right hand, as on the first occasion-
250 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

but witb two fingers, the index and the middle finger; in the second^
the letters were touched with a wooden rod held like a pen in
writing.
In the main, I had the letters repeated sometimes with and
sometimes without the addition of holding the instrument.
It is to be noted that the child must follow with his finger the
visible image of the letter drawn. It is true that this finger has
already been exercised in touching the outlines of the geometrical
figures, but this practice does not always appear to be suffi¬
cient for the work. We ourselves, for example, when making
a drawing clearer, cannot follow perfectly the line we see
and on which we have to retrace the drawing. It would be
necessary that the drawing should possess some special property
which attracted the point of our pencil, in magnet fashion, or that
the pencil should find a mechanical guide on the paper where it is
drawing, in order to follow with precision the trace which is
apparent to the eye. Defectives did not, therefore, always-
follow the drawing, either with the finger or with the rod; the
teaching material did not offer any control to the work done; or
offered only the untrustworthy control of the eye of the child,
who certainly could not see whether or not the finger was following,
the lines. I thought that, in order to get the movements of writing
carried out more exactly, and to guarantee or at least to guide
execution in a more direct manner, it would be necessary tO'
prepare hollow letter shapes, so that they were represented by a
groove, in which the wooden rod might move. I made a plan for
such work, but as it was too costly I was not able to carry it out,
I spoke at length about this method to teachers in the course
of my lessons on teaching at the College for Training Teachers of
Defectives. In the second year of the course, lithographed leaflets-
were distributed and I have preserved up till now about a hundred
copies of them as documents of the past.
Here are the words which, spoken in public twenty-five years
ago remained in lithographed form in the hands of two hundred
elementary teachers without any one of them, as Professor Ferreri
 WRITTEN LANGUAGE 251

said with astonishment in an article^ extracting one profitable-

idea from them.
(Summary of the lectures on teaching by Dr. Montessori, in
1900s Lith. Romano, Via Frattina 62, disp. 6a, p. 46, “ Simul¬
taneous Reading and Writing.”)
At this point there is presented the card having the vowels,
coloured in blue; the child sees irregular figures drawn in colour.
The blue vowels are offered to him to be placed over the drawings,
on the card. He has to trace the wooden vowels in the same way
as writing them, and name them; the vowels are grouped according,
to similarity of shape—

o, e, a, ■ i, u.

“ Then one says to the child, for example: ^ Bring me the-

letter o/ ‘Put it into its place.’ Then, ‘What letter is this?^‘
Here it will be found that many children make mistakes because
they only look at the letter; they guess without touching it..
Observations may be made which reveal various individual types,,
visual and motor.
“ The child is then made to touch the letter drawn on the
card, first with the index finger only, then with the index and middle
fingers, then with a wooden rod held like a pen. The letter must
be followed as in writing it.”
“ The consonants are drawn in red and are placed on cards
according to similarities in shape; there is added a movable alphabet
of red wood, to be placed over the cards as with the vowels. Along
with the alphabet is a series of other cards where alongside the
consonants similar to those of wood there are painted one or two
figures of objects the names of which begin with the letters drawn.
In front of the cursive letter there is also painted with the same-
colour a smaller letter of printed character.
1G. Ferreri, “ On the Teaching of Writing ” (System of Dr, Montessori),„
Bulletin of the Roman Association for the medico-pedagogic ^re of a^bnormal
children and poor defectives, voL I, no. 4, Oct. 1907, Rome (Tip. delle Terme^
Diocleziane).
152 THE DISCOYERY OF THE CHILD
The mistress, naming the consonants in the phonetic manner,
points to the letter, then to the card, pronouncing the name of the
•object which .is painted and dwelling on the first letter thus:
‘ m. . . . . Mela,'" ‘ give me the consonant w, put it in its place,
touch it.’ In this way the defects in the child’s language are
studied.
“ Tracing the letters as in writing begins the muscular exercise
which prepares for writing. One of our children of the/motor’
■type, taught by this method, has reproduced all the letters with
the pen, about 8 mm. high, before she could yet recognize them,
and this with surprising regularity. This child succeeded very well
also in manual work.”
‘*The child who looks at, recognizes and touches the letters
in the manner of writing is prepared for reading and writing
'Simultaneously.
‘‘ Touching the letters and at the same time looking at them
fixes their images more quickly, owing to the co-operation of the
senses; later, the two acts are separated—^looking (reading), touch¬
ing (writing). Some learn to read first, others to write; it depends
on the type of individual.”
I had, then, started many years ago, in its fundamental
characters, my method of teaching, writing and reading. It was
with great surprise that I noticed the ease with which, one fine
day, after a piece of chalk had been put into the hand of a defective,
he drew on the blackboard, firmly and in good handwriting, the
letters of the whole alphabet, writing for the first time; this was
done much more quickly than one would have expected. As is
said in the leaflets, children used to write eyen with the pen all the
letters of the alphabet before they were able to recognize any one
of them. I have noticed this quite as much in normal children,
and I am led to say that the muscular sense is the most highly
developed in childhood, wherefore writing is very easy for children.
It is not the same with reading, which involves a yery long period
•of instruction and calls for higher intellectual development, since
it means interpreting signs, modulating the accents of the voice
 WRITTEN LANGUAGE 253

that the meaniag of the word may be understood. All that con¬
sists of purely mental work, whilst in writing, as is shown below,,
the child translates sounds into signs in a material way; and he
moves, which to him is easy and pleasant. Writing is developed
in the small child easily and spontaneously, in the same way as-
speech, which is also a motor translation of sounds which are heard.
On the other hand, reading forms part of abstract intellectual'
culture which is the interpretation of ideas represented by graphic
symbols, and is acquired only much later.

First Experiments on Normal Children

My first experiments with normal children began in the first

half of November, 1907.
In the two Children’s Houses in San Lorenzo, from the 6th of
January in one case, and from the 7th of March in the other, dating
from their respective inaugurations, until the end of July, I had
applied only exercises in practical life, and in the education of the-
senses. After July a month of holidays had interrupted the lessons.
I was influenced by the prejudice that the teaching of reading and
writing should be delayed as long as possible, certainly till the age-
of six years. But during the months which had elapsed, the
children seemed to be asking themselves for some conclusion to
the exercises which had already developed them intellectuaUy to
a surprising degree. They could dress and undress themselves and
wash themselves; they could sweep the floors, dust the furniture,
set the rooms in order, open and close boxes, turn keys in locks,
replace objects in good order in the cupboards, water the flowers,
they were able to observe objects by touching them, some of them
came and asked us frankly to teach them to read and write. And,
after we had refused, some children came to school able to draw
o’s on the blackboard, and displayed their doings to us like a
challenge. Afterwards a large number of mothers came to ask us
as a favour to teach their children to write. “ Because,” they said^
“ here they wake up and learn so many things so easily that if
254 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD
they were taught to read and write they would learn quickly and
would be spared a great deal of trouble in the elementary school.’’
This belief of the mothers that with us the little ones would
learn reading and writing without trouble struck me forcibly. And,
thinking of the results obtained in the schools for defectives, I
decided, during the August holidays, to make an attempt when the
:school opened in September. But then I reflected that in September
it would be well to resume the interrupted teaching, and to begin
reading and writing only in October when the elementary schools
opened, which would give ours the advantage of beginning the
same teaching at the same time as these.
In September, therefore, I began to look for some one to make
the material, but found no workers disposed to do it. A professor
•advised me to place orders in Milan, and that led to a great waste
■of time. I wanted to make a fine alphabet like that for the
■defectives in wood, covered with enamel paint and metal. Then
I would have contented myself with single letters of enamel similar
to those used for inscriptions on shop windows, but I found none.
In a professional school, I was on the point of obtaining letters
holiow^ed out in wood (for touching along the groove with a rod),
but the workers were discouraged by the difficulty of the work
.and it was suspended.
In this way the whole of October passed. Already the children
of the first elementary class had filled pages with strokes, and mine
were still waiting. Then I decided, in consultation with the mis¬
tresses, to cut out from simple sheets of paper very large letters
■ of the alphabet, and one mistress coloured them roughly on one
side with blue and red respectively. For the purpose of tracing
the letters, I thought of cutting out the letters in sandpaper and
gumming them on smooth paper, thus making objects very similar
to those used in the first exercises in the sense of touch.
. ; Only after having made these simple things did I realize the
■great superiority of this alphabet over the magnificent affair made
‘|or the defectives, which I had sought for in vain for two months.
If I had been rich, I would have used for ever the superb but sterile
 WRITTEN LANGUAGE 255

alphabet of the past. We desire the old because we do not know

the new, and we always look for the grandeur of things which have
passed away without recognizing in the humble simplicity of new
beginnings the germ which must develop in the future.
I understood then that an alphabet of paper could easily be
multiplied into more copies, and so could be used by many children
at the same time, not only for the recognition of letters but for the
composition of words.
I also learnt that in the alphabet of sandpaper I had found
the guide so much desired for the finger which touches the letter,
so that not only sight but also touch was used directly in teaching
the movement of writing, together with exact control. Full of
the enthusiasm of this hope we set ourselves, the two teachers and
I, in the evening after school, to cutting out a great number of
letters of the alphabet from simple writing-paper, gumming some
on smooth paper and colouring the others blue. We then spread
them out on tables and found them dry next morning. Whilst
we were working there took shape in my mind an exceedingly clear
picture of the method in all its completeness, so simple that it
made me smile to think that I had never thought of it before. The
story of our attempts is very interesting.
One day when one of the mistresses was ill I sent as a sub¬
stitute for her one of my pupils, Signorina Anna Fedeli, a teacher
of pedagogy in a normal school. When I went to see Signorina
Fedeli in the evening, she showed me two modifications made in
the alphabet. One consisted in having placed above and below
each letter a strip of white paper to enable the child to recognize
the side of the letter, which he often turned about in all directions.
Another change consisted in making a case out of cardboard, in
which would be placed in every compartment a group of the same
letters, whereas at first they were all mixed up together in a heap.
I still keep that case made from the cardboard of a broken box
which was found in the door-keeper’s lodge and stitched together
roughly with white thread. In showing it to me Signorina Fedeli
was almost excusing herself for the disgraceful work, but I was
256 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

filled with enthusiasm. I understood at once that the letters being

in the case formed a precious aid to teaching; there was offered to
the child’s eye the possibility of comparing all the letters and
choosing the one designated.
In this way there originated the method and the material which
I will now describe.
Here it is enough to point out that at the time of Christmas
holidays in the following December, or less than a month and a
half after, when the children of the elementary schools were labour¬
ing to forget the strokes and angles learnt with so much trouble in
order to prepare themselves for the curves of o’s and the other
vow^els, two of my little ones of four years old were writing in
good style without corrections or smudges—writing which was
later considered comparable with the handwriting which is common
in the third elementary class.
C H A P T E R XVI

THE MECHANISM OF WRITING

Writing is a complex act which has to be analysed. One part of

it is dependent on motor mechanismis, and the other represents
real work of the intellect.
Among the movements, I have distinguished first of all two
principal groups: one is concerned with the management of the
instrument of writing; the other with the drawing of the different
shapes of the separate letters of the alphabet. These parts con¬
stitute the motor mechanism of writing, wliich can be substituted
for by an actual machine, and therefore, it is also mechanism
although of another kind that would be developed if made for
type-writing.
The fact that a machine may enable a man to write makes it
possible for us to understand how the two things, that is, the
mechanism and the higher function of the intelligence which uses
written language to express itself, can be separated one from the
other.
The physiological mechanisms are those which allow of accu¬
rate analysis, because by noticing how one writes and noting the
various coeflBicients which take part in it, it is possible not only
to distinguish but to separate them from one another.
17
258 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Let us commence then to study the two groups of movements.

First we take that which refers to the manipulation of the
instrument of writing, to the holding of the pen or pencil. This is
grasped with the first three fingers of the hand, and is moved up
and down with that sure uniformity which we are accustomed to
call the style of the writing. The movement is so individualistic
that each one of us, although using the same alphabet, imposes
his own character on writing, and there are as many handwritings
as there are men.
It is impossible to falsify handwriting, to write exactly like
another person. The infinitesimal differences are unfathomable
in their origin, but it is certain that they are fixed by the senses in
each one of us when our own particular mechanism is established
and that they hinder us from ever varying it much. They become
a mark of identification, one of the clearest and most indelible in
our personality.
In this way there will be fixed in us the modulations of the
voice, the accent with which we pronounce our mother tongue,
and all these mechanical requirements for motion which form our
own functional characters, destined to survive even after many of
our physical traits which are subject to continual though slow
transformation.
It is in childhood that the motor mechanism is fixed, that the
child is elaborating and stabilizing, by his own exertions, the char¬
acters of his individuality and in this he is obeying an invisible
individual law. At this age the motor mechanism is in its sensitive
■stage, and is quick to obey the hidden orders of nature.
The child therefore experiences, in every motor effort, the
joyous satisfaction of responding to one of the necessities of life.
It is necessary to find out the age in which the mechanism
for writing is ready to be established; it will be established
without effort, naturally, giving pleasure and stimulating vital
energy.
This is certainly not the age in which they try, in the ordinary
schools, to excite the motor mechanism of writing, asking from
With remarkably delicate and controlled movements this boy traces the outlines
of the geometrical figures and their frames, the muscular impression completes
visual recognition and is a remote preparation for writing. Photo by Mrs. A. V.
Baker taken in an English Montessori School.
The activity illustrated in this picture is a sequence to the one illustrated
in the picture on the previous page.
 THE MECHANISM OF WRITING 259

the little hand which is now adult because it has fixed many move¬
ments, the painful, almost deforming, effort of turning back in the
paths of its development. The hand of the child of six or seven
years old has lost its precious period of sensitivity to movement.
This delicate hand has left behind it the delightful time in which
movements were being co-ordinated, in which is created the func¬
tional hand and it is condemned to a painful and unnatural effort.
It is necessary to go further back and look for the baby hand
which is still unco-ordinated, still functionally ‘soft’; it is the
enquiring little hand of the very small child of four who touches
everything round about him, in the irresistible and unconscious
.attempt to stabilize definite co-ordinations.

Analysis of the Movement of a Hand v/hich is Writing

In order to help the teaching of writing, it is needful first of

all to analyse the various movements which enter into it, and to
try to develop them separately, in a manner independent of actual
writing. In this way we will be able to suit various ages, each
having its own possibilities, co-operate in constructing that
mechanism which is so difficult and complex.
In the sense exercises, which are accompanied by fine move¬
ments of the hand and which interest the child so much that he
is led to an indefinite repetition of the same actions, we will find
the psychological time and the external means which are precisely
.adapted as a remote preparation for the mechanism of writing.

The Hand which Writes

One must be capable of holding in the fingers some instrument

of writing (pen, pencil, etc.) and of guiding it with a light hand to
4raw definite symbols.
Holding the instrument requires not only the work of the three
fingers which grip it, but also the co-operation of the hand which
has to travel lightly over the surface on which the writing is being
<done. '
260 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Indeed, the first difficulty of ordinary scholars is not so rriucb

that of holding the pen as the accompanying one of keeping
the hand light, of lifting instead of leaning on the hand. (The
scholar makes the chalk screech on the blackboard, the pen scrape
on the paper, and often breaks the chalk and the pen; he has
grasped and dragged the instrument convulsively, but his effort is that
of struggling against the unsupportable weight of his feeble hand.)
Besides, the quite unco-ordinated hand cannot execute signs
so precise as those of the letters of the alphabet. Such an act is
suited only to a hand which is already capable of guiding itself
steadily, What is called ‘ firm hand,’ a hand under the control
of the will, is a condition necessary to fit it for writing.
To acquire these long exercises, patiently repeated, are
required and if they have to be mixed up with learning to write,
that is, if the hand, clumsy and unfitted for writing, has to be trained
by writing, it will constitute the greatest obstacle to the progress
of w'riting.
By our method, however, little children have acquired a hand
which is practised and ready to write.
When in the course of the sense exercises they move the hand
in various directions and with various objects in view, but repeating
in the same way the same actions, they unconsciously are preparing
for writing. Let us consider some of the exercises already carried
out by our children.

The Three Fingers which Move the instrument

As the age of three the children disarrange the cylinders of

the solid insets, holding with the three fingers the grip-button
which is nearly of the same size as a writing implement. The
three fingers carry out, for an infinite number of times, that exercise
which co-ordinates the motor organs intended for writing.

The Light Hand

Watch the little one of three and a half, who bathes the tips
of his fingers in tepid water, and with bandaged eyes devotes his
 THE MECHANISM' OF WRITING 261

energy to one single object, tliat of moving Ms hand, lightly poised,

so that the fingers barely slip over the surface of a smooth or a
rough tablet. This effort to move the hand whilst holding it
lightly is accompanied by a sharpening of the tactile sensibility
of those fingers which will have to write some day. In this way
there is bsing perfected the most precious instrument of the
human will.
The Firm Hand

There is something underlying the ability to draw a figure;

it is the possibility of moving the hand with a purpose, of being
able to direct it in an exact manner. TMs power is a generic
property of the hand, because it refers to the greater or lesser
possibility of co-ordinating movements.
Consider the exercise with the flat insets which consists in
touching exactly the outlines of the various geometrical figures and
their frames, using as a guide a wooden rim which helps the
unpractised hand to keep itself within the prescribed limits. In the
meantime the eye is growing accustomed to seeing and recognizing
the forms which the hand is touching.
This preparation, so remote and indirect, is a preparation of
the hand to write; it is not a preparation of writing; the two
preparations must not be confused with each other.

DIRECT PREPARATION FOR WRITING

Analysis of its Factors

What we must now do is to make an analysis of the factors

of writing, using as illustrations things already mentioned. Writing
consists of a complex set of difficulties which we can separate one
from the other, and which we can overcome one by one by different
exercises, and also at different moments and epochs in life. The
exercises for every factor, however, must be kept independent of
writing. Looking for an analogy in chemistry, we find that the
262 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD
oxygen and hydrogen which are derived from the analysis of water
are no longer water; they are two gases, each possessing its own
properties and being able to exist alone. When we speak then of
the analysis of factors, we mean separating out the elements of
which writing is composed into interesting exercises which may by
themselves constitute motives to induce activity in children. This-
is a very different thing from the analyses which have been intended
to break up a whole into parts considered as incomplete details of
the whole and therefore devoid of interest, (strokes, curves, etc.).
Instead of that, our analysis of factors makes every factor live in
an independent exercise. It separates, but it seeks in the separa¬
tion for elements which can exist by themselves, and which can be
applied to exercises having a rational end in view.

First Factor:

Mastery of the Instrument of Writing: Drawing

I profited by that childish liking for filling in figures drawn

in outline by means of marks made with coloured pencils. This
is the most primitive form of drawing, or rather it is the pre-
cursor of drawing, and our children had already done this filling,
in drawings given in their outline. But now to make such work
more interesting, I arranged that the children themselves should
draw the outlines of the figures to be filled in so as to secure
for the outlines an aesthetic order, allowing the child to make its
own. For this purpose I prepared certain material, the iron
insets, (the description of which will follow later) which provide
for the tracing of the geometrical figures. That has given place to*
a decorative design which we have called the art of the insets ”
and which in no way seems to be included in direct preparation
for writing.

Second Factor: The Execution of Alphabetic Symbols

For the other group of movements, that is, for the drawing
of graphic signs, I offer to the child material which consists of
 THE MECHANISM OF I^MTING 263

smooth cards on which are applied letters of the alphabet in sand¬

paper; these are traced repeatedly following the direction taken
in writing. There are thus fixed the relative movements of the
hand and the arm, which in this way have become capable of
reproducing any sign which the eye, at the same time, has the
opportunity of fixing gradually. There is thus memorized in a two¬
fold manner the symbols of the alphabet—by sight and by touch.
Summing up, the two mechanical factors of wniting are
resolved into two independent exercises: drawing, which gives
the hand skill in handling the writing instrument; and touching
the letters of the alphabet, which serves to establish the motor
memory together with the visual memory of the letters.

Description of the Material for Carrying on

Drawing at the -Same Time as Writing

I made two similar desks having slightly sloping wooden

tops and supported on four short legs also of wood; at the lower
edge of the sloping top there is fixed a transverse bar which prevents
things from slipping off the support. Fitting exactly into each
desk there are four square plaques with insets, each of 14 cm.
sides, of iron, coloured pink. In the centre of every plate there is
an inset piece, also of iron, blue in colour and provided at the
centre with a brass knob.

Exercises

When the two desks are put together, they look somewhat
like a single desk which contains eight figures; this may be placed^
for example, on a ledge, on the mistress’s table, on a cupboard,
or even on the edge of the child’s table.
The object is elegant and attracts the child’s attention. He
may choose one or more figures, and he takes the inset piece along
with the frame.
The similarity with the fiat insets already noticed is complete,
only here the child has at his free disposal pieces which are very
264 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

heavy and thin. He first of all takes out the frame and places it on
a sheet of white paper; then with a coloured pencil he draws the
outlines of the empty centre of the frame. Next the frame is
removed, and on the paper there remains a geometrical figure.
This is the first time that the child neproduces a geometrical
figure by drawing it; up till now he has done nothing but super¬
impose the plane insets on the cards of the first, second and third
series.
Then, on the figure which he himself has drawn, the child
places the inset piece, as he did with the plane insets on the cards
of the third series. He outlines it with a pencil of a different
colour; then he takes it away: on the card there remains the figure
doubly outlined in two colours.
After that, the child, with a coloured pencil of his own
choosing, held like a writing pen, fills in completely the outlined
figure. He is taught not to pass outside the outline.
The exercise of filling in a single figure demands that the
child should carry out and repeat hand-movements such as would
be needed to fill ten pages with ‘ strokes ’; and it would be done
without causing weariness, for the child, in thus co-ordinating pre¬
cisely the muscular contractions necessary for the work, does it of
his own free will and in any way he pleases, whilst under his eyes
there comes to life a big, beautifully coloured figure.
At the beginning the child fills many sheets of paper with these
great squares, triangles, ovals, trapeziums—in red, orange, green,
purple, blue, pink.
When we examine the successive figures executed by the same
child, a double form of progress is revealed. First, by degrees,
the lines begin to project less beyond the outline, until they
are perfectly enclosed, and the filling-in is steady and uniform
all round the edge as well as in the central part. From being
short and confused the lines of filling become longer and more
nearly parallel, until sometimes the figures are filled with a perfectly
regular system of strokes which go across from boundary to
boundary. In any case, it is certain that . the . child is master of the
 THE MECHANISM' OF WRITING 265

pen, and the . muscular mechanism necessary for wielding the

writing-instrument has been established. From an examination of
-such drawings it is possible to come to a safe conclusion about
the child’s readiness to hold a pen in his hand.
As alternative exercises are also used the above-mentioned out¬
line drawings which represent combinations of geometrical figures
and various decorative subjects such as flowers and scenery. Such
drawings perfect the handwork, because they oblige the child to
draw lines of varying lengths and make him more and more
skilful and sure in the use of his hands.
Now if we were to reckon up the lines produced by a child in
filling in the figures and if they were translated into the graphic
lines of writing, there would be filled many dozens of copybooks.
Hence the mastery of the sign in the writing of our little ones could
be compared with that which is attained in the third elementary
class by the common methods.
When they take a pen into their hand for the first time, they
will be able to handle it almost like a writer.
I consider that no means could be found which could be more
ejBficacious in making such a conquest in less time, and which
could give so much amusement to the child. The old method
which I used with the defectives—of touching the outlines of the
letters on the card with a rod—was, by contrast, very poor and
sterile.
Even when the children can write, I always continue with
these exercises, which allow of indefinite progress, for the drawings
can he varied and complicated in all sorts of ways, and the children,
■always practising essentially the same exercise, see accumulating a
gallery of varied pictures of increasing merit, which are the pride
of every one of them. Thus I not only start, but improve writing,
by the very exercises which I call preparatory; for example, in the
present case the holding of the pen will be made more and more
secure, not with repeated exercises in writing, but with those of
filling in drawings. So my children perfect themselves in writing
without writing.
266 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Material for Tracing the Letters

This consists of small cards bearing the letters of the alphabet

in sandpaper and large cards with letters grouped according to
similarity of form. A copy of each letter cut out of fine sandpaper
is fixed on a small card, the dimensions of which are adapted to-
each letter; the cardboard is covered with smooth pink paper for
the consonants whilst the sandpaper is light grey; or the mount is
Qf blue paper (or wood) for the vowels; the colours help the form
of the letter to stand out more distinctly from the background.
Similar mounts, but much larger, of cardboard or of wood,,
carry groups of letters which are identical with the corresponding
letters on the small mounts, but they are combined in groups
according to contrast or similarity of form.
The letters must be beautifully shaped, attention being paid to
light and dark strokes. They are in the vertical style, if that is in
use at the moment in the elementary schools. It is the writing in
common use which determines this character of the material, which
does not aim at reforming the style of writing, which would be
something quite different from the intention which animates us.
That is to obtain facility in writing, whatever may be the style of it.

Exercises

One begins at once with teaching the letters of the alphabet,,

beginning with the vowels and going on to the consonants, which
are pronounced according to their sound. The sound is at once
joined up with a word so that it is clearly associated with the
spoken language.
The teaching proceeds according to the three stages already
mentioned.

First Stage. Visual and Tactile-Muscular Sensation

Associated with Alphabetic Sound

The teacher presents to the child a letter and says: ‘‘This

is " i’;’’ she will go on to deal with the other letters in the same way.
Sandpaper letters, moveable alphabet and drawing insets form part of the apparatus preparatory to the
“ explosion into writing Its continued handling perfects calligraphy and orthography.
 THE MECHANISM OF WRITING 267*

Then she at once has the letter touched, saying “Touch”; with¬
out any other explanation she shows the child how to trace the-
letter, and if necessary, she guides the index finger of the child’s
right hand over the sandpaper, in the direction followed in writing.
Knowing how to trace and not knowing how to trace will
consist in knowing the sense according to which one draws a
definite graphic form.
The child learns at once and his finger, already expert in
tactile work, is guided, by the texture of the fine sandpaper, over
the exact trace of the letter. He is then able to repeat by himself
indefinitely the movement necessary to produce the letters of the
alphabet, without fear of making mistakes while following the
form of the handwriting. If his finger wanders, the smooth
surface of the mount at once makes him aware of his error.
Little ones between Sfand 4| years of age, as soon as they
become rather expert in this tracing, are very fond of repeating
it with closed eyes; in this way they let themselves be guided
by the sandpaper in following the shape without seeing it. One
may say truly that perception of the letters by direct tactile
muscular sensation will form a great contribution to final conquest
of difficulties.
If, on the other hand, the exercise is offered to children who
are too old (e.g. five or six years old) the interest of seeing the
letter which reproduces the sound and composes words is so strong .
that touching no longer attracts him svfficiently to induce him to
do the movement exercise; he will write less easily and less perfectly,,
having already missed the delight in movement which belongs to an
earlier age. . . i -
With the very small child, it is not the visible image which
leads him to trace the shape with such great interest; it is the
feeling of touch which induces his hand to perform this movement,,
which will then be fixed in his muscular memory.
Three contemporary sensations take part when the mistress-
has the letters looked at and touched—the visual sensation, the
tactile and the muscular. Hence the image of the graphic symbol.
;268 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

is fixed in a mncli shorter time than when, by the usual methods,

; it is acquired only through the visual image.
We notice then that the muscular memory is most tenacious
in the small child, and at the same time the readiest. Sometimes
he does not recognize the letter when he looks at it, but does so
’■when he touches it.
These images are at the same time associated with the hearing
of alphabetic sounds.

Second Stage: Perception

The child must be able to compare and recognize the figures

when he hears the sounds corresponding to them.
The mistress asks the child in the case mentioned above (and
analogously she will proceed with the other letters): “Give me
“ 0 ’ ! Give me ‘ n ” If the child cannot recognize the signs when
he looks at them, he is invited to trace them; but, if even then he
•does not recognize them, the lesson is finished and will be taken
up again some other day. (The need not to stress an error and
not to insist on the lesson when the child does not respond at once
has been already dwelt upon in another chapter.)

Third Stage: Language

The child must know how to pronounce the sound corres¬

ponding to the alphabetic signs.
After the letters have been in use for some time and the
second stage has met with success, the child is asked: “ What is
this? ” He ought to answer: “ o,” “ f,” etc.
In teaching the consonants the mistress pronounces only the
‘Sounds and directly she has pronounced it she links it up with a
word and she goes on pronouncing several words with that letter,
always emphasizing the sound of the consonant. Finally she
repeats the sound by itself “ m, m, m ’h
It is not necessary to teach all the vowels before passing on
Co the consonants, and as soon as one consonant is known it is
 THE MECHANISM:;:OF WRITIF^G 269''

made up into words. Other details of the same kind are left to-
the teacher’s judgment.
I' liavC' not found it practical to follow any definite rule in
teaching the consonants. Very often the cliild’s curiosity about a
symbol leads to the teaching of the consonant which he desires;,,
the sound of a name may awaken in the child a wish to know
what consonant is necessary to build it up. And this wish of the -
child is a more useful means than any reasoning for deciding upon
the order to follow.
When the child pronounces the sounds of the consonants he^
evidently experiences pleasure. He regards as a novelty tliis series .,
of sounds so varied and so well known, which come to life on the
presentation of an enigmatic symbol like a letter of the alphabet.
There is some mystery about it and it raises intense interest. One-
day I was on the terrace while the children were playing freely
around, and had near me a little one two and a half years old,
left there for a mioment by his mother. I had scattered on several:
chairs some complete alphabets mixed up together, and was sorting,
them into their respective cases (v. below). When I had finished
the work, I placed the cases on little seats. The little one was.
watching. I drew near and took a letter of the alphabet in my
hand—/. The boys at this moment were running in a line; on
seeing the letter they all uttered the sound belonging to it and
passed on. The child paid no attention. I put away the / and
took up an r; the boys as they ran looked at it laughing and began
to shout to him—r, r, r! r, r, r! Little by little the small child began
to understand that when I took a letter in my hand those passing
uttered a sound. That amused him so much that I made up my
mind to observe how long the game would go on without wearying,
him; I waited quite three quarters of an hour. The boys had
become interested in the affair and stopped in groups, pronouncing
the sounds in a chorus, and laughing at the wonder of the child.
Finally the baby, because I had more frequently taken the letter/
and held it up, always receiving from the groups the same sound,
took it up, showed it to me and himself said—/,/,/ He had learnt
270 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

that one from among the great confusion of sounds which he had
heard; he had been impressed by the long letter which, seen by
the running file of children, had made them burst into a shout.
It is not necessary to explain how pronouncing the alphabetic
.sounds separately reveals the state of speech. The defects, almost
all connected with the incomplete development of speech itself,
are made manifest to the teacher who can easily make a note of
them one by one. Here there may be created a standard of pro¬
gress for individual teaching, based on the state of development
reached by the speech of the child.
For the correction of speech, it is useful to follow the physio¬
logical rules of its development and to graduate the difficulties.
But when the child’s speech is already developed sufficiently and
he pronounces all the sounds, it is a matter of indifference whether
we make him pronounce one rather than another in teaching
.graphic language with the reading of symbols.
A great many of the defects which remain permanently in the
adult are due to functional errors in the development of speech in
the period of childhood. If instead of correcting the speech of
adolescents we trained its development in childhood we would
accomplish a most useful work of a preventive character. Besides
these there are many defects due to dialects, which are almost im¬
possible to correct later, but which could very easily be eradicated
if education directed itself specially to improving the speech of
the child.
Let us ignore here the real defects in speech due to anatomical
and physiological anomalies, as well as to pathological facts dis¬
turbing the functioning of the nervous system; let us confine
ourselves to those defects arising from the persistence of faulty
childish pronunciation, from the imitation of wrong pronunciation,
including that of dialect. Such defects, grouped under the term
blaesitas, may affect the pronunciation of every consonant. And
no more practical means of correcting speech methodically can be
suggested than that exercise in pronunciation necessary for learning
graphic language by my method.
 THE mechanism: of writing 271

But this most important question deserves a separate chapter.

All the mechanism of writing is prepared for. Turning now
.directly to the method for teaching writing, we notice that it is
already included in the two stages described, since the child is
given by these exercises the opportunity of learning and fixing the
muscular mechanism necessary for holding the pen and for making
the graphic symbols. After the child has had long practice in
these methods he will be potentially ready to write all the letters
of the alphabet and simple words, without ever having taken pen
or chalk in his hand for the purpose of writing.

Reading and Writing Are Fused from the Beginning

By this method, the teaching of reading goes on at the same

time as that of writing. When a letter is presented to the child
and its name is pronounced, the child fixes the image of it with
the visual and with the tactile-muscular senses, and associates the
sound with the symbol without fail; that is, it makes acquaintance
with written language. When it sees and recognizes, it reads;
when it touches, it writes; thus it begins its acquaintance with two
actions which later on, as they develop, are separated to form the
two diverse processes of reading and writing.
The contemporary character of the teaching, or better, the
fusion of the two initial actions, presents the child therefore with
a new form of language, without it being decided which of the
two constituent acts will take precedence.
We must not trouble ourselves as to whether the child, as the
process goes on, learns reading first or writing first, as to whether
the one way or the other will be the easier for him. We should
learn this from experience keeping our minds free from prejudices,
waiting for the appearance of probable individual differences in
the prevalent development of either of the two actions. That gives
an opportunity for a very interesting study in individual psycho¬
logy, and for a continuation of the practical direction of our
method which is based : on the free expansion of individuality.
272 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Blit in the meantime it is certain that if the method is applied at

the right age, that is, before the age of 4, the little child will write
before it reads, whilst the child already too far developed (5 years)
will read first, finding great difficulty in,setting in motion his
clumsy mechanism.

. Intelligence Freed from Mechanism

Writing and reading are quite distinct from simple knowledge

of the signs of the alphabet. They really come into existence
when the word rather than the graphic symbol comes to be fixed
as an element. In spoken language also the beginning is marked
by the first appearance of words having a meaning, as distinct
from sounds which might be represented by vowels and syllables.
When intelligence is expressing itself in the loftiest medium, it will
make use of the mechanism which nature or educational art has
placed or prepared for its service, for the composition of words.
This is something quite different from what has been described
up till now in the analysis of movements for writing which repre¬
sents the preparatory action for the establishment of this super¬
language which is the real writing and reading. It means the
composition of words. The building up of words from graphic
signs need not necessarily be done along with writing and reading;
it is even useful to keep separate this act which may be distinctly
independent of the higher utilizations of it.
The intelligence of the child may find intensely interesting this
marvellous fact that it is possible to construct a word by putting
together those symbolic signs which are the letters of the alphabet.
To create words is much more fascinating at the beginnings
than to read them, and much easier than to write them, because
for writing them there is necessary the controlling mechanism
which is not yet established.
Therefore, as a preparatory exercise, we offer to the child an
alphabet which will be described below, and he, by choosing the
letters of the alphabet and placing them one beside the other,,
 THE MECHANISM OF WRITING 273

composes words. His manual work is only that of taking known

shapes from a case and spreading them out on a mat. The word
is built up, letter by letter, in correspondence with its component
sounds. Since the letters are movable objects it is easy to correct
by displacements the composition which is made. This represents
a studied analysis of the word and an excellent means for improving
spelling.
It is a real study, an exercise of the intelligence free from
mechanism; it is not mixed up with the interesting exercise of the
necessity for producing writing. Hence the intellectual energy
devoted to this new interest may be expended without weariness
in a surprising amount of work.

Material

This consists essentially of the alphabets. It includes letters

of the alphabet identical in fonn and dimensions with those of
sandpaper, though here they are cut out of coloured cardboard.
The letters are loose, that is, they are not gummed on card-
board or on anything else; hence every letter is an object which
can be handled.
At the bottom of each compartment is fixed a letter which
caimot be taken out; so no trouble is wasted over putting the
letters back into the case, seeing that the fixed letter forms a guide.
The letters are distributed in two boxes, each one of wliich
contains all the vowels. The vowels are cut out of blue card¬
board, and the consonants out of pink. These letters carry at
the bottom of the back a strip of white cardboard fixed transversely,
which indicates the position of the letter as well as the level at
which the various letters should be placed according to shape
(corresponding to the fine on which we write).

The Composition of Words

Directly the child knows some vowels and consonants there

is placed before him one of the big boxes containing all the vowels
and half of the consonants, some known, others unknown, maiked
18
274 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

on the back with the white strip. With this material words can
'be composed by putting on the table one after another the letters
of the alphabet which correspond to each of the successive sounds
"that make up the spoken word. These letters are taken from the
compartment in the big box where they are kept. In order to
initiate the child to this exercise the mistress gives a practical
demonstration. E.g. she says the word “ mano,” and then she
analyses the sounds pronouncing them separately: “m” . . . and
she takes the letter ‘ m; ’ “ a ’k . . and she takes the ‘ a ’ placing
it next to the other;n o . ; she picks the letters one by
one pronouncing the sounds and thus she composes the word with
the alphabet. Now there are on the table the four letters in
successions; m—a—n—o.
Sometimes the child, having understood the procedure, rushes
in to finish the word himself instead of leaving the mistress to do
so. Almost all begin to compose words on their table after a few
lessons. They “ ask ” for words to be composed, and thus a kind
of dictation takes place.
The composition of words revealed facts that were a real
surprise. As if the spoken language already existing in the child
had been excited he showed great interest for his own language
and tried to analyse it. Children were seen walking by them-
.selves murmuring something; one said: “to make Zaira, z air a
are needed” and he pronounced the alphabetic sounds without
•material. He therefore did not aim at composing the word, but
imerely at analysing the sounds that made it up. It seemed a kind
.of discovery: “The words we pronounce are composed of sounds.”
This activity can be aroused in all the children of about 4 years
of age. I remember a gentleman who asked his son on his return
from school, if he had been good (“ buono ”). The child answered:
“ Buono ? b u o n 0,” i.e. instead of answering he started analysing
the word.
In the box of the movable alphabet the signs corresponding
.to those sounds are clearly seen; there we find the vowels disting¬
uished from the consonants by th^ir colour and every sign has its
 THE MECHANISM OF WRITING ns
own compartment. The exercise is so fascinating, that, the children
begin to compose words long before they know aU the letters of
the alphabet. Once a girl asked the mistress: “ How is the letter
‘ t ’?” The mistress who wished to follow a certain order in their
presentation had not yet shown the letter ‘ t ’ which is one of the
last letters of the alphabet. The girl then explained: “I want to
make ‘ Teresa but I do not know which is ‘ t . The teaching
of new letters was thus often stimulated by the ambition of the
clrildren who went faster than the mistress!
Once the interest is aroused, i.e. when the principle of the
alphabet, “ each sound can be represented by a sign,” has come
into contact with the inner deposit of spoken language, a kind of
spontaneous procedure is liable to foUow which promotes progress
in the teaching of the written word. The mistress finds her
position changed, she is no longer a teacher, but has merely to
‘ correspond ’ to the needs of the children. Indeed, many children
were convinced that they had learned by themselves.
This fact of finding an intense interest in the analysis of one’s
own words and an immense pleasure in seeing them translated into
objects placed in a row, will perhaps not be met with in children
of older age.
This phenomenon can be explained only when realizing that
the child of four years of age finds himself still in the formative
period of language. He lives in a ‘ sensitive period ’ of his psychic
development. All the marvellous phenomena that revealed them¬
selves in our experience in this field will be understood only when
this fact is admitted; a creative period, an intensification of life is
building up and completing the language of man.
At five years of age already this sensitivity is diminishing,
because the “ creative period ” is about to end.
Another phenomenon that amazed many people was that such
small ’ children composed entire words without being in need of
having it repeated as soon as they heard it dictated in a clear
manner. This was the case also with long words, or with words
that in themselves were incomprehensible to them, e.g. with foreign
276 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

words. The children translated phonetically these words after

having heard them only once. As soon as they had been
pronounced clearly they were translated into alphabetic signs on
their table.
It is very interesting to watch the child at this work; he stands
looking at the box most intently, his lips moving slightly, then he
takes the required letters one by one, without making any errors
in spelling (if they are phonetical). The movement of the lips is
due to the fact that the child is repeating to himself an infinite
number of times the word, the sound of which he is translating,
into signs.
Many people came to witness this fact, especially inspectors
of schools who know how difiSciilt dictation is in elementary
schools, where the teacher has to repeat many times the word she
dictates so that it may not be forgotten.
Here children of four years of age remember it exactly, and
yet they had to do a work quite liable to distract their attention
and to exhaust the energy necessary to finish the word. They
have in fact to look for the letters of the alphabet in the boxes by
means of their eyes, to take those they need with their hands and
so on until the word is finished.
During the first period of this marvellous experiment an
inspector of schools came to visit us and wished to dictate a word
that seemed to him very difficult. He pronounced it clearly, laying
stress, in his Italian pronunciation, on the two last letters so similar
in sound: Darmstadt. The child composed the word as he heard
it pronounced. Another time an official in the Ministry of Public
Instruction dictated: ‘ Sangi accato di Novibazar’ to a child of
four and a half years of age, who translated it on his table and
produced the word composed of the letters of the movable
alphabet.
Then there is the anecdote of the Chief Inspector of Schools
of Rome who wished to do a simple and serious experiment. He
dictated only his own name ' Di Donato’. The child began to
compose it, but he had not clearly heard all the sounds, because
The apparatus leadi:
handles the Tami
 ■ THE MECHANISM^ OF WRITING 277

he made a mistake and put dito The Inspector repeated ^ dido k

The child was not in the least perturbed, he took the ' t ’ he had
previously laid down, but did not place it back in the box, but left
it on one side of his table. ‘ Dito ’ thus became ‘ didona . , and
then the child took that ‘ t ’ that he had put aside and used it to
finish the word: ‘ didonatoThe entire word therefore wus as
if sculptured in his mind. He knew from the start that a ‘ t ’ was
necessary at the end. His certainty was so great that he was not
in the least confused by the remark of the inspector. The latter
was really amazed. “This ‘t’,” he said, “makes me believe that
a miracle in the history of education is about to take place.”
Not one child alone, but many were there who showed the
•same surprising psychological phenomenon. They revealed a
particular ' sensitivity ’ for words, almost a ‘ hunger of their age ’
for an instinctive acquisition of language.
The child evidently re-composed these words with the mov¬
able alphabet, not because he ‘ remembered ’ them with the help
of an ordinary memory, but because he had " sculptured ’ and
* absorbed ’ it in his mind. It was from this sculptured and
absorbed image that he ‘ copied ’ the word, as if he ‘ saw ’ it in
front of him. However long or strange the word might be, it was
simply reflected and fixed so that the child could reproduce it.
It should also be remarked that this exercise was absolutely
fascinating to the children who repeated it without fatigue, because
it was a vital exercise.
The children who thus composed words did not know either
to write or to read. They were not ‘ interested ’ in the written
word. They acted, or rather re-acted, to a stimulus that instead
of provoking an inferior reflex, produced a response corresponding
to a creative sensitivity.

The Explosion into Writing

Children who are able to retain in their mind, as if it were

sculptured or photographed, a word and the corresponding alpha¬
betical signs, should be able to write and to read too.
278 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

In fact, they are ‘ potentially ’ able to do so.

Their hand is trained and prepared for writing by means of
ever so many exercises. Only an occasion is needed, one might
say. A kind of magic touch that brings into actual, exterior reality,
this inner potential capacity for writing.
Our children of the Quarter of San Lorenzo have in fact given
this marvellous reaction.
On one winter day in December, a day full of sunshine, we
climbed with the children to the terrace.^ They ran about freely,
playing; some stayed round me. I was sitting near a chimney-
stack, and I said to a child of five who was near me, offering him
a piece of chalk, “Draw this chimney”. He sat down on the
ground obediently and drew the pot on the floor, reproducing it so
that it was quite recognizable. Then, as I always do with my
little ones, I was loud in my praises.
The child looked at me, smiled, stood for a moment as if he
would break out into some joyous act and then shouted “ I write,
I write!”; then, bending down, he wrote on the ground ‘man'
(hand); then, growing very enthusiastic, he wrote again ‘ camino ’
(chimney), then ‘ tetto ’ (roof). Whilst he was writing he continued
to shout aloud “ I am writing, I can write,” so that all the
others were attracted by his cries and made a circle round him
staring in astonishment. Two or three of them in great excite¬
ment said to me “ Chalk, I will write too.” And in fact they set
about writing various words: mamma, mono, gino, camino, ada.
Not one of them had ever had in his hand chalk or anything
else used for writing; it was the first time that they had written,
and they were writing a whole word, just as, when they spoke for
the first time, they spoke a whole word.
If the first word pronounced by the child gives ineffable joy
to the mother who has chosen this first word, mamma, as her own

^The meaning of "terrace” {tenazza) differs in Italy from that which

we associate with it in England. The term is applied to a flat roof, or to _a
wide, open balcony with which an upper storey of the dwelling communi¬
cates.—M.A.J. •
 THE MECHANISM: OF WRITING 279

name, almost as a reward due to motherhood, so the first word

written by my little ones fills them with inexpressible joy. They,
see spring into being, by their own act, a power which seems to be:
a gift from nature, for they cannot link up what they are doing
with the preparatory acts which have led them up to their
performance.
Hence they imagine almost that on one fine day, when they
have reached it they become able to write. And so it is in reality.
The child, when it begins to speak, has also prepared beforehand,
unconsciously, the psycho-muscular mechanism which will lead
him to the articulation of the word. In the case of writing, the
child does nearly the same; but direct aid given by teaching and
the possibility of preparing almost materially for the movements
of writing, which are much simpler and coarser than those neces¬
sary for the pronouncing of the word, result in written language
developing much more rapidly and perfectly. Since the prepara¬
tion is not partial but complete, that is, the child is equipped with
all the movements needed for writing, therefore written language
is not developed gradually, but in a sudden outburst: the child is
able to write every word.
In this way we shared in the moving experience of the first :
development of written language among our children. We were
stirred into deep emotion during those days; we felt as if we were^
in a dream, and that we had seen miraculous events.
The child who was writing a word for the first time was con¬
sumed with joy; I compared him at once with a hen which had
laid an egg. Indeed, no one could escape from the noisy demon¬
strations of the little one; he called everybody to look and if the
person did not come he pulled him by the dress to make him come.
Everyone had to go there, stand round the written word and admire
the wonder, adding his exclamations of surprise to the joyous
shouts of the fortunate performer. Generally speaking, this
first word was written on the ground, and then the child used
to kneel down to get nearer to his work and to gaze on it more
closely.
280 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

After the first word, the child continued to write with a kind
of frenzy everywhere, though generally on the blackboard. I have
seen children crowding round the blackboard eager to write, and
behind the standing children there was lined up another row of
children mounted on chairs who were writing above the others,
whilst some more were behind the blackboard. I saw other children
who were left outside running about in disorder in their vexation
and upsetting the chairs on which their companions were standing
in order to find a little space. Finally, the losers in the struggle
bent down and wrote on the floor, or ran to the window shutter
or the door and filled these with writing. In these early days we
had almost a tapestry formed of written signs on the floor—a
tapestry of writing. At home the same thing happened, and some
mothers, in order to save the floors and even the bread, on the
crusts of which they found written words, gave their children paper
and a pencil. One of these children brought to school one day
a kind of copybook filled with writing, and the mother told us
how the child had written all day and all evening and had gone to
sleep in bed with paper and pencil in his hand.
Such impulsive work, which I could not curb in the early days,
made me think of the wisdom of nature which develops spoken
language little by little, and develops it at the same time as ideas
are gradually taking shape. If instead of that, nature had acted
as unwisely as I had done, had allowed to develop from the senses
a rich and orderly stock of material, and had allowed a wealth of
ideas to develop, and had thus prepared completely for articulate
language, so that she might say to the child, mute up to this
point, “ Go, speak,” we would have been faced with a sudden,
mad outbreak of torrential speech, in which the child would begin
to speak without a pause and without possible check, until its
lungs were exhausted and its vocal cords were worn out with
pronouncing words which were very difficult and strange to it.
Yet I think that between the two extremes there exists a mean
which embodies the really practical way. We must, then, encourage
written language less suddenly; but in bringing it into existence by
 THE MECHANISM OF WRITING 281

degrees we must encourage it as a spontaneous act which is carried

on from the very first in an almost perfect manner.

Manner of Applying the Method

The latest development of our experiment has led us to set up

a calmer, more orderly procedure, due to the fact that the children
see their companions writing, which, through imitation, incites
them to write as soon as they can. Then the written words are
no longer a surprise, but an achievement. This is the case also
with children who see people write in their homes, whilst this was
not so with the first children whose parents were aU illiterate.
Hence, when the child writes his first word, he has not the whole
alphabet at his disposal; there is a limit to the number of words
which he can write, and he is not capable of finding out all the
possible combinations of words with only the letters which are
known to him. He never loses the great joy of the first written
word, but that no longer constitutes a stupifying surprise, because
he sees something similar happening every day, and he knows that
sooner or later it will happen to him also. That leads to the
establishment of a calm atmosphere, orderly and at the same time
wonderful because of its sudden, natural achievements.
Paying a visit to the Children’s House, where I had also been
the day before, I chanced upon new facts. I saw two very small
children who were writing quietly, though vibrant with pride and
joy; the day before they were not yet writing. The Directress
told me that one of them began to write at eleven o’clock on the
previous morning and the other in the afternoon at three.
The occurrence is now regarded with the indifference which
custom brings, and is easily recognized as a natural form of deve¬
lopment in the child.
The judgement of the mistress will decide if and when it is
suitable to encourage the child to write, when he, having passed
through the three stages of the preparatory exercise, does not yet
do it of his own accord. That is because, by keeping back writmg
282 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

too long, the child may break out into a frenzy of impulsive work,,
which, owing to his knowing the whole alphabet, can no longer
be curbed.
The signs which the mistress may use in making a diagnosis
of the preparedness for spontaneous writing are: the parallelism
and straightness of the marks used in filling in the geometrical figures;
recognition of the sandpaper letters of the alphabet with the eyes
closed; certainty and readiness in the composition of words. Before
intervening to encourage writing with an invitation, it is, however,
always well to wait for at least a week for the spontaneous launch¬
ing out into writing, after the readiness for it has been judged to*
be found existent.
Only when the child has begun to write of his own accord
ought the mistress to intervene to guide the progress of the writing.
The first help which she will give is that of ruling the black¬
board so that the child may be guided in keeping right the direction
and the dimensions of the writing.
The second is that of urging the hesitating child to repeat the-
tracing of the sandpaper letters, without ever correcting him
directly about the writing which he has done. The child will
not improve himself by repeating the actions of writing but by
repeating the acts preparatory to writing. I remember a little-
beginner who, in order to give his letter a beautiful shape on the
ruled blackboard, went to the thin cards, traced two or three times,
all the letters which were necessary for the words he had to write,
and then he wrote; if a letter did not seem to him to be beautiful
enough, he rubbed it out, again touched the letter itself on the
card, and again went to write it.
Our little ones, even those who have been writing for a year,,
always carry on the three preparatory exercises, which, as they led
up to, also improve written language. Our children then learn tO‘
write and also to improve their writing, without writing. Real
writing is an experience, the outbreak of an inner impulse,,
an act in compliance with a higher activity : it is not an
.'■^ercis^./
 THE MECHANISM OF WRITING 28S;

It is also an educational idea to prepare oneself before making.

attempts, and to perfect oneself before going further. To go on
correcting one’s own errors encourages one to attempt imperfectly
things for which we are not ready, and it also deadens the sensi¬
tiveness of the mind towards its own mistakes. My method of
teaching writing includes as an educational conception teaching
the child the prudence which makes one avoid error; the dignity
which gives foresight and is a guide to perfection; and also the
humility which keeps one constantly in touch with the sources of
goodness, from which alone one obtains and maintains mastery
over oneself; getting rid of the illusion that, once success has
been reached, it is quite enough to go on just as we have been
doing.
Because all the children, those who have just begun the three
exercises, as well as those who have already been writing for many
months, are always repeating the same movements, they are united
and fraternize on an apparently equal level. Here there are no classes
for beginners and advanced; they are all to be seen filling up figures-
with coloured pencils, tracing sandpaper letters, composing words
with the movable alphabets; the smallest work alongside the
biggest, the latter helping the former—aU imagining that they are
doing the same thing. There is no one who is preparing himself,-
there is no one who is perfecting himself; aU are moving along the
same road; running deeper than any social differences there exists
a similarity in which all men are brothers, just as on the spiritual
path all, whether aspiring or perfect, are carrying on the same-
exertions.
Writing is learnt in a very short time, because we begin to-
teach it only to children who show a desire for it, paying voluntary
attention to the lessons which the mistress is giving to other children
and to the doings of other children. Some learn without even
having received lessons, merely by having heard the lessons given
to others.
In general, children from four years of age onwards are keenly
interested in writing. Some of our children have even begun at
:284 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

•three and a half. Lively enthusiasm is shown specially in tracing

:the sandpaper letters.

The Procession of the Alphabet

During the first period of my experiment, when the children

saw for the first time the letters of the alphabet, I asked Directress
Bettini one day to carry to the terrace, where the children were
playing, the various types of cards which she had made. Directly
The children saw her, they crowded round the teacher and myself
with their fingers held out, and in dozens the small fingers were
soon touching the letters, whilst the babies were pressing against
each other. Finally some of the taller children succeeded in getting
some of the cards out of our hands, pretending to touch them like
teachers, but the crowd of little ones hindered this performance.
I remember with what a joyous rush the possessors of the cards,
clasping them in both hands, raised them like standards and began
“to march followed by all the other children, who clapped their hands
and uttered loud cries of joy.
The procession passed in front of us, and all, big and little,
laughed loudly, whilst the mothers, attracted by the noise, watched
the scene through the windows. This was like a homage paid to
The material that had worked miracles.
The average period which elapses between the first attempt at
preparatory exercises and the first written word is, for children of
four, a month and a half. For children five years old, the period
is much shorter, about a month; but one of ours learnt to write,
with the letters of the alphabet, in twenty days. Children of four
years, after two and a half months, write some words under
dictation, and are able to pass on to writing with ink in copybooks.
'Generally, after three months, our little ones are proficient, and
those who have been writing for six months may be compared with
children in the third elementary class.
Writing constitutes one of the easiest and most enjoyable
achievements gained by our children.
 THE MECHANISM OF WRITING 285; ^

If learning were as easy for adults as it is for children under-

six years of age, illiteracy could be got rid of in a month,,
but perhaps two obstacles would interfere with so brilliant a success.,.
In the adult, however, there is no longer tills enthusiasm which,.,
in small children, is given by psychical sensitivities that exist only
during the constructive period provided for by nature for the-
formation of language. Besides, the hand of the adult is by this,
time too stiff to acquire easily the delicate movements needed
in writing.
But I know that when the procedure used by us in the educa¬
tion of children was applied to adults (to the recruits and soldiers
of the United States of America), the struggle against illiteracy
was considerably facilitated. Montessori teachers, in fact, dedi¬
cated themselves to the instruction of soldiers.
Later I learned that in Rome, in bygone ages, the hand of
adults was trained in order to improve their penmanship by having,
them trace very large letters of perfect shape, and not by having ,
them write with a model before their eyes as is done nowadays in
exercises for penmanship.
To trace letters and compose phonetically entire words with
a movable alphabet, therefore, facilitates everybody’s effort to
learn how to write. Many months, however, are certainly needed
when an adult tries to learn what a small child already indirectly
prepared can achieve in only one month.
So much for the time needed for learning. As for the style
of execution, our children, from the moment they begin, write
weU, and one is surprised by the shape of the letters, bold and
rounded, resembling in every way the sandpaper models. The
beauty of their writing is scarcely ever attained by any pupil in
the elementary schools who has not had special lessons in
calligraphy.
I, who have studied calligraphy closely, know how dfficuit
it is to get boys of twelve and thirteen in the secondary schools
to write whole words without lifting the pen except for the letter
* 0,’ and how drawing the lines of the various letters with a single
-286 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

stroke often forms an insuperable difficulty, the parallelism between

-the component strokes being lost.
On the contrary, our little ones, of their own accord, with
marvellous certainty, write whole words with a single effort, keep¬
ing the parallelism between the strokes perfect, and the distances
between the various letters equal. More than one competent
visitor has exclaimed, “ If I had not seen it, I would not have
believed it.”
Calligraphy, indeed after teaching, is needed to correct defects
-already acquired and fixed; it is extra work, heavy and long
because the child whilst looking at the model has to execute the
movement required to reproduce it, whilst between such a sensation
and such a movement there is no direct relationship.
Besides, penmanship is taught at an age when all defects have
been stabilized, and there has passed the physiological period in
which the muscular memory is particularly alert. One does not
speak of the fundamental error which makes calligraphy pursue
the same course of learning as writing from strokes and its
continuation.
We prepare the child in a direct manner not only for writing,
but also for penmanship regarded in its two main attributes—
beauty of form (by touching beautiful letters) and freedom of
^execution (by exercises in filling in figures).
c H A P T E R XVII

READING

Experience has taught me to recognize a distinct difference between

writing and reading and has shown me that the two acquirements
need not necessarily be made at the same time. In our first experi¬
ment, writing precedes reading, though I know that this is in con¬
tradiction to the common practice. I do not call ‘reading’ the
attempt which a child makes when he is verifying the word which
he has composed with the movable alphabet, that is when he is
translating signs into sounds, as at first he translated sounds into
signs, because in such a verification he already knows the word,
having repeated it to himself many times as he composed it. (That
is, in a phonetic language.)
I call reading the interpretation of an idea by means of
graphic signs.
The child who has not heard the word spoken, but who recog¬
nizes it : on seeing it put together on the table in movable letters
and can tell what it means (the name of a child, a city, an object,
etc.), that child reads. This I say because the word ‘ read ’
corresponds in written language to the word we hsten to in spoken
language, which serves to receive the language transmitted to us
by others.
288 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Until the child obtains from written words transmission of

ideas, he does not read.
We may say that writing, as it has been described, is an act
in which the psycho-motor mechanism predominates; in reading,
on the contrary, we reach purely intellectual work. But it is.
evident that our way of teaching writing prepares for reading so
as to render the difficulties involved almost unnoticeable. Writing
prepares the child for interpreting mechanically the union of the
letter-sounds which are the components of the word which he sees
written. The child, therefore, can already read the sounds of the
word. We notice that when the child composes the word from the
movable alphabet, he has time to think of the signs which he must
choose or make; the writing of a word takes a long time compared
with that needed for the reading of it.
The child who can write, when he is confronted with a word
to be interpreted by reading, is silent for a long time, and generally
reads the component sounds as slowly as if he were writing them.
The sense of the word is grasped when it is pronounced not only
in a hurry but with the necessary phonetic accents. Now in order
to place the phonetic accents, it is necessary that the child should
recognize the word, the idea which it represents; therefore a higher
activity of intelligence must be brought into play.
For practice in reading I, therefore, proceed in the following
way, and what I am about to describe is a substitute for the old
spelling-book, I prepare labels from sheets of ordinary writing-
paper, on each of which there is written in running hand one
centimetre high, some well-known word which has already been
pronounced many times by the child, and which represents objects
present or well-known. If the word refers to an object which
is present, I place this under the child’s eye, in order to make the
meaning of the reading easier. In this connection I may mention
that most of these objects are toys. The Children’s Houses possess
not only the kitchen utensils, the kitchen, the balls and the dolls
which I already have had occasion to mention, but also cup¬
boards, divans, beds—all furniture necessary for a doll’s house;
 READING 289

also, houses, trees, flocks of sheep, animals made from papier-

mache, duckhngs and geese made of cellulose that float on water;
boats with sailors, soldiers, railways which will work, factories,
a country house, stables for horses and cattle witiiin spacious
enclosures, etc. For one House in Rome an artist made me a
present of splendid fruit in ceranaics.^
If writing serves to direct or rather to direct and perfect the
mechanism of spoken language in the child, reading serves to aid
in the development of ideas, thus making a connection with the
development of language. FinaUy, writing helps physiological
language, and reading, social language.
The beginning is, as I have pointed out, nomenclatui e, that is,
reading the names of objects known, and, possibly, present.
I do not choose words on the ground of their being easy or
difficult, because the child can already read the word as being com¬
posed of sounds. I allow the child to translate slowly into sounds
the written word, and if his interpretation is exact, I confine myself
to saying, “More quickly.” The child, the second time,^ reads
more readily, often stiU without understanding. I repeat, “ More
quickly, more quickly.” The child reads still more rapidly, repeat¬
ing the same group of sounds and finally he guesses. Then he
puts on a look of recognition and beams with the satisfaction
which so often appears in our children. In this consists the whole
reading exercise, a very speedy exercise and one which presents to
the child, already prepared through writing, very little difficulty
Truly, all the terrors of the spelling-book are buried along
with the ‘ strokes ’! • * *1,
When the child has read he rests the card used agamst the
object the name of which it bore and the exercise is finished. The
children having been taught in this way, more for the purpose of
understanding thoroughly which exercise attracted them most than
for practice in actual reading, I thought of the following game.

xThe first Children’s Houses in toys

led to their fprgot^n, for the c Jdren di
there are many objects wmcn can oe useu. lu
290 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

It was intended to make more pleasant the various exercises in

reading which have to be repeated so often; as a result the reading
is made clear and fluent.

Game fob. Reading Words

I spread out on the big table the most varied and attractive
collection of toys; corresponding to each of them is a label on
which its name is written. I fold the labels and roll them up, mix
them together in a box, and have them drawn by lot by the children
who can read. They must carry the labels to their places, unfold
them very, very slowly, read them mentally without showing them
to their neighbours, so that what they contain remains an absolute
secret, and then go up to the table with the label enclosed in their
hand. The child must say aloud the name of a toy, and present
to the teacher the label that it may be verified; such a ticket then
becomes like a piece of money with which the toy named may be
acquired. The child, if he pronounces the word clearly, pointing
out the object with his finger (and the teacher can check the
accuracy by the card), takes the toy and can do what he likes with
it for as long as he likes.
This stage being finished, the teacher calls upon the first child
and then all the others, in the same order in which they took the
toys, and makes them draw lots for another label, which the child
must read at once and which bears the name of one of his com¬
panions, who cannot read yet and, therefore, has not had a toy.
And then, politely, he must offer as an act of courtesy to
his unlearned companion the toy which he possesses as his right.
The offer must be made with kindly gestures, gracefully, accom¬
panied by a salute. In this way there is eradicated any idea of
grade, and there is inculcated the feeling that one must give out
of kindness to those who have no claim to possession, as well as
the sentiment that everyone, whether he deserves it or not, must
share equally in pleasures.
The reading-play was a marvellous success; think of the satis¬
faction which these poor children felt over the idea that they
 READING 291

possessed such beautiful toys and that they could play with them
for such a long time.
But what was my surprise when the children, after having
learnt to understand the written cards, refused to take the toys
and to lose time in playing and in making these friendly gestures
to their little companions; with a kind of insatiable desire they
preferred instead to take out the cards one after another and read
them all. I watched them, and pondered over the enigma of their
minds, which had been hidden from us. As I stood watching them
and meditating over the discovery that children, through some
human instinct, love Icnowledge better than meaningless play,
I was impressed by the loftiness of the human mind.
We then put away the toys and set ourselves to make hundreds
of written labels—names of cliildren, of objects, of cities, of colours
and of qualities made known through exercises of the senses. , "We
placed them in more boxes and let the children search as they
pleased among them. I expected that at least they would hunt
indiscriminately and without any order in one box and in another,
but no, every child finished emptying the box which he had under
his hand, and only after that did he go on to another, truly
insatiable for reading. One day I went out on the terrace and
found that they had carried the tables and chairs there, setting up
school in the open air. Some little ones were playing in the sun,
others were seated in circles round tables covered with letters and
sandpaper cards; at one side, in the shade of a dormer window
was seated the mistress, who had a long, narrow box, fuU of labels;
the whole length of the box was occupied by httle hands searching
within it. A group of children were opening, reading and refolding
the labels. “ You would not believe,” said the mistress to me,
** that this has been going on for more than an hour, and still they
are not satisfied.” 1 made the experiment of having balls and doUs
brought out, but with no result; these futilities had no value
compared with the joy of knowing.
When I saw this surprising result, I was aheady thinking of
trying to get them to read print, and I proposed to the mistress to
292 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

write the same word in the two types on the same label. But the
children forestalled me. There was in the seliool a calendar on
which many words were written in printed characters and some
in Gothic characters. In their mania for reading, some children
began to look at this calendar, and to my indescribable surprise,
they read both the printed and the Gothic matter.
So we had nothing more to do but present them with a book;
in fact, they read the words in it. At first, in the Children’s
Houses, I gave only one kind of book, one in which, under the
figures of all the objects they had seen, were printed the names.
The mothers at once profited by the progress of the Children.
We actually surprised in the pockets of some of them pieces of
paper roughly covered with the prices of things—macaroni, bread,
salt, etc.: some of our little ones were going marketing with the
note! The parents told us that their children no longer hurried
along the street, because they stopped to read the shop signs.
Educated according to this method in a private house, a child,
a little marquis of four and a half, did the following. His father,
a member of parliament, received a great deal of correspondence.
He knew that his child had begun exercises two months before^
and that they were enabling him to read and write at a precocious
age; but he did not pay much attention, and had not much faith
in the assertions. One day the marquis was reading and the child'
was playing near him when a servant entered and placed on the
table the voluminous correspondence wliich had just come by post.
The little one turned his attention to it, began to turn over
the letters and to read aloud all the addresses. The marquis
thought it was almost a miracle.
It may be asked what is the average time which is needed for
learning to read. Experience tells us that, counting from the
moment at which the child can write, the passage from this lower
form of written language to the higher one of reading is on an
average about fifteen days. Accuracy in reading, however, almost
always comes later than perfection in writing. In most cases the
child writes very weE and reads just fairly well.
 READING 293

Not all the children reach the same standard at the same age,
and since none of them is, I do not say forced, but not even invited,
or in any way attracted, to do what he does not want to do, it
happens that some children, not having offered themselves for
learning, have been left in peace, and can neither write nor read.
If the old method, which dominates the will of the child, and
crushes out his self-expression, does not think that it ought to force
him to learn to write before the age of six, no more do I think so!
However, I could not decide without long experience whether
in every case the age of the full development of spoken language
ought to be that which it is suitable to choose for encouraging the
development of w’ritten language.
In any case almost aU normal children brought up by our
methods begin to write at four years of age, and at five they can
read and wnite at least as well as children who have finished the
second elementary class; that means that they could pass into the
second or third class at an age a year or two below that of the
present day admission to the first class.

The Exercise for Non-phonetic Languages

The simple reading game described above was taken up again,

modified and adapted for learning reading in languages which are
not phonetic, like English, Dutch, etc.
The essential exercise, which in its general principle may be
of general application as in phonetic languages, consists in pre¬
paring a series of objects and a corresponding set of labels on which
are written the names relating to them; after the card has been read
it is placed near the object which corresponds to it. For the
phonetic languages, the exercise aims at raising interest in the
written word; recognition of the object present makes the child
feel that he has discovered a secret, and the act of placing the
label satisfies him and opens up a round of intimate activity.
By this time the internal motor has been set going, interest
has been kindled, and the communication between the source of
life and mastery over externals has been established.
294 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

For the non-phonetic languages, something similar must con¬

stitute the first step. Search was made first of all (for teaching
the English language) for a group of phonetic words, it being well
known that words of this kind always exist even in non-phonetic
languages. From among these were chosen all those which
could be built up on the basis of about twenty different sounds,
for it had been ascertained by experiment that this is about the
number of isolated sounds which can be distinguished clearly by
children between four and five years of age.
In trying to fix upon this definite number of words, we have
not had to trouble ourselves about any dij03.culties other than those
mentioned above, for the length of the word and the complications
of sounds which enter into it present no difficulty to the child. In
such early and fundamental research one needs only to interest
the child; and for that it is enough that the word should be phonetic
and that it should represent objects which are well known and
under the-eye. When this is done and interest in the written word
is awakened it will be possible to go on to succeeding difficulties,
preparing groups of words according to the spelling used in the
language. In a word, one must proceed in the first instance with
the aim of rousing keen interest in reading, and afterwards the
way will be prepared for the long journey necessary to overcome
the various difficulties of spelling. Then arises the necessity for
research in grouping materially objects and words corresponding
to objects, making up a series of successive exercises. Until there
has been aroused in the child interest in difficulties themselves and
in the grouping of words which illustrate them the only thing
necessary is a proper classification of words. This leads the
children to pure interest in reading words, as it is met with in
phonetic languages.
In England, in adopting this procedure for the English
language, it was found necessary to make small chests which, in
different drawers, contain groups of words chosen according to
some spelling difficulties, and groups of objects referring to them
(as in the divisions for classification).
 READING 295

The child can, after having taken a drawer from the chest,
take out the objects himself, apply the label to each one, and,
having finished the work, replace it in the chest. He can then
take another drawer, and so on. In this way he studies some of
the difficulties relative to spelling and pronunciation.

Reversal of the Exercise

The practical advantages of such exercises have suggested

another application, and so, reversing the object of these, there
have been grouped together objects which have educational value;
they are accompanied by labels on which their names are written.
Whilst in the first exercise the objects were known and the diffi¬
culties of learning were connected with words, here one starts from
a knowledge of words which is sufiicient to teach the names of the
objects which are grouped together for various educational pur¬
poses. In religious education, for example, prepared in mifiia-
ture are various objects relating to the altar, the priest’s vest¬
ments, the objects necessary for the Mass, etc. The development
of this exercise has been extended to teaching the words relating
to many parts of the material, as for example, the names of
materials, of fastenings, of polygons, etc. Finally another apph-
cation has been made to models of animals and plants, together
with scientific terms relating to their classification, written on
separate labels which must be placed on the objects when
recognized.
These last applications, however, have carried us along a path
different from that in which we are interested here—learning to
read. Instead of that, they form an apphcation of reading used
as it is done by botanists and gardeners when they show the names
of various plants on labels.
Commands: Reading Sentences

As soon as some visitors to the Children’s Houses in San

Lorenzo saw that the children were reading printed characters they
sent us gifts of splendidly illustrated books, which formed the first
296 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

nucleus of our library. Turning over the leaves of these books oi

simple, stories, I realized that the little ones would not be able to
understand them. The teachers, however, wanted to prove that
they could, by making several children read, telling me that their
reading wa.s much more fluent and more correct than that of
children who had flnished the second elementary class. I did not
allow myself to be convinced, and I applied two tests. The first
was to get the mistress to tell some of the stories, and to notice
how many children interested themselves voluntarily. After a few
words the children’s attention wandered; the mistress had to recall
the inattentive ones to order and she was using old methods
,encouraging the children to understand. Little by little there
developed in the class noise and movement, which were due to
.the fact that each individual was turning to his usual occupations
.and giving up listening.
Evidently the children who seemed to be reading the books
with pleasure were not enjoying the meaning of them. They were
enjoying the mechanical power which they had acquired, consisting
^of the translation of written signs into the sound of a word which
they recognized. In fact they were reading the books with much
less readiness than the cards, because in them they met with many
unknown words.
My second test was to get the child to read the book without
giving him the explanations which the mistress in the old fashion
hastened to interpose, mixing them up with suggestive questions
—“Have you understood?” “What have you read?” “The
child went in a carriage, did he not?” “Read carefully.”
“ Watch.”
I then gave the book to a child, placed myself beside him in
an affectionately confidential attitude, and asked him with the
simple gravity with which I would have spoken to a friend: “ Did
you understand what you read?” The child answered, “No,”
but the expression on his face seemed to ask for an explanation
of my question because he did not understand what was meant
by freading’. The fact is that reading is not to read a series of
 READING 297

words one after the other; hut reading can put ourselves into
communication with the complex thoughts of others and this was
not the case with our children. Such a brilliant achievement was
awaiting our children in the future, a new source of surprise and
delight.
The book embodies logical language, not the mechanism of
language; and for that reason, it cannot be understood by the
child until he has mastered logical language. Between being able
to read words and knowing the meaning of a book there may
extend the same distance as between being able to pronounce a
word and a speech.
I therefore had the reading of the books postponed and
waited. One day whilst we were talking together, four children
got up together with an expression of joy and wrote on the black¬
board some sentences of this kind: “ How pleased I am when
the garden is in bloom.” It was a great and moving surprise for
us. They had arrived spontaneously at composition, just as they
had spontaneously written the first word. The mechanism was the
same; and the result followed logically. Logical spoken language
one day led up to a sudden outbreak into written language.
I understood that the moment had arrived for going on to
the writing of sentences, and I had recourse to the same means
of writing on the blackboard.
“Do you like me?” The children read this aloud slowly,
were silent for a moment, and then shouted “ Yes ”. I went on
to write: “ Keep silent and be quite still.” They read it almost
in a shout, and directly they had finished reading, deep silence
fell in the room, broken by the movement of some chairs which
the children made in settling themselves.
So there began between us communication through the medium
of written language, which proved to be most interesting for the
children By degrees they discovered the great quality of writing,
that it transmits thought. When I began to write they were eager
in their haste to learn what I intended and to understand it without
my pronouncing a single word.
298 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Written language does not need speech; its Ml power ia

realized only when it is completely isolated from spoken language.
In these last days (in 1909) whilst the present book was for the
first time in the press, we reached, in the Children’s Houses, full
enjoyment of reading by means of the following game.
I wrote on some sheets of paper long sentences describing,
actions which the children would have to carry out, for example:
“Close the window shutters and go and open the entrance door;
then wait a moment and put things back as they were at first.”
“ Ask eight of your companions, politely to leave their places and
stand in a line, in pairs, in the middle of the room; then make
them march backwards and forwards on the points of their toes,
very quietly, without making any noise.” “ Ask three of your
oldest companions who sing very well to be kind enough to^
come to the middle of the room; group them in a row, and
sing along with them any beautiful tune which you like.” And
so on.
The children, directly I had finished writing, almost snatched
the cards from my hand to read them, placing them to dry on their
little tables. They read them by themselves, with the most intense
attention, in the deepest silence. I asked them, “ Do you under¬
stand? ” “ Yes, yes.” “ Then go and do it.” With what admira¬
tion did I watch the children as they each chose an action and
carried it out at once. Great activity, movement of a new kind
came to life in the room. Some closed and then opened the
shutters, some set their companions running, some made them
sing, some went to write, some took objects from the sideboard.
Surprise and curiosity provoked general silence, and the scene was
filled with the most intense commotion. It seemed as if magic
strength had gone out from me stimulating activity which had been
unknown before: that magic was written language, the greatest
triumph of civilization.
How well the children understood the importance of it! When
1 left, they crowded round me with manifestations of gratitude and
affection, saying: “ Thank you, thank you for the lesson.”
 READING 299

We had taken a great step; we had leapt from the mechanism

to the spirit of reading.
Today, the following, which is the favourite among the games,
is played in this way. First, absolute silence is established; then
there is presented a box containing folded labels, on which is
written a long sentence describing an action.
All the children who can read come up and draw a label by
chance; they read it mentally once or oftener, till they are sure
that they have understood it right, then they give the open label
back to the teacher, and set about what has to be done. Since
many of the actions require the assistance of companions who
cannot read, and many lead to the using and moving about of
objects, a general movement develops, which grows in a wonder¬
fully orderly manner, whilst the deep silence is broken only by the
subdued scuffle of little feet running lightly and by voices singing.
soiT^gs—an unexpected revelation of spontaneous perfect discipline..
Experience has shown us that composition must precede logical
reading, as writing precedes the reading of words; and that the
reading which conveys meaning must be mental and not vocal.
Indeed, reading aloud implies the employment of the two
mechanisms of language, the articular and the graphic, w'hich
makes the work more complicated. Who does not know that
an adult who has to read a passage in public prepares himself for
it by getting the meaning of it beforehand by mental reading, and
that reading aloud is one of the most difficult intellectual actions?
Children, then, who are beginning to read in order that they may
interpret thought, ought to read mentally. Written language,
when it reaches logical thought, ought to be kept apart from
articulate language. It really represents language which transmits
thought from a distance, whilst the senses and the muscular
mechanism are silent. It is spiritualized language which brings-
into communication all mankind.
Education having reached such a level in the Childrens
Houses, it follows as a consequence that the whole scheme of
work in the elementary schools would have to be changed.
300 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

How to refonn the lowest elementary classes, eventually carry¬

ing on our methods in them is a big question which does not call
for investigation here. It is enough to say that the first as well as
the second elementary class would be abolished completely by our
child education which include it.
The elementary classes of the future would then receive
children like ours, who already know how to look after themselves,
to dress, undress and wash themselves, who know the rules of
good manners, and are disciplined yet free, or as I may say, have
set themselves free. They, in addition to articulate language com¬
pletely developed and free from defects, have also mastered
elementary written language which is beginning to develop into
logical language.
That they speak with a good pronunciation and write beauti¬
fully, that their movements are full of grace, indicates that they
belong to a humanity which has been educated under refining
guidance.
It is the childhood of triumphal humanity, since they are
intelligent and patient observers of their surroundings and possess
as a form of intellectual hberty, spontaneous reasoning.
For such children there ought to be found an elementary
school worthy to receive them and to guide them on the succeeding
path of life and civilization, using the same general principles of
respect for liberty and for the spontaneous manifestations of the
■child—^principles which determine the personality of the little men.^

^ These elementary Montessori schools now function fully in most of the

places, where there are Children’s Houses and the education imparted there
is described in some of my books, notably: The Advanced Montessori
Method, I and II.
 H A P T E R XVIII

THE SPEECH OF THE CHILD

Written language, which includes dictation and reading, involves

articulate language in its complete mechanism (auditory, central
and motor paths), and, in the way of development encouraged by
my method, is based essentially on articulate language.
Written language may, therefore, be considered from two points
of view:
(a) That of the mastery of a new language of great social
importance which is added to the spoken language of the natural
man. This is the cultural meaning which is usually attached to
written language, which is, therefore, taught in schools without any
regard for its relationships with spoken language, and only with,
the intention of offering to social man a means necessary for
making contacts with the environment.
(b) That of the connection between written and spoken lan¬
guage, and the eventual possibility of using written language to
improve spoken language—a new consideration on which I must
insist and one which gives to written language physiological and
psychological importance.
Besides, as spoken language is a natural function of man,,
and is also the means which he uses for social purposes, so this
302 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

writing may be considered by itself, in its formation as an organic

whole of new mechanisms which are established in the nervous
system and as means usable for social purposes.
It is a question of giving to written language, apart from its
physiological importance, a period of development which is inde¬
pendent of its other functions and which is destined to be
completed later.
I believe that writing bristles with difficulties at the beginning,
not only because up till today it has been taught by irrational
methods, but because we have wanted to make it carry out, when
it has barely been acquired, the lofty function of written language,
which has been fixed by centuries of efibrts made by the people.
Let us think of the irrationality of these methods. We have
-analysed the written signs rather than the physiological acts neces¬
sary to produce the alphabetic signs, yet the visible representations
of the signs have no hereditary connection with the motor side of
their execution, as for example, the auditory expression of the
word has with the motor mechanism of spoken language. It is,
therefore, always difficult to provoke an excito-motor action unless
movement has already been prepared for its arrival. The idea
cannot act directly on the motor nerves, which is all the more
apparent when the idea itself is incomplete and incapable of
sustaining a feeling which excites the will.
Thus the analysis of writing made in the ‘ curves ’ and
strokes ’ has led to the child’s being presented with a sign devoid
of meaning, which for that reason does not interest him, and the
making of which cannot determine a spontaneous motor impulse.
The action expected constitutes an effort of the will, which in the
child soon degenerates into weariness, into boredom and simple
endurance. To such an effort there would be added that of setting
up at the same time the muscular connections co-ordinating the
movements necessary for holding and manipulating the writing
instrument.
A combination of depressing feelings accompanies these
efforts, leading to the production of imperfect and wrong signs,
 THE SPEECH OF THE CHILD 303

which the teachers have to correct, thus depressing the child’s

feelings stiH more, by the constant exposure of mistakes and
imperfections in the marks made. " So whilst the child is being
urged to make efforts, his mental energy is being lowered
rather than stimulated by the teacher. Whatever the method
adopted to teach writing may be—excluding even the old way
of proceeding by means of strokes and curves—the fact remains
that the movements of the hand are not acted upon directly
by either thinking or locking at a sample. A sign to be traced
instead is the only direct guide to the establishment of move¬
ment.
Although acquired in such a mistaken way, the written laii-
.giiage so painfully learnt, has at once to be used for social purposes;
and, imperfect and immature, it is made to serve for the synthetic
construction of language and the expression of ideas by the higher
mental centres.
We remember that in nature spoken language is formed
gradually, and is already established in words when the higher
mental centres are using these words in what Kussmaul calls
dictorium, that is, the grammatical, synthetic formation of the
language necessary for the expression of complex ideas, that is,
the language of the logical mind.
Finally, the mechanism of language must pre-exist the high
mental activities which will have to use it.
There exist, therefore, two periods in the development of
language—the lower one, which prepares the nervous tracts and
the central mechanism which will have to link up the sensory and
the motor tracts; and the higher one determined by the higher
mental activity which is made evident by means of the pre-formed
mechanism of language.
Thus, in the scheme of spoken language as given by Kussmaul,
the most important fact to be noted is that there exists a kind of
reflex cerebral arc which is established during the early stages of
language formation.
Let us consider fig. 1.
 304 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

- : Let O stand for the ear; L for the group of motor organs used
for the words which make up language; U for the auditory centre

Fig. 1

of speech; and M for the motor centre. The paths 017and ML

are peripheral, the first centripetal and the second centrifugal; the
path CM is an intercentral connecting tract. _ ^
The centre U, in which are formed the auditory images of
words, may be subdivided into three, as indicated in the figure 2.

Fig. 2

Sounds are realized at Su, syllables at Si, and words at P.

That separate centres for sounds and syllables may be formed
is confirmed by the pathology of language, in which in certain
forms of centrosensory partial failure of speech the prdients can
no longer pronounce anything more than sounds, or sounds and

syllables. . i ■ i
Small children are at first particularly sensitive to the simple
sounds of language with which, especially with S, the mother
fondles and calls for their attention, whilst later on the child
is sensitive to syllables, with which also his mother caresses him,
saying, “ ba, ba, puf, tuf”.
Finally, the simple word which attracts the attention ot the
child is generally a dissyllable.
 THE SPEECH OF THE CHILD 305

The same sub-division may be made for the motof'^^trea,^

fig. 3. The child at first utters single or double sounds, e.g. bl, gl, ch.

expressions which the mother welccmes with tender invitations

and with great delight. Then the child begins to produce sounds
which are disyllabic, “ ga-ba” and finally disyllabic words,,
mainly labial, e.g. “ mama” “ baba ”.
We say that spoken language is beginning in the child when
the word which he pronounces represents an idea, when, for exam¬
ple, on seeing his mother and recognizing her he says “ mama, ’ or
on seeing the dog, “ tete” on seeing someone eating, papa
(i.e. pap or food).
We consider language to be initiated when it is linked up with
perception, whilst language itself is still, as regards its psycho¬
motor mechanism, quite rudimentary.
Language is considered to be initiated when, independently
of the reflex arc, in which the mechanial formation of language is
still unknown, there occurs the recognition of the word in such
a way that it is associated with the object which it represents.
20
306 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

At this stage, therefore, one is perfecting language itself by

degrees, as the hearing perceives better the sounds composing words,
and the psycho-motor paths are becoming better adapted to
articulation.
It is this early field of spoken language which has its own
beginning and its own course of development leading, by way
of perceptions, to the perfecting of the original mechanism of
language itself. And at this stage there is established what we
call articulate language, which will then be the medium which
man will make use of to express his thoughts, and which man will
have great difficulty in improving or correcting once it has been
fixed. In fact, sometimes higher education is accompanied by
imperfect speech, which hinders the aesthetic expression of
thought.
The development of articulate speech occurs between the ages
of two and five—the age of perceptions, in which the attention of
the child is spontaneously directed to external objects and the
memory is particularly retentive. This is also the age of mobility
when all the psycho-motor tracts have become usable, and the
muscular mechanism is fixed. At this period of life, by the mys¬
terious linking up of the auditory tracts and the motor tracts of
articulate language, it seems that the auditory perceptions have
power to excite the comphcated movements of articulate speech,
which develops instinctively under these stimuli as if awakening
from the sleep of heredity. It is well known that only at this age
is it possible to acquire all the characteristic modulations of a
language, which it is useless to try and establish later. The
mother tongue is pronounced well because it is fixed in childhood,
and the adult who learns to speak a new language must carry into
it the imperfection which marks the language of the foreigner.
Only children who, below seven years of age, learn several
languages at the same time, are able to perceive and reproduce
the characteristic modulations of accent and pronunciation.
In the same way, the defects acquired in childhood, like dialect
errors, or others due to bad habits, cannot be cured in the adult.
 THE SPEECH OF THE CHILD 307

That which develops later, the higher language, the dicionum,

does not originate in the mechanism of language, hut in intellectual
development which makes use of mechanical language.^
As spoken language is developed by exercising the mechanisin
of it and is enriched with perceptions, the dictorium is developed

with the mind, and is enriched with intellectual education. Referring

hack to the language diagram, fig. 4, we see that above the arc
standing for the lower language there is placed the dictorium D,
from which there now issue the motor impulses for the word which
is established as spoken language fitted to express the thought of
the intelligent man.
Up till now, owing to preconceived ideas, it has been thought
that written language must be acquired only through the develop¬
ment of the dictorium as a means fitted to secure culture and to
permit the grammatical analysis and the construction of language.
Remembering that “ spoken words fly away,’ it is admitted that
intellectual culture can advance only with the aid of a language
which is stable, objective, and capable of being analysed, as is
written language.
But why do we, who recognize the precious written language
as an indispensable factor of intellectual education because it fixes
the ideas of men and permits the analysis and assimilation of them
through books in which they are indelibly written, like an

^ So the typewriter has nothing to do with the intellectual thought of the

person who uses it to transmit his thoughts.
308 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

ineffaceable memory of words therefore always present-why do

we not recognize it as being useful for the humbler task of fixing
the words which represent ideas, and of analysing them into their
component sounds ?
Under the influence of teaching prejudice we are not able^ to
separate the idea of written language from that of the funcuon
which up till now we have assigned to it, and it seems to us that
in teaching this language to children who are still at the age
belonging to simple perceptions and mobility, there is being com¬
mitted a grave psychological and didactic mistake.
But let us get rid of this prejudice and consider written
language by itself, reconstructing the psycho-physiological mechan¬
ism of it. It is much simpler than the psycho-physiological
mechanism of spoken language and much more directly amenable
to education.
Writing especially is singularly easy. Let us consider dictated
writing; we have a perfect parallel with spoken language, because
to . the word heard there must correspond a motor action. It is
true that there does not exist here the mysterious hereditary rela¬
tionship between the word heard and the word spoken; but the
movements involved in writing are much simpler than those neces¬
sary for the spoken word and are carried out by muscles less fused
in their function than those of the vocal cords and the tongue.
They are all external and we can act directly on them in preparing
movements.
My method prepares, in a direct manner, for the movements
of the hand which writes; hence the psycho-motor impulse of the
word heard finds the motor paths already established, and manifest
itself in the act of writing like an ‘ explosion ’.
The real difficulty lies in the written sign; but we must con¬
sider that we are here dealing with the age of perception, in which
sensations and memory, like the early associations, are just in the
characteristic expansion stage of natural development. Besides,
our children have already been prepared by various exercises of
the senses, and by the methodical building up of ideas and mental
 THE SPEECH OF THE CHILD 309

associations, to appreciate written signs. The child who recog¬

nizes a triangle and calls it a triangle, can recognize the letter ‘ s ’
and call it by its sound S. This is obvious.
Let us stop talking about precocity in teaching. Let us rid
ourselves of prejudices, and confine ourselves to experience, which
shows how children actually carry on without any effort, even with
distinct signs of pleasure and gratitude, with the recognition of
written signs presented as objects.
With this preface, let us consider the relationships between the
mechanical systems employed in the two languages.
The child of three or four years old has already, according to
our diagram, begun spoken language some time before, but he is
just at the stage in which the mechanism of spoken language is
perfected—a period contemporaneous with that in which he masters
the content of language with the inheritance of perceptions.
Perhaps the child has not heard perfectly in all their compo¬
nent sounds the words which he pronounces; and, if he has heard
them perfectly, they may have been badly pronounced, and there¬
fore have left a wrong auditory impression. It would be a good
thing if the child, by exercising the motor tracts of spoken language,
could establish exactly the movements necessary for perfect articu¬
lation, before faulty mechanism having been fixed and the age of
easy motor adaptations being past, the defects become incorrigible.
To secure this, the word must be analysed. So wishing to
perfect language, we first train the children in composition and then
pass on to grammatical studies, and wishing to improve style we
first teach them to write grammatically, and then we come to the
analysis of the style; trying thus to perfect the word, it is first of
all necessary that the word should exist, and then is the fittmg
time for attacking the analysis of it. It is when the child speaks
that there has come the time for analysing the word in order to
perfect it. . •i
But as grammer and style are not possible with spoken
language, but have to be referred to written language which
presents to the eye the speech to be analysed, so it is with the word.
3i0 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

The analysis of that which is transient cannot be made.

It is necessary to materialize and stabilize language; hence the
necessity for the written word, represented by graphic signs.
In the third factor involved in writing which I consider in my
method, namely the composition of the word, there is included the
analysis of the word by means of objects and alphabetic sign.
The child breaks up the word heard, which he perceives in its
entirety as a word knowing also its meaning, into sounds and
syllables, and then translates it into the word composed with the
movable alphabet.
Whilst in the development of spoken language the component
sounds of the word may be imperfectly perceived, now in teaching
the graphic sign corresponding to the sound—and this consists in
presenting a sandpaper letter, naming it clearly, having it seen and
touched—not only is there fixed clearly the perception of the sound
heard, but this perception is connected with two others, the motor
and the visual perceptions of the written sign, which permit external
influences to affect the auditory images of words.
The following diagrams explain, stage by stage the sequence
of events referred to above.
Let us consider, stage by stage, the three-stage lesson in its
application to the first teaching of the alphabet.

First Stage

The mistress, showing a letter of the alphabet, says: This is

A, A, A.’" Then at once the mistress says a word which begins
with A—"'A/" as in ‘"ytda,” adding some other words which
have this sound and not necessarily as the first’sound. When a
consonant is being taught, the same thing is done, but by pro¬
nouncing the word which begins with that sound there is made a
syllable, “ This is M", Af, ikf,” as in ‘‘ ilTama Then the teacher
turning to the child adds, “Touch or “Touch M’h The
child traces the letter chosen as if writing it. Thus the motor
image of the letter touched is associated with the auditory image
 THE SPEECH OF THE CHILD 311

of the alphabetic sound and with the visual image of it, and
remains more strongly impressed in the memory.

Fig. 5
A.the ear (auricle)
U. . . . .the auditory centre of the spoken word
ML . . .the motor centre of the spoken word
L.organs for the articulation of the word (tongue)
Mm. . .motor centre of language written
M. . . . .the hand
O.the eye (oculus)
V.the visual centre of the written word (visual)
The dotted lines refer to the reflex arc of spoken language.

Second Stage

The mistress repeats many times—“Which is Point out

A, touch A," or “ Which is M?” In this second stage, by having
the same exercise repeated over and over again, there is strengthened
the association already reached during the first stage. This forms
an association exercise.

Third Stage

Pointing to a letter, the teacher asks the cliild: What is

this?” The child answers, “ A" or “M”. The visual image of
312 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

the Wfittea siga is associated with that of the pronunciation of

the sounds, and the two languages, written and spoken, are asso¬
ciated together. The pronunciation is instigated by the sign, by
the alphabetic vision as well as by hearing.

The association set up is represented by the two triangles in

fig. 6, XJVMm and UVMU which have the same base in the asso¬
ciation between the two sense-centres, that is the auditory centre
of the spoken word and the visual centre of the written word,
whilst the apices correspond respectively to the two motor centres,
one of spoken language {Ml) and the other of written language
{Mm).
The lesson, as is well known, represents only a detail of initia¬
tion and enlightenment in comparison with the great work of the
child, which consists of innumerable repetitions of the same exer¬
cise. When the child continues to trace the sandpaper letters for
a long time, remembering the sound of them and pronouncing
them to himself, he ends by establishing mechanically an association
between the alphabet and the component sounds of the words.
The length of such exercises constitutes a real period of develop¬
ment by the fixation of the visual images of the letters of the
alphabet, of the images of the movements necessary to reproduce
 THE SPEECH OF, THE CHILD 313

them with the writing hand and of their associations with the
images corresponding to spoken language—^that is, the component
sounds of words and the acts which reproduce them by means of
the organs of speech. Then is practised a formative analytical
work on a new language capable of setting up mechanically the
analysis of the spoken word which already exists. The letter of
the alphabet presented to the child may be compared with a watch-
spring which gives off a sound and interests him much more than
a surprise-box. Every now and then he remains absorbed in it
(periods of concentration). The work of association described
above is in vigorous action during a period of six or more months,
from the age of about three and a half to four years—a period in
which the word of the child is still uncertain and easy to break up
(analyse) because it is still very near to and in sympathy with the
preceding period in which is stabilized the articulate word in the
language of the child.
It is only later (after four years and a few months) that the
child masters the analytical mechanism and utilizes it fully in the
interesting work of the composition of words. Then he displays
his power over the mechanism as a peacock spreads out its
feathers, and connects up the two analyses. He has become
competent through the preceding exercises in perceiving words
clearly sound by sound, and in recognizing with an ease which
might be called the mechanism of them, the alphabetic sounds
which correspond to them. Thus the word composed from the
alphabet’ represents the external projection of the spoken word
and the teacher is able to penetrate, if the expression may be per¬
mitted, into the inner labyrinths in which words are definitely
elaborated. She can then intervene with help for the two lan¬
guages, and lead the child on the one hand to the perfect spoken
word and on the other to the perfect orthography of the written
word.
The same mechanism exists fundamentally in the non-phonetic
languages. The sounds represented by a letter of the alphabet or
by a phonogram, when once they are associated with this, may be
3i4 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

better determined in their analysis and finally projected into the-

composition of the word.
The exercise in composition lasts a still longer time than the
other which is concerned in establishing the mechanism linking
the two languages. It therefore suffices for the most part, for the
acquisition of correct spelling, before writing suddenly comes into
existence, which may reproduce a considerable number of words
already found in the non-phonetic languages and almost all the
words in the phonetic languages.
This association between the two languages, spoken and written,,
is of the highest importance and forms the key to the whole deve¬
lopment of writing. Writing then becomes a second form of
language associated with the mother tongue, and a way of com¬
munication is established between the two languages through these
oft-repeated exercises.
On the other hand, with the usual methods, writing is a thing
apart which is learnt independently of the spoken language and
is studied objectively with supposed difficulties of sounds and
syllables as if the whole language had to be built up ex novo, for¬
getting that the language already is formed and that the child
already has been using it since the age of two, and that all the
difficulties which the mother tongue presents are provided for by
an act of nature.
Let us note the advantages of the method described.
The letters of the alphabet act on the spoken language^
instigating almost mechanically the analysis of the spoken word.
It is the spoken word which is thrown into relief in the
analysis of the sounds of which it is composed.
Once this association of signs with sounds is established,
it is possible to reconstruct with the alphabet all the words
which exist in the mind of the child and those which he hears
pronounced.
Then, after merely having the trouble of associating signs with
sounds, all spoken language can be composed with graphic signs,
and suddenly ends in provoking the outburst of writing.
 THE SPEECH OF THE CHILD 315

Alphabetic signs, as a matter of fact, are few in number; in

the Italian language only 24 are distinguished. With the 24 letters
all the words are formed; those which even a big dictionary is not
enough to include.
Every word, whatever it may be, is always composed of one
or more of these 24 sound-families.
If these are learnt by associating them with the 24 letters of
the alphabet which represent them, then the whole language can
be translated graphically, and the children, taking the letters relating
to the sounds, are able to compose all possible words in a phonetic
language like Italian.
A word demands the same effort, whether it be long or short.
The supposed syllabic difficulties which are taught commonly, as
in a systematic progression are always reduced to translating
sounds into signs, to recognizing the signs relating to the sounds.
To compose a simple word like ''pipa,” and to compose
a difficult word like “ stra-da ” is really the same thing, because
the two words already exist formed in the mother tongue. The
key is that the child has succeeded in recognizing the sounds com¬
posing the words, so that he has made an analysis of the sounds
which compose the words. If the child has succeeded in recog¬
nizing the sounds contained in the syllable “ stra,” and hears these
sounds separately—“ s-t-r-a,’’ he will be able to compose the
written word.
Hence there exists only one real difficulty, one single thing to
do, one which is wholly internal—the mental analysis of sounds.
As for reproducing with the hand the design of the letters off
the alphabet, even in this, our method cancels all those artificial
difficulties which are taught in a supposed necessity for a progres¬
sive system. For example, f, o, are considered much easier than
others, but the child who has exercised in a general manner his
hand, which has been employed in all his sense exercises, and which
has then specifically been exercised in tracing the letters and making
so many geometrical drawing (of which, hereafter) has no difficulty
either with the single letters or with combinations of them in the
316 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

words whicli interest suggests to him and which he is keen to fix

by means of graphic language. He breaks out into writing, writing
■at once whole sentences and not only words detached one fioiii the
■Other.

Defects in Language due to the Lack of Education

Defects and imperfections in speech are derived in part from

organic causes consisting of malformations, or pathological altera¬
tions of the nervous system; but they are partly connected with
functional defects acquired during the period when speech is deve¬
loping, and they consist of a wrong pronunciation of the sounds
composing the spoken word. Such errors are picked up by the
child when he hears the word pronounced badly, or hears imperfect
speech. Dialect defects come under this heading, but there also
■enter into it bad habits, which are responsible for the persistence
in the child of defects natural to infantile speech. Again, the
child imitates the faulty speech of the people who surround him
in early childhood.
The normal defects of childish speech are to be traced to the
fact that the complicated muscular apparatus of the organs of
•speech is not yet functioning properly, hence it is not able to
reproduce the sound which was the sense-stimulus of this internal
movement. The association of the movements necessary for the
articulation of the spoken word is established gradually. This
results in a speech in which sounds are imperfect and often left
• out (hence incomplete words). These defects are grouped together
under the term blaesitas,^ and are mainly due to the fact that the
child cannot yet control the movements of the tongue. They
comprise principally: sigmatism, or the imperfect pronunciation
of the letter S; rhoticism, or excessive use of R; lambadism, or
defective pronunciation of L; gammacism, wrong pronunciation of
'<j; iotacism, imperfect pronunciation of the gutterals; mogilalia,
imperfect pronunciation of the labials; according to some authors,
^ Defective speech.
 THE SPEECH OF THE CHILD 317

like Preyer, the suppression of the first sound of the word ought
also to be included in mogilalia.
Some of the defects of pronunciation which concern the pro¬
duction of vowel sounds, like those of consonants, arise because
the child reproduces perfectly sounds which have been heard in
imperfect pronunciation.
In the first case we have functional inefi&ciency of the peri¬
pheral motor organ, and as a result, of the nerve tracts, when the
cause is located in the individual. In the second case, the error
is traced to the auditory stimulus, and the cause is located in the
environment.
Such defects often persist, though in less marked degree, in
the youth and the adult. They produce a definitely faulty lan¬
guage and also errors in spelling, like the wrong speUing of
dialects.
When one thinks of the fascination of human speech, one
realizes the inferiority of anyone who does not speak correctly,
and one cannot picture an aesthetic conception of education which
does not bestow special care on perfecting spoken language-
Although the Greeks passed on to Rome the art of cultivating
fine language. Humanism did not revive this practice, but devoted
more attention to the aesthetics of the environment and the
restoration of works of art than to the improvement of man.
Today there has been introduced the practice of correcting,
by methods of teaching, the grave defects of speech like stammer¬
ing, but there has not yet penetrated into our schools the idea of
the gymnastics of language which tend to improve it, making them
part of a universal method and treating them as a detail of the great
work of the aesthetic improvement of man.
Some teachers of deaf-mutes and some intelligent seekers after
correct speech are attempting today, with but slight practical
success, to introduce into the elementary schools the correction
of various forms of defective speech, influenced by statistical
studies which show the wide prevalence of such defects among
pupils. The exercises consist essentially in cures by silence, which
 318 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

will bring quiet and rest to the organs of speech. To these are
added the patient repetition of single vowel sounds and consonants-
breathing exercises form another part of the treatment. This is
not the place to describe in detail the way in which these exercises
are carried out; they are long and tedious and outside the range
of school teaching. But in my methods all the exercises for
the correction of speech have a place.
(a) The exercises in silence prepare the nerve tracts of speech
to receive new stimuli in a perfect manner.
(b) The lesson stages secure first of all clear, detached pro¬
nunciation by the mistress of a few words (and specially of names
which it is desired to connect with concrete objects or ideas); in
this way there are set up clear and perfect auditory stimuli of
language; these stimuli are repeated by the teacher when the child
has added the idea of the object which the word represents (recog¬
nition of object) to the enunciation of the name. Further, there is
involved the exciting of speech in the child, who must repeat that
single word aloud and pronounce the separate sounds of which
it is composed.
(c) The exercises in written language analyse the sounds of
the word and get them repeated separately in many ways; this is
done when the child is learning the separate letters of the alphabet,
■and when he is composing and writing words, repeating the
sounds of them, which in each case leads to the composed or
written word.
I believe that in the schools of the future there will disappear
the idea which is coming into existence today of correcting faults
of speech in the elementary schools, and that there will be sub¬
stituted another more rational idea of avoiding them, by caring
for the development of speech in the Children’s Houses, at the
age in which speech is establishing itself in children.
^ ^ ^

The process described above was confirmed so frequently in

the innumerable schools which have arisen that the following
conclusions may be stated :
 THE SPEECH OF THE CHILD 319

The age which is most favourable for the development of

written language is that of childhood, about the age of four, when
there are in active operation the natural processes concerned in
the development of spoken language, that is, during the sensitive
period (v. Secret of Childhood) in which speech is developed
and established naturally. It is the sensitiveness of the develop¬
ment from which arises the enthusiasm about the alphabet and
which fixes spontaneously the phonetic analysis of the word into its
component sounds. Later (six to seven years of age), his creative
period being ended, there is no longer the same natural interest
in these analyses, either of the spoken word or of the written (the
alphabet). It is this which is responsible for the amazing fact
that small children make better and more rapid progress than
older children; instead of growing bored and tired like the latter,
they display an inexhaustible activity which seems to strengthen
them.
Besides the confirmation of this surprising fact which is related
to the special psychology of childhood, other discoveries have led
to interesting modifications in the application of the method which
also must be referred to psychology.
The conclusion of this lengthy analysis is that written language
in its mechanisms can be directly associated with spoken language,
and almost derive from it as another form of expression. This is
the case during the very period when, by nature, spoken language
is established, i.e. during the sensitive period. Written language
then becomes an exterior means to direct and perfect spoken lan¬
guage and to purify it from all its defects and errors. Written
language thus becomes a means to educate spoken language.
Thus the dictorium, language that expresses thought, the work
of intelligence, finds at its disposal two mechanisms which integrate
each other; that of the spoken word and that of the written word.
The experience related above had its final result when the
children read long sentences conveying an action to be fulfilled.
Hence it was easy to pass on to the reading of books as soon as
the children were capable of understanding them (5-6 years of age).
320 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Afterwards, however, great progress was made. These later

experiences almost confine those amazing miracles of children of
4 years of age who exploded into writing, to a surpassed epoch.
The progress of the children has become even more precocious,
the methods more quick and efficient in their success, the interest
of the children is even intenser than before.
If one were to affirm all of a sudden that children under two
years old are able to recognize more than twenty letters of the
alphabet, and possess from 500 to 600 words, that at three years
of age they begin to study grammar and to read, one would give
an impression of utter unreality (it would seem a miracle). It
would create the same stir and would draw the same attention as
that which struck the learned world forty years ago when the
children of San Lorenzo presented a new phenomenon.
A new book is certainly necessary to describe these subse¬
quent achievements; here, however, we wish merely to mention
them. Our attention was drawn to younger children, i.e. children
from birth to tliree years of age. It is precisely in that epoch that
the spoken language is naturally developed, it makes its first appear¬
ance at about two years of age. Spoken language follows certain
rules in its development and the subsequent acquisitions are made
in what could be called a ‘ grammatical ’ order. This has been
observed and recorded for the first time by Stern and subsequently
by various other people interested in psychological observation.
The child begins to know nouns which refer to objects, and
then words that refer to their qualities (adjectives), lastly preposi¬
tions (concerning the relative position of the objects) and conjunc¬
tions (which represent the conjunction of the objects). Briefly,
there is in the first development a representation of things in the
environment. It is a curious fact, however, that a few months
before the age of two years words come out of the child as in an
explosion of spoken language; and verbs, the exact forms of nouns
and adjectives with their prefixes and suffixes; and finally the dis¬
tinction (and conjugation) of verbal forms regarding the present,
past and future tense, and pronouns are used.
 THE SPEECH OF THE CHILD 321

After the age of two syntaxis is established, the construction

of sentences and their mutual dependence.
In thus observing the development of language a real ‘ gram»
matical analysis’ is made. In fact, if one did not speak
grammatically, it would not be possible to express thought in any
language.
It is worthwhile mentioning that the only language anyone,,
educated or not, possesses perfectly as far as the sounds and the
grammatical construction is concerned is the so-called ‘ mother-
tongue The child therefore not only acquires the spoken
language, but he acquires it in a special way, because only
thus that language becomes a ‘personal characteristic,’ hence a.
‘ characteristic of the race It h fixed in the human individual.
When we studied and meditated upon this marvellous creative
phenomenon, we recognized in the little child a mental form,
different from ours, which we called: ‘ absorbent mind ’.
The natural development of language in the child suggests
the idea that in order to help this development in education we must
proceed according to a grammatical scheme. And just as the
mechanisms of written language had given help to and integrated
spoken language in the first period of our experiment, so alsa
written language in a grammatical form and succession, by means
of objects, games and written words, can help a superior spoken
language: the language of the dictorium, i.e. the expression of
ideas.
The success of this second attempt surpassed by far the first..
Although the methods used in the beginning have been retained
fundamentally, there is this difference: the words of spoken lan¬
guage are no longer important only because they can be reproduced
in written language, they are important too on account of their
grammatical meaning. Thus also the union between words not
only helps to ‘ translate into writing ’ what one would say in
speaking, it leads at once to the discovery of ‘ sentences full of
meaning ’ which are developed by and by on the lines of gram¬
matical construction.
21
322 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

This second period of our experiments has a history much

more important and surprising than that of the first period.
One of the practical sides of this new development lies in the
facilitation, almost the complete revolution, of the problem of
learning to write in a non-phonetic language. Here, in fact, the
intuition of the child plays a part, being stimulated by his creative
power. Thus, whilst in the first period we witnessed the pheno¬
menon of children intuitively reading words written in printed or
even gothic type, without any formal teaching, so here by means
of intuition they read non-phonetic words (belonging to their own
mother tongue) simply by using objects and attractive games. It
is, after ail, a spontaneous effort urged on by interest, something
analogous to what urged modern scientists to interpret unknown
inscriptions on prehistoric monuments.
The passionate interest of the children should be interpreted
as the interest provoked by a ‘ discovery ’ of those conquests,
which they had made unconsciously during the first years of
their life.
Let us give some practical illustration of grammatical grouping
of words.
The substantives taken alone and read do not represent natural
language, because one never says only, Seat,” or Flower,”
but at least “the seat, the flower,” etc.; that is, the article is
always used along with the noun. In the same way there is often
attached to the noun an adjective to indicate objects of the same
kind; for example, we say, “the red flower, the yellow flower,
the round table, the large table,” and so on. And adjectives
possess a very distinct significance for our children, who, in their
sense-exercises, become acquainted through the senses with the
sensations of qualities, learning in an exact manner the distinguish¬
ing terms—thick, thin, small, great, dark blue colour, light blue, etc.
It is evident that at this period the child is doing the mental work
•of making himself conscious of the facts acquired by him uncon¬
sciously, and is extending and fixing them. This natural tendency
was wen illustrated by our successive attempts, and Signor Mario
 THE SPEECH OF THE CHILD , , 323",

M. Montessori was the biiilder of a magnificeat constraction^ and

in about twenty years of observations, has given us such a'-picture
of the intellectual possibilities of the child that one might speak
of it as a real educational monument.
There is no doubt that the child absorbs an enormous number
of impressions from his environment, and external help given to
this natural instinct rouses, the greatest enthusiasm in him. With
this, education gives real aid to natural mental development.
Although as already mentioned it is impossible to give here
particulars of a colossal work which would need several volumes
for its description in such a way as to make it of general use,^ it is
useful to state that written language leads not only to knowledge
■of grammar and of syntax at an apparently abnormally early age,
but that there may also be made of this language, which delights
the child so much, a vehicle of general education.
In the first period of our work, with which this volume is
concerned, one sees how the mistress has to busy herself with
finding more and more new names, in order to satisfy the insatiable
requests of the children. This insatiability which education has
revealed through the medium of written language, is certainly one
which exists in nature, which spontaneously enlarges the voca¬
bulary from 300 to 3,000 or more words in the period of three to
five years of age, as has been ascertained by psychologists, who,
however, have confined themselves to observing, counting and
setting out the developments which have taken place, and not to
point out the way in which to assist this natural development.
Still another fact has been demonstrated by our methods,
which have shown themselves to be the means of gaining psychologi¬
cal information. It is that children are even interested in foreign
words, and remember them in a surprising way during all the time

^ Indeed, every subject requires a book to itself. There have already been
printed in Spanish two volumes: Psycho-Arithmetic and Psycho-Geometry,
Two others are in course of preparation: Psycho-Grammar, and a volume
Illustrating and explaining all the educational apparatus for the up of tephers
who are preparing for practical work: The Apparatus Book by Maria M.
Montessori. ■ . . •
324 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

employed in reproducing them with the movable alphabet. This

reveals the fact that during the sensitive period (from three to five
years) the child tends to accumulate words even when he does not
understand them.
In fact, all words will be new until the child has understood
them, and understanding them is just the conscious act which leads
to clarifying, determining and conserving.
If there exist then these two natural facts—the tendency to
accumulate words and the fact that the word may be acquired
apart from its signification—it follows as a consequence that we
may ask the question of why there should be given so many words
confusedly mixed together by a mistress depending on her memory,
and why, instead, there should not be utilized this period in the
life of the child, first of all to introduce order among the words,
and secondly to introduce some scientific terms.
This work, which has been full of surprises, has also been
undertaken methodically by Mario M. Montessori. Instead of
employing boxes of words of all kinds chosen by chance, we use
sets of names referring to one special group of things, e.g. the five
classes of vertebrates, animals placed in their groups, leaves,
flowers, roots, etc. Illustrative figures then become interesting,
because they give a meaning to new words. Not only pictures,
but living things, the children’s research into Nature, and so on,
are utilized.
The success was so great that it has been possible to evolve
a form of scientific instruction suited to the intellectual level of
the children with unexpected success. It had to be consider¬
ably extended beyond the limits which were planned at the begin¬
ning of the exercise. The surprising result has been that the
children like and remember the classifications, which confirms the
idea that it is natural to collect words, and also the need for having
a mental order based on the sense of the words. Thus there are
two extremes in all these exercises; one is inward: grammar which
prepares the order in which words ought to be arranged in order
to express thought and therefore to construct language; the other
A group of children absorbed in experiments in physics. The “ reading-slips " and " commands ” of the langiuige apparatus
initiate them in simple experiments and technical terminology. Montes.sori School, Gwalior, India.
 THE SPEECH OF THE CHILD 325

is the need for an order according to which external impressions

may be classified.
This experiment has gone far beyond our estimations, and
today children learn, having language as a guide, a great deal of
precise knowledge about biology, geography and astronomy-
knowledge which becomes elements sown in a fertile field like the
mind of the child which develops of its own accord, through the
promptings of nature and which urges the children onwards
towards knowledge of the world.
Anyone who regards only from the psychological point of
view these pure manifestations of natural development, as is usually
done by those men of science who are called psychologists, will
possibly discover that children five years old have a wide acquaint¬
ance with the outside world and recognize the new objects of
civilization and their names, in a way which might almost seem
mysterious. For example, they recognize the different makes of
automobiles and know their names; their mothers cannot do that.
Astounded by similar facts. Stern concludes; “For thousands
of years the clfild has been passing like an unknown being in the
midst of humanity; and yet he possesses mental instincts which
make us recognize him as a bond between successive generations
in the development of civilization.”
c H A P T E R XIX

THE TEACHING OF NUMERATION AND

THE APPROACH TO ARITHMETIC

The first material which is used for numbers is the series of ten
rods used for lengths, a'ready part of the education of the senses;
the rods are graduated in length from one to ten. The shortest
rod is 10 cms long, the second 20 cnis, and so on, up to the tenth
which is 10 cms, or one metre. When they are to be used in teach¬
ing number, the rods are no longer all of the same colour, as when
they are used as sense-material intended to make the eye estimate
graduated lengths. Here, the various segments of 10 cms are
coloured alternately in red and blue, and can therefore be
distinguished and counted on every rod. If the first of them
represents the quantity 1, the others represent successively the
quantities 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. The advantage of this material
is that it is possible to present united together, though distinct
and countable, the units composing each of the numbers which
they represent. The stick of 5, for instance, is a whole piece which
corresponds to the number 5, but by means of the colours the five
units are distinguished. By this means one overcomes a very great
difficulty, that involved in the numbering which is done in adding
separately one unit after the other. If they are used for counting
any small objects, such as small equal cubes, why, in setting up
 THE TEACHING OF NUMERATION 327

the first, should we say one, and on adding another, two, and so
on? The little child tends to say one about every new object which
is added—‘‘ One, one, one, one, one,” rather than “ One, two,
three, four, five.”
The fact that with the addition of a new unit the group is
enlarged, and that there must be considered this increasing whole
which constitutes the real obstacle is met with in numeration,
when it concerns children of three and a half to four years of age.
The grouping together into one whole of units which are really
separate from one another is a mental operation beyond the child’s
powers. Many small children can count, reciting from memory,
the natural series of numbers, but they are confused when dealing
with the quantities corresponding to them. Counting the fingers,
the hands and the feet certainly forms something more concrete
for the child, because he can always find the same objects,
invariably joined together as a definite quantity. He will always
know that he has two hands and two feet.
Rarely, however, will he be able to count with certainty the
fingers of one hand and when he does succeed, the difficulty is
to know why, if the hand has five fingers, he should have to say
about the same object—One, two, three, four, five.” This con¬
fusion, which the rather more mature mind corrects, interferes
with numeration in the earlier years. The extreme exactness and
concreteness of the child’s mind needs help which is precise and
clear. When numerical rods are in use we find out that the very
smallest children take the keenest interest in numbers.
The rods correspond to the numbers and increase in length
gradually, unit by unit, hence they give not only the absolute but
also the relative idea of number. The proportions have already
been studied in the sense-exercise; here they are determined mathe¬
matically, constituting the first studies in arithmetic. These num¬
bers, which can be handled and compared, lend themselves at
once to combinations and comparisons. For example, by placing
together the rod of one unit and that of two, there is produced a
length equal to that of the rod of three. From the union of rods
328 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

of three and two, there results a length equal to the rod of five.
The most interesting exercise consists in placing one alongside the
other rods of successive lengths, as the whole series was arranged
during the sense-exercises. The result is something resembling
organ pipes in which the red and blue colours correspond, forming
beautiful transverse stripes. By placing the rod of one on that of
nine (that is, the rod farthest from the ten upon that nearest the
ten), and repeating this with the two-rod on the eight, the three-rod
on the seven, and the four on the six, there are built up lengths
all equal to the ten-rod. What is this moving and combination
of quantities if it is not the beginning of arithmetical operations?
It is at the same time a delightful game to move objects about in
this way, and the intelligence, instead of making a useless effort
to conceive of the groups of separate units as total quantities
representing one number, devotes its fresh energy to a higher
exercise, which is that of estimating and adding together quantities.
The obstacle having been removed, all the mental energy of the
child is utilized, and the progress of learning advances to the
extreme .limits which age permits. When the child has begun to
read and write it is quite easy for him to learn the figures which
represent numbers. We give cards bearing the numbers in sand¬
paper at the same time as the alphabet, and the children trace the
signs in order to learn how to write them and to learn their names.
Every card when known is placed on the rod of the corresponding
quantity. The union of the written figures with the quantities
forms an exercise analogous to that of placing the card with the
name on the corresponding objects. And when this is accom¬
plished there is laid down a base for a long task which the child
can continue alone. The sums of the rods can be written to
agree with the figures placed beside the objects and children
of five years of age sometimes fill whole copybooks with their
little sums.
Although the rods constitute the principal aid to the child in
beginning arithmetic, two other objects form part of the first
material for the subject. One of these leads to the numbering of
 THE TEACHING OF NUMERATION 329

separate units, and initiates the child’s mind into the idea of
numerical groups, at the same time fixing before his eyes the suc¬
cession of the signs 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. This material, called
the tray. of spindles, is divided into compartments each named with
one of the ten figures, arranged in sequence. Within these com¬
partments, the child accumulates in group separate objects
corresponding to the figures; that is, he groups the units. In our
case these objects are represented by long, spindle-shaped sticks.
The other material which has been mentioned consists of a
group of cards in a box containing certain objects (coloured
markers); the cards are separate (mixed) and on them are written
the ten numbers from zero to nine. The child must first of
all arrange the cards in a row, by himself, showing by this that he
has learned the numerical series, and recognizes the figures which
represent the numbers. Under each figure he then places an appro¬
priate quantity of markers, arranging them two by two, that is
one pair under the other; in this way there is made plain the
difference between odd and even numbers.
This is all the material which we have considered necessary
for laying the foundations of number-teaching and some arith¬
metical operations.
What follows here is a more detailed description wliich may
be of practical assistance to the teacher.
The rods having been arranged together in juxtaposition ac¬
cording to length, the red and blue marks have to be counted,
beginning with the smallest piece, that is: one; one and two; one,
two and three, etc. always beginning again with the one for every
piece, commencing from side A, After that, the separate rods have
to be named from the shortest to the longest, according to the
number of sections which they contain, touching the extremities
of them with the finger, starting from the side B where they go
up in staircase style; there results from this the numbering of the
longest piece: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. This correspondence
of the 10 on the three sides is verified by the child, who repeats the
exercise many times of his own accord because it interests him.
330 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Now to the sense exercises of recognizing the longer and

shorter pieces, there are added those of numeration. The pieces
having been placed on the ground or mixed up on a table, the
teacher simply shows one of them to the child and counts its
segments, e.g. five. Then she says to the child; “ Give me a
longer one.” The child chooses by sight, and the teacher verifies
if he has guessed rather than judged by comparing the lengths
and counting the sections. Such exercises may be repeated many
times. Every piece in the set is now given a name of its own by
which it will be known henceforth: the piece of one, of two, of
three, of four, etc.; finally, for shortness, they are spoken of as
they are being handled as “the one, the two, the three, the
four”, etc.

Numbers and the Written Symbols which

Represent Them

At this point, if the child can write already, he is presented

with the sandpaper numbers, which are used in the same way as
all the other objects presented, that is, in the well-known stages:
“This is one;” “This is two;” “Give me one;” “Give me
two; ” “ Which number is this? ” The numbers have to be traced
in the same way as the letters.

Exercises ON Numbers; Association of the WRiTxiiN

Sign with the Quantity

I have made two cases for counting. Each includes a

horizontal tray, divided into five parts by small upright partitions,
within each of which compartments small objects may be deposited;
a second, a vertical board is attached to the first at right angles
and is also divided into five parts by lines drawn vertically, a figure
being placed within each space. In the first case are the figures
0, 1, 2, 3, 4; and in the second 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
The exercise is obvious. It consists in placing within the en¬
closure of the horizontal plane a number of objects corresponding
 THE TEACHING OF NUMERATION 33r

to the mimber drawn on the vertical plane. A variety of smal:

objects, are given to the child to make a change in the exercise.
I use small spindles which I have made on purpose, FroebeFs.
cubes, and the discs which are used in the game of draughts. A
group of objects having been placed beside the child, he has to
put them in position; for example, one disc corresponding to 1,.
two discs to 2, etc. When he thinks he has finished it correctly
he asks the teacher to come and verify it.

Lessons on Zero

Let us wait till the time comes when the child, pointing to-'
the Zero compartments, asks: “What must I put in here?'' and
then answer, “ Nothing, zero is nothing
But that is not enough; they must feel what nothing is. For
this purpose we employ exercises which amuse the children
immensely. I place myself in the midst of them as they sit around
in their little chairs; I turn to one who has already performed the
counting exercise and say to him: “ Come, dear, come to me zem^
times.” The child ahnost always runs to me and then returns to
his plape. “ But, my child, you have come once, and I said zero
times.” He begins to wonder. “ But what ought I to do then? ”
“ Nothing, zero is nothing.” “ But how do I do nothing? ” “ Do
notliing; you must stay where you are, you must not move, you
must not come any times; zero means no times.”
We repeat the exercise. “ You, dear, throw me zero kisses
with your finger-tips.” “ The baby gives himself little shake,
laughs and stays where he is. “ Have you understood,” I repeat
in an ahnost passionate tone of voice. “ Send me zero kisses,
zero kisses.” A pause. General laughter. I make my voice
harsh as if I were angry about their laughter, and I ask one very
severely, “You come here zero times, come here zero times at
once, do you understand? I am saying to you "Come here zero
times’.” He does not move. The laughter grows more bois¬
terous, excited all the more by my change of manner, first of begging,.
332 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

then of threatening. Then I groan in a pitiful, tearful voice:

“But why do you not kiss me, why do you not come?” And
every voice is raised in a shout, whilst the shining eyes are almost
weeping with delight and laughter: “ Zero is nothing, zero is
nothing!” “Ah! yes,” I say, smiling peacefully, “then all come
here at once.” They throw themselves on me.

Exercises on the Memory for Numbers

When the children know the written numbers and their

numerical meaning, I make them do the following exercise.
I have various slips of paper on each of which is printed, or
even written by hand, a number, from 0 to 9. (I often make use
of the slips from block calendars, cutting off the upper and lower
margins on which words are printed, and choosing, if possible,
red numbers.) I fold the slips, put them into a box, and have a
draw made. The child takes out a slip, carries it to his place,
looks at it stealthily, folds it again to hide the secret. Then, one
By one, or even in groups, the children possessing tickets (they
-are naturally the oldest, those who can read the figures), come up to
the teacher’s big table where objects are heaped together in piles—
RTTiall cubes, Froebel’s bricks, my tables for exercises in the baric
sense; each one takes the quantity of objects which correspond
to the number drawn. The number itself has remained at the
child’s place, the slip folded up as holding a mystery. The child,
Therefore, has to remember his number, not only during the time
when he is moving among his companions to come to the table,
but also whilst he is collecting his pieces, counting them one by
■one. The teacher has an opportunity for making interesting
individual observations on the memory for numbers.
When the child has collected up his pieces, he places them
in double file on the bench at his place. If the number is uneven
he places at the bottom and half way between the last two,
the uneven piece. The arrangement of the nine numbers is
like this;
More advanced apparatus in arithmetic: number-frames, bead-frames and strip-boards
for addition and substraction and the coloured bead-bars disposed for the snake-game
 THE TEACHING OF NUMERATION 333^

o o o o o o o o
0
XX XX X X XX X X X X X X X X
X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X

X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X
X

The numbers are represented by crosses; in the place indicated

by the small circle the child must place the folded ticket. That
done, he waits for his work to be inspected. The teacher comes,
opens the paper, reads and utters exclamations of pleasure and
praise when she declares that there are no mistakes.
At the beginning of the game it often happens that the children
take more objects than are required to match the number; that is
not really because they do not remember the figure, but owing to
their craving to possess more things. It is a little instinctive weak¬
ness which is common to primitive and untaught man. The
teacher tries to explain to the children that it is useless to have too
many things on the table, and that the only beauty of the game-
lies in their guessing the exact number of the objects.
Little by little they grasp this idea, but not as easily as one
might imagine.
It is real exercise in self-control, one which keeps the child,
within prescribed limits; it makes him take, for example, only two
of the things which are piled up at his disposal whilst he sees some
of his companions taking more.
I therefore consider this game to be more of an exercise in
will-power than an exercise in numbers.
The child who draws zero does not move from his place, while
he sees all those others who possess tickets getting up, movmg
about, taking things freely from that far-away heap from which
he is debarred. Very often zero falls to a child who can count
readily, and who would also be delighted to put together a fine
group of objects and set them out in the required order on the
table, afterwards to wait with confident pride for the inspection.
334 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

It is very interestiag to study the expressions on the faces of

the possessors of the zero ; the individual differences which appear
form almost a revelation of the character of each individual. Some
remain impassive, proudly trying to hide the inward pain of dis¬
illusion; others show by their momentary gestures that they are
disappointed; others cannot hide the smile raised by the curious
situation which will awaken the curiosity of their companions; some
follow all the movements of their companions up till the end of
the exercise with plainly shown feelings of longing, almost of envy;
others show instant resignation.
Their attitude when they confess to zero is also interesting.
When one asks, during the inspection: “ And you, have you taken
nothing? ” “ I have the zero,” “ It is zero,” “ I had zero.” These
are the common replies in spoken language, but the expressive
.gestures, the tone of the voice, express very diverse feelings. Rare
are those who boldly seem to attribute the explanation to some
•extraordinary fact; most are irritated or resigned.
Some lessons on behaviour have to be given. “ Take care,
it is difficult to keep the secret of the zero; zero eludes you; be
very watchful not to let it be known that you have nothing.” After
a while, pride and dignity prevail, and the little ones become accus¬
tomed to receiving the zero and the small numbers without
disturbing themselves, satisfied if they no longer show the least
trace of the feelings which at first overpowered them.

Addition and Substraction from One to Twenty

Multiplication and Division

The material which I use for teaching operations in arithmetic

is the same as that already used for numeration, that is, rods
graduated in length which already embody the first ideas of the
decimal system.
The rods, as has been said, are called by the name of the
number which they represent—one, two, three, etc. They are
arranged according to length, that is to say in numerical order.
Three forms of early number-work; on top numerical rods,
spindle-boxes and counters. The boy below penetrates the
fascinating secrets of the decimal system enabling him to
compose numbers up to 2,000. Top: Montessori School,
Adyar, India, Photo by C. T. Nachiappan. Bottom:
Montessori Centre, Laren, N. H., Holland.
 THE TEACHING OF.'NUMERATION 335

The first exercise consists in trying to group together the piece

shorter than ten, in such a manner as to make up ten. The simplest
way of doing this is to take in succession the shortest rods, from
one upwards, and place them at the top of the rods successively
shorter from nine downwards. This work can be guided with
orders; take one and add it to nine, take two and add it to eight,
take three and add it to seven, take four and add it to six. Thus
there are made up four sticks all equal to ten. There remains
only the five, but when this is used twice lengthwise, it reaches
from one extremity to the other-of the ten; let us measure and we
will see that 10 results from twice five.
Such an exercise is repeated many times, and little by little, a
more technical language is taught to the child.
Nine plus one equals ten; eight plus two equals ten; seven
plus three equals ten; six plus four equals ten; and finally five
multiplied by two equals ten. The next step is to learn to write
the signs which stand for ‘ plus,’ ‘ equal to,’ and ‘ multiplied byh
Here is the result, written in the nice little exercise-books of our
little ones:

9 + 1 = 10
8+2=10
7+3=10
8+2=10
5X2=10

When all this is thoroughly learnt and fixed on paper to the

great satisfaction of the children, the attention is drawn to the work
necessary to be done in putting back into their places all the pieces
which have been grouped together to form tpns. From the last
piece of ten there is taken away the four and there remains alone
the six; from another ten three is taken away, leaving the seven;
from the other the two is removed, leaving the eight. We say more
briefly: ten minus four equals six, ten minus three equals seven,
ten minus two equals eight, ten minus one equals nine.
336 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

As for the remaining five, it is the half of ten, and if we had

cut the long piece into two equal parts that would be dividing ten
by two. In writing this would be:

10-4=6
10—3=7
10—2=8
10—1=9

10^2=5

Once the children have mastered these exercises they are multi¬
plied, also by the spontaneous work of the children. Can we make
two pieces into a three? Let us put the one on the two, and then
let us write in order to remember the completed exercise: 2-[-l=3.
Can a four be made from two pieces? 34-1=4; 4—3=1; and
4—1=3.
The piece of two bears the same relationship to four as the
five does to the ten; that is, when used twice over it goes from one
end to the other, it enters into it exactly twice: 4-^2=2; 2x2=4.
Take this problem. Let us see with how many pieces we can do
this game: the three does it with six, and the four with eight,
thus—

2x2=4; 3x2=6; 4x2=8; 5x2=10; and

10-i-2=5; 8-^-2=4; 6-^2=3; 44-2=2.
At this point help may be got from the small cubes used in
the game for memorizing numbers.

2 4 6 8 10
XXX X X X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X X X X X
X X X X X X
X X
 THE TEACHING OF NUMERATION 337

From the way in which they are arranged it is seen at a glance

which numbers can be divided by two; all those which have no
cube at the base. These are even numbers because they can be
set out in pairs, that is, two by two; and the division into two is
very easy because all that is needed is to separate the two hnes of
cubes which stand one under the other. Counting the cubes of
each row, one gets the quotient. In order to reconstruct the
original number it is enough to bring the two rows together again,
e.g. 2x3=6.
None of this is difficult for children of five years old.
Here again repetition soon induces monotony; why should
we not change the exercises? Let us take the series of the ten
lengths, and instead of putting the one on the nine, let us put it
on the ten; and the two on the nine instead of on the eight; and
the three on the eight instead of on the seven. We can also place
the two on the ten, the three on the nine, and the four on the eight.
In every case the result is a length greater than ten, which has to
be named—eleven, twelve, thirteen, etc. up to twenty. And why
should the cubes be utilized for these games only up nine, that is,
be so few?
The operations learnt on the ten are continued up to twenty
without any difficulty; the only difficulty is that of the tens of
units, for which several lessons are necessary.

Lessons on the Tens of Units

Arithmetical Calculations beyond Ten

The material necessary consists of various rectangular cards

on which is printed the 10 in figures'five or six cms. high, and other
rectangular cards equal in height and half in breadth of the first
and bearing the separate numbers 1 to 9. The simple numbers
are placed in a row—1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9. Then, as there are
more numbers, it is necessary to start again and to take up the
one again. This one resembles the piece which in the system of
lengths extends beyond the nine in the ten stick. Counting along
22
338 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

the staircase up to the nine, there being no more figures, there stiU
remains this last section which we again begin to mark with 1. But
it is a 1 placed higher, and in order to distinguish it from the
other we put near it a sign which has no value—the zero. Thus
we have 10. Covering the zero with the separate rectangular
numbers, in the order of their succession, there are formed:
11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, IV, 18, 19- These numbers are made up
with the rods, putting in succession on the piece of ten that of one,
and then again that of two; then three as a substitute until there is
reached the piece of nine added to that of ten, in doing which we
obtain a very long rod. Counting the alternate blue and red
segments, nineteen is arrived at.
The teacher may then direct the movements of the system ot
length showing the cards of the ten and of the figure placed over
the zero e.g. 16; the child adds to the piece of ten that of six.
The teacher takes from the ten card the 6, and places over the
zero the rectangle which bears e.g. the number eight, giving 18,
the child takes away the rod of the six and places that of the 8.
Every one of such exercises can
10 10 then be written out, e.g. 10+6=16;
10+8=18, etc. The procedure would be
10 11
the same for subtraction.
12 When the number itself begins to
10
have a clear meaning for the child, the
13
10 combinations are made with the cards
14 alone, placing in various ways the rect¬
10 A
angles which bear the nine figures on
15
the two columns of numerals, which are
10
16 drawn on long cards, as in the figures
10 A and B.
17
In card A there is placed over the
10 18 zero of the second 10 the rectangle with
1; and underneath, that with 2, etc.;
10 19
whilst in the left column there remains
 THE TEACHING OF NUMERATION 339

the 1 of the ten, in that of the right there follow all

the figures from zero to nine.

In card B the operations are more complex. The

cards bearing the figures are successively superposed and
substituted in order of numerical progression on each
‘ ten After the nine, it is necessary to pass to the
succeeding ten, and so one goes on to the end which is
given at the 100»

Almost ah our chiidreii count up to 100, a number

which was given to them as a reward for the curiosity
which they showed about it.

I do not think that such teaching requires further

illustrations.
C H A P T E R XX

LATER DEVELOPMENTS IN ARITHMETIC

Counting up to 100 and the exercises connected therewith, which

unite simple reckoning with a rational study of the first numbers,
seemed to us an important matter, especially because the elements
of reasoned arithmetic were given instead of numeration being,
entrusted to the memory and to a mnemonic repetition.
For more than twenty years these remained the limits of the
development of the teaching.
1 held, like everybody else, the prejudice that arithmetic pre¬
sents great difficulty and that it was almost absurd to expect more
than the result already obtained at so early an age.
Experience in fact demonstrated a lack of interest when
compared with the enthusiasm and the surprising results obtained
with written language. The superiority of interest in language
apparently confirmed the prejudice about the difficulty and the
dryness of arithmetic.
Meanwhile I had prepared for the older children in the elemen¬
tary schools (where from the beginning the attempt was made to
extend a method which had given such excellent results) material
to represent the numbers under geometrical forms and with movable
objects which would allow of combinations of the numbers beinj
 LATER DEVELOPMENTS IN ARITHMETIC 341

made. It is the splendid material to which is given the name of

material of the beads”. In it are represented the numbers in
their natuial series from 1 to 10 with rods composed of beads
of coloured glass; every number has a different colour. The
number of these objects was so large that the numbers could be
combined into groups. The 10 was repeated ten times, uniting
ten rods in the form of a square, making the square of 10, com¬
posed of a hundred beds. Finally, ten squares superposed and
bound together form a cube (the cube of 10, that is 1,000). This
mateiial is described in the book on advanced method for education
in the elementary schools. {The Advanced Montessori Method, IL)
Now it happened that some children of about four years old
were attracted to those things which were so brilliant, so easily
handled and moved about, and to our great surprise, they began
to use them as they had seen the older children doing.
The consequence was a development so enthusiastic about the
work with numbers and specially about the decimal system that
it is true to say that arithmetic became one of the favourite
exercises.
Children four years old composed numbers up' to 1,000. And
later, from five to six years, the development became really
wonderful, so much so that today the six years old children can
perform the four operations on numbers with many thousands
of units.
Signor Mario M. Montessori has helped with this develop¬
ment, interpreting and materializing many calculations up to the
extraction of the square root of two, three and even four figures;
and the combination of the number-rods has made it possible to
introduce the first operations in algebra.
Urged by the evident pleasure which the children took in these
exercises, and by the skill which they possessed for manipulating
the small geometrical solids (as Froebel also understood when he
prepared his famous “gifts” of cubes and prisms collected in a
eubical box), I thought of preparing similar objects. Only, instead
•of making all the cubes or all the bricks alike, I caused a large
342 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

wooden cube (about 10 cms. edge) to be divided according to the

divisions of the face into two unequal parts, then another into
three unequal parts; and by separating the parts according to these
divisions there resulted small cubes and rectangular prisms of
varied forms. This was the material representation of algebraic
expressions, the cube of a binomial and a trinomial. The solids
which were equal in decimal value had the same colour, and
groups of similar objects had different colours.
So on opening the box there was seen only one object, a cube
painted in many colours, its individual components ahgned and
deposed separately in groups; for example, in the trinomial there
were three cubes of different dimensions and of three diverse
colours; similar prisms with a square face of one colour, e.g.
green- three other prisms also having a square face, but of different
shape! coloured perhaps yeUow; and three other prisms with a
square face, different from the other two groups, coloured perhaps
blue; and finally six prisms all alike and with the faces rectangular,
coloured black. The rectangular faces of the three groups of
prisms mentioned are also black. These small coloured objects are
fascinating, and it is a question first of all of grouping them together
according to colour; then of disposing them of in various ways and
inventing a kind of story, in which three cubes are three kings,
each king having followers as high respectively as the other two
kings, the guards being black. From the use of this material
many results can be got; one is the order of the algebraic formula;

a«+3a2b+3a2c+b»+3b%+3b2c+c®+3c2a+3c%+6abc.

Finally the cubes are placed in the box in a certain order

and there is constructed the large cube of many colours; (a+b+c)*.
Playing with this material, there is formed the visual image of
the arrangement of the objects and therefore the memory of their
quantity and their order.
This is a sense preparation of the naind. No object is more
attractive to children of four years old. But later on, calling the
Two activities with the apparatus for arithmetics. The child
on top composes the numbers between 10 and 100. Only
genuine interest provokes such exact and graceful movements
which, in their turn, assist the intelligence and make concen¬
tration possible. The boy below makes his own “ tables of
multiplication”. Top: Photo by Mrs. V. A. Baker in
an English Montessori School. Bottom: Amsterdamsche
Montessori School, Holland. ' .. ‘
 LATER DEVELOPMENTS IN ARITHMETIC 343

kings by the names a, b, c and writing the names of the separate

pieces according to their dependence each on his own king, it
happens that children, five years old and certainly those of six,
store up in their minds the algebraic formula of the cube of a
trinomial without looking at the material, because there is fixed
the visual memory of the disposition of the various objects. This
gives some idea of the possibilities that could be attained in practice.
AU the teaching in arithmetic and in those principles of
algebra in the form of reading and other memorizing cards and
other material lead to results which might seem to be fabulous,
and which show that the teaching of arithmetic ought to be com¬
pletely transformed, starting from a sense preparation of the mind
based on concrete knowledge.
It is clear that these children, six years old, on entering one
of the ordinary schools, where they begin to count 1, 2, 3, are now
out of place, and that a radical reform of the elementary schools
is essential if there is to continue this wonderful development of
education.
But, beyond the active method, in which there is always
operating the movement of the hand which moves objects about,
and in which the senses are so energetically employed, one must
think of the special attitudes of the child mind towards mathe¬
matics. Because the children, leaving the material, very easily
come to love writing out the operation, thus doing abstract mental
work and acquiring a kind of natural and spontaneous leaning
towards mental calculations.
For example, a child, when he left a London bus along with
his mother, said: “If everybody had spat, £34 would have been
collected.” The child had noticed a card which said that spitting
in the car carried a penalty of a certain number of shillings. Then
the child had passed the time in calculating mentally the amount
involved and in turning the shillings into pounds.
chap ter XXI

DRAWING AND REPRESENTATIVE ART

The exercises which we have described as drawing were really an

education of the hand intended to prepare it for writing. They
were determined as an element in that complex preparation leading
the smaU hand of the child, still uncertain in its motor co-ordina¬
tions, to execute that minute form of drawing known as writing.
These elements, or factors, which are separated from one another
(as we have seen from the movements leading up to writing) in order
that they may move towards a synthesis which, in the case of
writing, is one of the most characteristically “ explosive,” some¬
times become an element which may be made to combine with
other different syntheses. Thus this particular drawing which we
have described becomes also an artistic element, a co-efficient of
drawing proper. It is, therefore, neither drawing nor writing, but
is a starting point for both.
Today one hears a good deal about ‘free’ drawing, and for
many people it is a matter of surprise that I have set up such rigid
restrictions for drawing for the children, who are obliged to
compose geometrical figures and then fiU them in while holding
their pencfis in a special way, or who are limited to filling in with
coloured pencils figures already drawn. I therefore feel obliged to
 DRAWING AND REPRESENTATIVE ART 345

-emphasize the point, in order that I may be clearly iinderstood,

that the proceedings which I describe form only one of the factors
ill the analysis of writing.
We have stated that our children do not produce of their own
accord, which is left free, those dreadful drawings which are dis¬
played and lauded in modern schools of advanced ideas. They,
however, draw ornaments and figures which are much clearer and
more harmonious than those strange daubs of the so-called free
drawing,” where the child has to explain what he intends to
represent by his incomprehensible attempts. We do not give
lessons in drawing or in modelling, and yet many children are
able to draw flowers, birds, scenes and even imaginary sketches
in an admirable manner. Very frequently it is noticed that our
children adorn with drawings even their pages of writing and
arithmetic, sometimes adding to a page of numerical operations
the figure of a child writing, or surrounding the page with fantastic
ornamentation. Even the geometrical drawings sometimes become
frames for figures, or tlie outline of the geometrical figure is garnished
with ornamental drawings.
It must then be concluded that the preparation of the hand
and of the senses gives natural aid not only to writing but also to
expressive drawing.
We do not teach drawing by drawing, however, but by
providing the opportunity to prepare the instruments of expression.
This I consider to be a real aid to free drawing, which, not being
dreadful and incomprehensible, encourages the child to continue.
Another form of assistance is that which we give to every
kind of learning: the analysis of difficulties, or the analysis into
components. In drawing itself there are various elements, such
as outline and colour. Now for these two items, there is offered the
tracing of the outlines of the insets and filling the drawings by means
of lines, which prepare the hand for steady muscular exertion.
For colour, we provide paint-brushes and water-colours, with which
it is possible to represent drawings even without having an outline
prepared. We give pastels also, and show how to use them.
346 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

FinaUy, it is possible to compose artistic representations by

cutting out coloured paper, like those made for artistic purposes,
by Oswald, the famous Viennese physicist.
These papers, finely graded as to colour, prepared scientific-
aUy, lend themselves to the appreciation of harmony m the
combination of colours.
These two separate facts, line and colour, are determined and
perfected independently of each other. They are an acquisition
of the individual, who becomes skilful in expressing himself aitis-
tically with the two things together.
Thus the individual is perfected by education without inter¬
vention in the work already carried out by him spontaneously.
In fact, interfering in work done is always an obstacle which
interrupts the inner trend of expression, as may happen when direct
means are applied to the teaching of drawing.
Our way, for drawing as for writing, is called the indiiect
method”. The result is that the children, growing more capable
of expressing themselves, make hundreds and hundreds of drawings^
sometimes producing ten in a single day, just as they are also'
unwearied in their writing.
Yet we do not find that progress continues indefinitely, as in
written language, nor do the drawings indicate that all the children
wiU become artists. At a certain moment there supervenes in
almost all cases, a lack of interest in drawing, when other interests,,
such as writing, take precedence. This lessening of the artistic
leaning towards drawing has been observed by many people, parti¬
cularly by psychologists in art.
Cizek, for example, in his famous school of free art in Vienna,
noticed that many children who seemed to have a passion for
artistic work and to be artistically endowed by nature suddenly
lost aU interest in art and therefore ceased to make progress. And
Dr. Revesz (a psychologist dedicated specially to art) says as a
result of her experience: “ There are children who, as their faculty
of linguistic and cultural expression develop, gradually come tO’
abandon drawing completely, either because it no longer interests
 DRAWING AND REPRESENTATIVE ART 347

them, or because they do not possess artistic talent, or because they

concentrate on gifts of another character.”
So, for example, it is often observed that children specially
endowed for music and who are greatly attracted by abstract ideas
(mathematics, logic) do not succeed at all in drawing, or abandon it.
Such a case has been very closely studied from the psycho¬
logical point of view in a musical prodigy child. His drawings
were evidence of what has just been stated, when we compare
their inferiority and poor development with the pleasing musical
compositions made at the same stage by the child. (Geza Revesz:
The Psychology of a Musical Prodigy.)
Perhaps this is the reason why our children, when writing
becomes a passion, leave off drawing for some time. And then
it is only when writing is an accomplished fact that they betake
themselves once more to decorating the borders of pages.
When, instead, the artistic spirit is present, it takes complete
possession and creates an artist, as is told about Giotto, the
shepherd boy whom the famous painter Cimabue, by teaching him,
saved for the history of art as a never-to-be forgotten genius.
When there are found in the caves of primitive man those
surprising coloured drawings of animals in movements, they tell
us that artistic genius for drawing existed from the time of the
origin of man; but these fine representations were not merely a
way of finding expression or of communicating pleasing ideas, but
are generally supposed to stand for rehgious ideas.
In a word, there exists an instinct for expression which seeks
out its own ways; these ways are certainly two in number; one is-
writing, which is used for the expression of ideas, and the other
is representative art. But in most cases this undeniable inclination
of the child for drawing has no connection with an artistic gift
pertaining to the child, nor to any ultimate leaning towards art.
It is rather a kind of writing done with figures when the child is-
not able to express the ideas and sentiments which are taking shape
within him about his surroundings, about the things which have-
impressed him.
.348 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

This means that the hand takes part in speech, and just as
the child speaks continually, so does he draw; he expresses himself
with his phonetic organs, and he expresses himself with his hand,
showing latent tendencies of which he is not yet conscious.
Indeed the history of writing shows that it was originally
drawing, as it is in pictography. The many documents of the most
primitive pictography of different pre-historic peoples very often
resemble the free drawings of a child, especially in the represen¬
tation of the human figure. These strange drawings have a very
clear purpose, that of communicating with other men by means
different from that of the human voice. Then from the primitive
pictographs there came a transition in the course of the evolution
of civilization to the symbolical representation of syllables which
■are not comprehensible (like many children’s drawings), and there¬
fore it is necessary to give them a conventional interpretation;
for hieroglyphics like the spoken languages came to differ as
the characters distinctive of a people, e.g. Egyptian and Hittite
hieroglyphics.
Finally, in the alphabet, drawings are simplified, and no longer
represent syllables or ideas, but the sounds themselves with which
spoken language is composed and thus there is established an
■easy writing, which at the same time is the exact reproduction of
spoken language, as if the mind inherited whole and intact the
gift of expressing itself with the hand as well as with the spoken
word.
To conclude, the best way to influence drawing is not to leave
ff free, but to prepare the natural means for producing it, which
is to educate the hand. True talent will be manifested by itself,
and there wiU be no harmful lessons in drawing intended to help
It, those wicked lessons which might even stifle it. But the aban¬
donment of the evident efforts of the child to express himself with
the hand is an obstacle to the free development of drawing. To
•counteract this, we must enrich the environment with the means
■of expression, and indirectly prepare the hand for fulfiling its
function to the utmost. The eye takes note of things with more
 DRAWING AND REPRESENTATIVE ART 349^

accuracy, and opens the way to the inspirations which emanate-

from beautiful things, and the hand becomes more skilful and more
flexible. The child will attain the object towards which nature
urges him with more joy from having performed the preliminary
exercises necessary to be able to draw.
Dr. Revesz, speaking of our method, and replying to the-
general criticisms made against it on the subject of “ free drawing,”
says: The Montessori School does not repress free drawing;
rather does it make the children find the greatest pleasure in free-
drawing, along with the free development of their sense of colour
and form, as with the constant exercise of the hand and the eye,”
The education of the hand is specially important, because the
hand is the expressive instrument of human intelligence; it is the
organ of the mind.
Dr. Katz, who has made a special study of the functions of
the hand in relation to psychology, says: ‘‘The Montessori
Method, being dedicated to the development of the functions of
the hand, makes very clear the surprising versatility of this organ.
My studies, which have extended over a period of twelve years,,
have caused me to think how marvellous an instrument the hand
is in respect of its tactile sensibility and its movement. The hand
is the means which has made it possible for human intelligence
to express itself and for civilization to move forward in its work..
Without the hand the intrinsic value and the character of the func¬
tions of intelligent humanity would have been annihilated. The
hand is the organ of expression, and it is the organ of creation;
and in the world of the imagination also the hand has virtually
held sway. The hand, in early infancy, aids the development of
the intelligence and in the mature man, it is the instrument
controlling his destiny on the earth.”
C H A p T E R XXII

THE BEGINNING OF MUSICAL ART

The briefness of the reference to musical education which is made

in this book is not due to disparagement of the value of music in
education, but to the fact that with the child of tender age music
can only have a beginning; it has its development somewhat later.
Besides, success is bound up with the need for the production of
plenty of music around the child, so that there is set up an environ¬
ment calculated to develop musical sense and intelligence. To
have available a good musical performer, or to possess simple
instruments adapted to children like those which Dohnetch makes
today for the equipment of his marvellous cliildren’s orchestras,
are things which we cannot lay down as being absolute essentials
in a school which has to be accessible to all. In the model
Montessori schools, however, musical education is cultivated in a
serious manner, trying to leave to the child free choice and free
expression, as in aU branches of its development.
Already Signorina Maccheroni has made some beautiful ex¬
periments, published in part in my book VAutoediicazione {The
Advanced Montessori Method, II); and after some time, Lawrence
A. Benjamin, with the help of distinguished music teachers in
Vienna and London, has made important contributions to the
 THE BEGINNING OF MUSICAL ART 351

subject, especially witli an accurate collection of musical pieces

chosen from classical music and the folk-music of every country,
agreed upon after being tried out for several years in the Model
Montessori School in Vienna.
Let us proceed now to a rapid review of the analysis and
development of the factors concerned in musical-education.

Rhythm and Rhythmical Gymnastics

The motor preparation for rhythmic gymnastics may be con¬

sidered with reference to that exercise called ‘walking on the line,’
through which little children acquire perfect assurance in equilib¬
rium, and at the same time learn to control the movements of the
feet and hands.
It is during this slow, sustained walking that music may be
introduced as an aid to the effort which has to be sustained.
Having attained balance, however, education in rhythm must be
begun. Many lullabies are suitable for accompanying these slow,
uniform movements, which may be compared with the movement
of rocking. The addition of music to movement is in this case
a real accompaniment to the step which is already fixed, and it
penetrates it. In contrast with such music, there is a rhythm
which corresponds to running, and these two contrasting rhythms
are those to which small children are most responsive. As con¬
trasts formed the first introduction to the education of the senses,
the same is true for rhythmic education. Besides, the steps,
slow and controlled by the dijficulty of maintaining balance, and
the run are the two ways of moving preferred by children between
three and four years of age. On the contrary, the rhythmic jump
is not only a movement which follows the establishment of perfect
balance but it calls for a muscular effort to which the child is not
equal, owing to the special proportions of the child body. As for
the various steps corresponding to various rhythms, which would
correspond to the graduations in sense education, they can be
appreciated only at a later age (above five years of age).
352 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

The rhythmic marches on the line should be distinguished

from the gymnastics done on the line which have as its aim tO'
establish perfect balance and control of movements. These gym¬
nastic exercises which consist of so many items (holding a banner
in one hand, a glass of water, a burning candle or carrying a small
basket on the head) require the line traced on the floor to guide
the feet in a certain way. It is this definite direction that makes
it rather difficult to keep balance and hence estabhshes and
strengthens perfect equilibrium. In these exercises a uniform and
delicate music accompanies the exercise in order to sustain the
necessary effort to perform it exactly.
When, however, rhythmic exercises are started, the feet should
be free and the line is merely a guide and helps to keep the children
who walk, run, skip, etc. in line. It is then clear too, that passing
on to the performance of dances the line has no reason of existence
any longer, but perhaps to serve as an ornament useful to give a
conscious order to movement.
The technique for the execution of music consists of grasping
a single musical phrase of easy interpretation and repeating it
many times. That is analogous to repeating an exercise. Besides
the two initial contrasting steps specially suited to the little ones,,
there may be chosen and repeated rhythmic musical phrases in
order to develop sensitiveness to music in the children, who have
no other chance of receiving such impressions from the environ¬
ment, as happens with colours and visual sensations in general.
By repeating each phrase a very great number of times, some
children between five and six become able to interpret rhythms
which call for movements, slightly dissimilar, such as the slow step,
the marching step, etc. (gradation).
Some teaching may usefuUy be given by the mistress in show¬
ing the step corresponding to a particular rhythm, as is done in
the lessons when the teacher says, “ This is big, this is small.”
However, after such a demonstration has been made, the child
must be left to give his own interpretation of it, that is,
to the recognizing of the same rhythms in different musical
 THE BEGINNING OF MUSICAL ART 353

phrases.^ Children feel the rhytlm when it is played with musical

expression, and often reproduce the rhythm not only with the foot
but with the arms and with movements of the whole body. Some¬
times even the smallest children show rhythmic expression. Beppino,
about four years old, beats time with the index finger of his right
hand extended; the music (a song) has two alternating parts, one
legato and the other staccato. Beppino moves his hand with a
smooth motion for the legato, and with a jerky one for the staccato..
Four-year old Namiina, when following sweetly melodious
music, gracefully spreads out her wide skirt and throws her head
back smiling happily; then, at the sound of a military march she
stiffens up her body, assumes a grave expression and marches along,
with a firm step.
To intervene with an opportune lesson for teaching some step
simply, or to improve some movement, gives the children pleasure.
In one class taken by Signorina Maccheroni, her small pupils
Eriminia, Graziella, Peppinella, Sofia and Amelia embrace one
another and their teacher enthusiastically after having learnt some
movement in a rhythmic dance. Otello, Vincenzino and Teresa,
having had their steps and gestures improved by a lesson, thank,
the mistress who has helped them.
Sometimes the children listen to music whilst they are seated
round the room watching their companions walking on the line;
they often beat time with their hands and reproduce it correctly.
Occasionally a child specializes as what we call a conductor.
Vincenzino, aged four and a half, used to stand with his two feet
together in the middle of the ellipse drawn on the floor (the line)
on which the children were walking, and beat time with his extended
arm, bending his body at the correct angle at every beat. He
lowered and raised his body in exact correspondence with the
period between the beats, and assumed an expression perfectly in
accord with that of the melody.
The exactitude with which the child succeeds in marking the
tempo of the beat, without anyone having taught him the divisions
^ L. A. Benjamin, An Introduction to Music for Little Children.
23
354 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

of three-beat, four-beat, etc. is a proof of the sense-education due

to musical rhythm. At first the children follow the tempo without
paying attention to the beat.
But there comes a momeiit in which, suddenly, they feel the
beat, and then they mark it; that is, their movements correspond
only to the first beat of the bar.
Marie Louise, little more than four, was walking to the sound
of a march. Suddenly she cried out to the mistress; “ Watch,
see what I am doing.” She was making a leaping step, and raising
her arms gracefully at the first beat of each bai.
The study of the value of notes is made only by children of
more advanced age. (For particulars of method see L. A. Benjamin,
op. cit.). The interest in such a study will be associated with the
fact that the children have already developed and analyzed in
themselves the sense of rhythm.

Musical Reproductions

Music heard and accompanied by rhythmic movements forms

only one element of musical education, dealing with the succession
of sounds in time and the expressive tone of the phrase.
There follows the study of melody and harmony, which lends
itself to individual performances only when the child has at his
disposal instruments adapted to him not only in their dimensions
but, especially, in their simplicity. He must be left free to use
them, hampered by too rigid a technique. Then, with short initia¬
tions or lessons, similar to those which our mistresses give by our
method to make useful the material in general, the child is rendered
capable of carrying out his own performance, deriving from it,
because of the simplicity of the musical instruments, a continually
increasing interest. The musical performances of the children
reach a surprising standard, when, united as a band, they give
concerts, made possible by the fact that each one lias made on
his own instrument individual studies from which it is possible
that true musical sentiment may be derived.
 THE BEGINNING OF MUSICAL ART 355

These results have been attained in England by Dolmetch^

who, wishing to bring back into use the exquisite musical instru¬
ments of the past, now fallen into disuse owing to the predominance
‘Of the pianoforte, has had the brilliant idea of constructing simple
instruments for children. The faith which Dolmetch has in the
■divine power of music, and also in the mind of the child, has led
him to formulate a method which corresponds in principle with
mine. (Properly adapted material; short introductions having the
sole purpose of putting the child in touch with the material; and
then the child left at liberty to play on his instrument.)
In the magnificent English institution of Bedales, where
•classes are held on the Montessori model, one may come across
in the wood children playing the violin under a tree, or small groups
trying to put together the tunes from some singular stringed instru¬
ment (between the simplified harp and the lyre). Again, we may
hear delicate harmonies issuing from windows. Many of these
children know nothing about theory or musical notes; they have
never done rhythmic exercises. Musical development is fostered
by the delightful performances into which the old, impassioned
master breaks out wherever he may happen to be—^in rooms, in the
woods or in the fields. And the children sit all round about him,
. stretched out on the grass, listening with rapt attention. In addi¬
tion to that, the training is represented by the opportunity which
the children have of taking an instrument when the inspiration seizes
them and trying to find some harmony which is rooted in their
heart.

Musical Reauing and Wkiting

It is also possible to make a start with the writing of musical

notes in the Children’s House.
It is based upon sense exercises consisting of the recognition
of the musical sounds of the material of the bells, which, in the
first exercises are paired and afterwards are placed in graduated
order.,
356 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

It is a great help to be able to ‘ handle ’ the notes (that is, the

objects which produce them), all alike in every respect (except m
sound), separating them, mixing them up and putting them togethei
again, because it represents the notes in material form, in the same
way as for the other objects used in the education of the senses.
The next thing to do is to attach its name to the note, as the children
did in similar exercises. The names do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, are
incised on separate wooden discs (representing the signs of the
notes) and the children place one at the foot of each beU, accordmg
to its sound. In this way the child, by the repetition of the exercise,
learns with certainty the names pertaining to the sounds. The
discs which bear the names of the notes are thus not only signs to
be arranged on the musical scale, but first of all are signs which
signify a sound. When the children begin to study the notes on
the scale, they will therefore do it as a written exercise based on
musical facts already known.
In order that the child may be able to work alone, helped by
his love of touching objects and moving them about, we have
prepared for him a wooden board, on which are hollowed out
circular spaces, corresponding to the places occupied by the notes
do, re, mi, fa, sol, la, si, do. Into these spaces there can be inserted
the discs corresponding to the notes which bear the names of them
written on the upper face. To get the placing correct there is a
cmresponding number (1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8) in every space and on
the under face of every disc. In this way the child, by placing
the objects according to the numbers, finds that he has set out on
the scale all the notes of an octave.
For another exercise there exists another board of wood like
the first but without the hollows and their numbers; accompanying
this board there is a box of unnumbered discs, each of which has
the name of a note inscribed on its upper face. The same name
is repeated on several discs. The exercise tests the child’s memory
for the positions of the notes and proceeds thus. The discs are
put into position as they chance to come to hand, each in its place
on the stave, but as they are made to rest on the face which bears
 THE BEGINNING OF MUSICAL ART 357

the written name, the black faces of the discs are thus exposed.
Evidently many discs will find places on the same line or along the
same space. When the notes are all placed they must be turned
up without displacing them; the names can now be read and
reveal to the child any mistake which he has made.
The third piece of material is a double board on which the
notes are placed in a rhombus. By detaching the two boards,
the notes are disposed as in the treble and bass staffs. Having
learnt this the children are able to read little tunes and reproduce
them on the bells. And, vice versa, they can write down little
tunes after having played them from ear on the bells or on an
instrument, and have thus found out the notes for them.
This part of musical writing has a noteworthy development at
a slightly more advanced age, that is, in the elementary classes.
In the Montessori school at Barcelona the children have music
copybooks almost like those for writing.
It is seen that the three exercises dealt with-—rhythmic move¬
ments, performances on musical instruments and the writing of
music—may go on separately and independently. As an instance
of this fact there may be cited not only the existence of independent
exercises but also of complete methods which cover only one of
these items. One example of the latter is the Dalcroze method
which develops only rhythmic gymnastics and also that of Dol-
metch which cultivates the art of drawing harmonies from an
instrument. The old methods of teaching music began with knowl¬
edge of the notes on the musical scale, independently of music.
But ours is an example of what we call analysis, that is, separating
out the parts of a very diifieult and complex whole into exercises
which may by themselves constitute interesting work.
Rhythm, harmony, writing and reading are joined together in
the end and form three interests, three stories of graded work
and joyful experiences, which burst out into the full splendour of
one single victory.
C HAP T E R XXIIl

RELIGIOUS EDUCATION

Religious education^ considered in accordance in the same

general terms as the method as a whole, includes the preparation
of an environment in which several divisions are distinguishable—
those which might be referred to practical life, and those which,
corresponding to what in the school refers to the development of
the mind, deal with the development of religious sentiment, the
education of the spirit, and the religious knowledge which consti¬
tutes the culture necessary to understand religion. It is, therefore,
clear that it is impossible to go into the whole matter here and
now. Such statements as are made will be directed towards
opening up the necessary connections between the two branches
of education, i.e. in a practical sense, the behaviour in the
environment of daily life and the behaviour in the environment
particular to rehgion (the Church).
It was at Barcelona, in the Model Montessori School, a civic
school of the Province, but one in which the Cathohc religion
was established as a fundamental subject, that there were laid
down the first bases of religious education planned according to
my method.^

^ Applied to Catholic education.

® cf. Maria Montessori: The Child in the Church (Sands & Co., London).
 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 35^

The first move made was to prepare an environment—the

Children’s Church in which this place reserved for the faithful
was made to suit their small proportions. We furnished it with
little chairs and kneeling stools, and we had the holy-water basins
placed at the knee-height of an adult. SmaU pictures were hung
low down, and changed often according to the season of the year;
little statuettes and groups of statuettes represented the nativity,
the flight into Egypt, etc. At the windows were hung light cur¬
tains, which the children could draw to shut out the light. They
took turns to prepare the chui'ch—to put the seats in place, to fill
the vases with flowers, to light some of the candles.
A priest instructed the children in religion and also officiated
in the church. Directly the simple little church was prepared and
opened for the use of the children there appeared, almost to our
surprise, a fruit of our method which we had not anticipated.
It was that the church is almost the end, up to which leads a great
part of the education which the method sets out to give. Some
exercises which, in the schools, seem to have no definite outside
purpose, find their application here. The silence, which has pre¬
pared the child for withdrawing into himself, becomes the inner
restraint to be observed in the House of God, in the half-dark
surroundings, broken by the faint flickering of the candlelight.
Walking in silence without making a noise, moving chairs without
scraping the floor, rising up and sitting down quitely, passing
amongst benches and people without creating any disturbance,
carrying fragile objects in their hands and seeing that they are
not damaged, as for example vases full of water to be filled with
flowers and replaced on the altar, or lighted candles, the wax of
which must not be spilt over hands or clothes—all of these were
almost repetitions and at the same time appUcations of what the
child had learnt to do within the classroom walls. They must
appear to the tender intelhgence as the purpose of the efforts so
patiently persisted in; hence there would arise a sense of gratitude,
joy and new dignity. At first the children carried out these
exercises in obedience to an inward impulse, but without a purpose^
360 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

afterwards they get almost the revelation of a difference between

the two occasions and the two different places—as between seed¬
time and harvest. The very act of differentiating between similar
actions which have different applications and meanings constitutes
in itself another source of intellectual development. The child of
four does not miss the difference between the holy-water basin
into which he dips the tip of his slender hand to make the sign of
the Cross and the basin in the next room intended for the washing
of his hands. These intuitions about differences between similar
things is really an intelligent task which the small child, considered
almost incapable of rising to conceptions beyond those of the
senses, is initiating when he begins to feel that he is the son of
God, lovingly entertained in the House of the great Heavenly
Father.
Many who disbelieve in such impressions, I had already en¬
countered. They said; “ Do you know why my Uttle nephew likes
to come to school at the time for Mass? Because you make him
put out the candles in a basin of water. That is all. Would you
not be doing better by applying that pleasing exercise to arithmetic,
taking for example ten lighted candles and then making him put
them out whilst he counted one, two, three, etc. ? ” How little
spiritual understanding and what slight insight into children did
the critic, who talked to me in this way, possess. The arithmetic
exercise with the candles would have lasted, at most, for a week,
the average time necessary to learn to count from one to ten.
But in the Church, those children, will continue for years to
extinguish the candles which are consumed away as they burn
before Jesus who has descended among them, and will also under¬
stand that this is not a childish game, but a religious act which
is performed reverently because it is done in the holy place
pertaining to the worship rendered there to the Lord.
The opinion expressed here is that the child who is interested
in everything is all the more struck by what seems to him sym¬
bolical and clothed in majesty. At first the objects—the altar,
the book, the holy vases, the priest’s vestments—stand apart, and
 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 361

it is the acts in themselves which attract his attention—the various

acts of the service, the sign of the Cross, the genuflection, the kiss.
But, little by little, there is made clear also their relevance and the
mystic meaning which is hidden within them.
When the priest began to explain the sacraments, using objects
and reproducing, often with the active help of the children them¬
selves, the scenes in the service, I thought that only the oldest
•children would concern themselves. But the youngest would not
go away and followed everything with the deepest attention; even
the little ones of three were enchanted as they followed the
proceedings. The priest prepared, for example, the baptismal
font and the ritual objects; he chose from the children themselves
a god-father and a god-mother, and brought there an infant only
a few days old, and set about performing one by one the sacred
rites used in the administration of such a sacrament. On another
occasion, it was a big boy who acted as a disciple and asked for
baptism, and the children showed keen interest in learning that
baptism, as in the early history of the church, was given always
to adults when they were converted to Christianity. In this way
the children acquired their fi.rst ideas about liturgical history.
When the children were able to read there was added another
proceeding which gave them a chance of partly teaching them¬
selves. It was to make, on a miniature scale, but with sujOacient
accuracy, the objects used in religious service, the priestly vest¬
ments, the altar and also some objects representing historical
things and scenes from the Gospels. This was followed by
attaching to the objects tickets on which were written names or
■simple descriptive sentences (as in the commands used in the first
reading lessons). This gave the children the chance of repeating
the exercise, as is the general way in the method. Another idea
was to create groups of objects, as wa.s described for the first
reading lessons specially intended to teach phonetic languages, in
which are grouped together words which present the same difld-
culty, the words then being placed along with the objects of which
they are the names. Here, for a different purpose, the group of
362 the discovery of the child

objects referred to the things necessary for making a sacrament

vahd. The separation between gronp and group seen in concrete
form, and the breaking up and recomposing of each group repeated
many times, all make it easier to understand the facts and to
memorize every detail exactly, whilst reading and placing the cards
ensures the learning of the exact terms. The exercise consists in
setting out the objects of one group (e.g. the sacrament of extreme
unction) and taking the whole of the cards which accompany it,
placing above each object the word which stands for its name.
The Sisters of Notre Dame in Glasgow (Scotland) have made
complete models of such things; among others an altar in minia¬
ture, only 12 cms. broad, but showing the details which enter into
it vvith great fidelity and with exquisite art. The children can
observe it and place on every detail the card bearing the relative

Thus the children, from their tenderest infancy live, one might
say, in the Church; and they acquire almost without being aware
of it a knowledge of religious things—truly far from usual at their
early age.
The habits which the children have already learnt at school
of concentration in work, of silence, of cahn in an environment
where children in continual contact with one another have to make
choice of their own actions and adapt their needs to those of others,
predispose them to gain another moral victory of the greatest
importance. It is in silence and when movements are ordered
that the iimer sensitivity that is called ‘ religious sense or
‘ spiritual sense ’ can be developed.
In fact, it is only at the age of seven that the need is felt by
the child to distinguish between good and evil. The young child
does not have these problems; he accepts everything and believes
everything. To him the only imaginable evil is ‘ naughtiness ’
which attracts upon him the severity of the adult.
He is extremely ‘ receptive ’ and an environment that touches
his senses has a strong influence upon him. Therefore it is very
necessary to realize that in the first age of growth the environment
 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 363*
and the impressions it conveys are, so to say, scuiptnred in his-
soul in an indelible way* The mother who takes her little child
with her to church, prepares a religious sense in him which could
not be aroused by any teaching.
It is therefore a mistake to wish to teach the distinction
between good and evil at a precocious age, in which interest for
this problem has not awakened. That is why the development of
moral conscience in this sense would be premature.
The sentiment for what is good can be cultivated at this age
by affection and a sweet disposition in one’s dealings with the-
child. What the children really need then is a feeling of security,,
through the protection given by their elders. Also education there¬
fore must be in accordance with these natural conditions. The God
who loves and protects the child and sends His angels to accom¬
pany him invisibly day and night is the foundation of their
religion.
Only later on a social sense is awakened and a responsibility
for one’s actions felt; this is the time to accompany this new
development with a guide—a guide in the world and especially a
guide who directs one’s own conscience.
To speak of evil to the small child is to teach him something
which he is not capable of understanding, or at least which he
cannot assimilate. Great prudence is therefore required in the^
teachers so that she may not hurt the soul of the child with argu¬
ments ill suited to his nature. For instance, on one occasion, one
of the Franciscan Sisters Missionaries of Mary, in teaching sacred
history and speaking of Cain, suggested that certainly when he
was a very little boy he must have been unkind to Abel. Some
hours after the lesson, a little one who was working (meditation !)■
burst into loud weeping, saying, “ Oh, I shall become like Cain,”
and he confessed to the Sister, who was trying to console him, the
little faults of which he had been guilty towards his companions.
Religious, and free in their intellectual operations and in the
work which our method offers them, the little ones show that they
are strong spirits, exceptionally robust as are the small bodies of
364 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

clean, well-nourished children. Growing up in this way, they have

no bashfulness, no timidity, no fear. They show pleasing sel -
confidence, courage, a calm knowledge of things, above all, faith
in God, the author and preserver of life. The children aie so
capable of distinguishing between natural and supernatural matters
that their insight has given us the idea that there exists a period
specially sensitive to religion. The age of childhood seems to be
bound closely to God, as the development of the body is strictly
dependent on the natural laws which are transforming i a a
time. I remember a baby girl of two, who, when put m front of
a statuette of the Child Jesus, said, “ This is not a doll!

Field Labour in Religious Instruction

We thought that it would be a proper and beautiful idea to

get the children to grow the grapes and the grain required for the
•Sacrament of the Eucharist, and to infuse the religious activity of
the children into the work and the pleasure of the ®
.therefore set apart a piece of a large meadow where the children
used to play in the afternoons, for the cultivation of gram and
erapes Two rectangular spaces were marked off by the chil len
themselves-one on the extreme right and the other on the extreme
left of the field. A kind of grain which ripens quickly was chosen.
In the parallel furrows already prepared the children sowed the
seed, it being planned that each one of them shared in the sowing.
The movement in sowing, the care which had to be taken lest any
seed should fall outside the furrows, the solemn manner m which
this field ceremony was performed, showed clearly that it was an
act in keeping with the purpose which it was intended to serve^
A Uttle later the vine plants were put in; they looked like dried
up roots, and their appearance gave small promise of the marve
which the children had to wait for-the appearance one day of
bunches of real grapes. These young plants were placed in trenches,
in parallel rows, at equal distances apart. It seemed the best thing
to plant flowers all round them, as if offering perpetual homage
 RELIGIOUS EDUCATION 365'

of perfume and beauty to tlie plants which were maturing to pro¬

vide the fruit which would some day serve as material for the-
Eucharistic Sacrament. The children continued to play in the
other part of the field; they made buildings with bricks, dug ditches,,
made paved roads, ran about, played ball, whilst all around them
the flowers added gaiety to their games. Along with the joy of"
play there was intermingled the deeper emotion of watching day
by day the marvels of growing life.
At last there began to appear in the grain-field long parallel
lines of little green plants; the green things grew and lengthened,,
arousing great interest in the children. Then even the dry roots-
began to send forth pale foliage. The children stood around in
groups and watched it all. Some of them were chosen to dis¬
infect the vines, as protection against Feronospora (fungi). When
the grapes made their wonderful appearance, they were covered
up in little bags made of white gauze, to protect them from insects.
It was decided to organize for the opening and closing of the
scholastic year two outdoor festivals, one corresponding to the
grain-harvest, the other to the grape-harvest. It was thought that
the festivals might be made joyous with rustic music drawn from
primitive instruments and with folk-songs, some of which, very
old and full of harmony, have been used as sacred hymns in the
Church.
These notes about our experiment in religious education repre¬
sent only one attempt, but already they show the practical
possibility of introducing religion into the life of the little child,,
as a rich fount of joy and uplift.
The experiment in religious education was ultimately abolished
in our Children’s Houses, because it referred solely to Catholic
religious education, in which it is possible to make the preparation
active by means of movements of the body and of objects, that is-
" material whilst that cannot be done with other religions which
are quite abstract.
Nevertheless much was prepared and even written. I may
mention the books, J BuTviblni viventi nellci Chxsu (The Child.
366 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

in the Church), La Tavola Apparecchiata (The Mass explained to

Children), La Vita in Cristo (Elementary Illustrations of the liturgic
Year and of the Church Calendar) III Libra Aperto, (Advanced
material for reading the Missal), and Manuale per la Preparazions
.di un Messale per Bambini (Manual for the Preparation of a
Children’s Missal).
But these practical attempts being beyond common use cannot
be disseminated. Not possessing the diploma which today is
rigorously required in order to have permission to teach the
‘Catholic religion, I could not continue the work and its application.
C H A P T E R XXIV

DISCIPLINE IN THE CHILDREN'S HOUSE

The experience gathered from the time when the first edition of
the Italian book was printed np till today has confirmed over
and over again this truth—that in our classes of small children
reaching the size of forty or even fifty pupils, there prevails a
discipline more nearly perfect than that existing in the ordinary
schools. Anyone who visits well-managed schools is struck by
the discipline of the children. Here you may find forty children
from three to seven years of age, intent each on his own work;
some are doing sense exercises, some arithmetic, some tracing
letters, some drawing; some are busy with the clothes, some are
dusting; some are seated at a table, some are stretched on mats
on the ground. One hears a faint noise of objects being moved
about lightly, of children going about on tip-toe. Every now and
again there is a badly repressed cry of joy, a quick call of
Signorina, Signorinal;” an exclamation of '‘See what I have
done!”
But more frequently the peace is absolute.
The teacher moves about slowly and silently; she goes to any¬
one who calls her; she supervises in such a way that anyone who
needs her is aware of her presence at once, whilst those who do
not need her do not notice her existence.
368 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Hours pass, and aU is silent.

Some who have visited the Children’s House call its inmates
“ little men,” others, “ senators in session
Whilst all this keen interest in work is in evidence it never
happens that children get into disputes about objects. If anyone
achieves something extraordinary, he will find some other who will
admire and be delighted with it; no one is annoyed when another
succeeds, but the triumph of one rouses wonder and pleasure in
the others, often stimulates eager imitators. They all seem quite
happy and satisfied with doing what they can, without the doings
of others arousing envy and selfish emulation, without encouraging
vanity and pride. The little one of three works peacefully along¬
side the boy of six, just as if he were contented with his lower
stature and felt no envy for the tallness of the older boy. They
all grow up in the most profound peace.
If the mistress wishes to engage the attention of the whole
assembly, perhaps to get them to leave off all the work in which
they are so much absorbed, she has only to say one word in a low
voice, to make one gesture and everytlung is suspended; they turn
their eyes to her full of interest, amdous to know how to carry out
her wishes.
Many visitors have seen the teacher write some directions on
the blackboard, and have watched how joyfully they have been
carried out.
It is not only the mistress who is obeyed; but whoever asks
anything from the children wonders at seeing how scrupulously
they obey, how calmly and complacently. Often visitors would
like to hear the singing of a child who is painting; the child leaves
his painting to comply, but directly he has fulfilled the act of
courtesy he returns to his interrupted work. Often, before obeying,
the very little ones finish the work which they have begun.
One of the most wonderful examples of discipline happened
during the teachers’ examinations which we held after my first
training courses. We then followed the practice of ordinary
teachers’ training colleges and part of the examination consisted
 DISCIPLINE, IN THE CHILDREN’S HOUSE 369

ia'a-practical lesson given To children. These pupils were there

waiting for their turn and when they were called they came up to
receive their lesson which the aspirant-teacher had drawn by lot.
This was evidently no longer a lesson received after the child’s
own free choice, but the child was ready to lend himself to the
task which the candidate asked him to do. The children were
quite willing and seemed to understand the emotion of the pupil-
teacher. While they were waiting, the little ones filled in their time
in our presence just as they pleased; they w^orked continually and
they returned to the interrupted work after their part in the
examination was over. Every now and then some one of them
came and offered us a painting finished whilst they were, waiting.
We wondered at the patience, the perseverance, the inexhaust¬
ible satisfaction of the children, perhaps the impression might be
given that the children are excessively dominated, if it were not
for the absolute lack of timidity, the shining eyes, the gay, free
bearing, the readiness with which they invite us to inspect their
work or take us round to give explanations; or if they did not
make us feel that we are among people who are masters in their
own house. The fervour with which they clasp the teacher’s kneeSy
or with which they draw down her head and shoulders in order
to kiss her face reveals a heart which is free to behave as it chooses*
Anyone who has seen them laying the table must have grown
more and more apprehensive, been more and more filled withi
wonder: Little waitresses, four years old, carrying knives and
placing them on the table with the things already there; bearing
trays on which there may be as many as five glass tumblers; and
later on moving from table to table bearing the great dish full of
hot soup. No one cuts herself, breaks a glass, or spills a drop
of soup, this would be a frightful accident! During the meal the
waitresses are unintmsively and continually on the watch; no one
finishes his soun without being asked at once to have a second
helping, or if he has quite finished, the waitress makes haste to
take away the empty plate. No child needs to ask for more soup
or to give notice that he has finished.
24
370 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Anyone who sees all this and who thinks of the usual be¬
haviour of children four years old, who shout, break everything,
and have to be waited on, is moved to surprise by a scene which
•evidently springs from the hidden fountains of eneigy, latent in the
depths of the human soul. I have often seen tears flow down the
cheeks of some who had been present at such little feasts.
Such discipline can never be attained by way of commands,
by sermons, by any of the disciplinary methods universally known.
Such a discipline cannot be secured by reproofs, or by per¬
suasive speeches. These may at first create the illusion of being
effective, but very quickly, directly the true discipline appears, all
that dissolves like something worthless, like an illusion before
reality; night gives place to day.
The first glimmerings of discipline appear as the result of
work. At some given moment it happens that the child becomes
deeply interested in a piece of work; we see it in the expression
of his face, his intense concentration, the devotion to his exercise.
That child has entered upon the path of discipline. Whatever
may be the application of it—to an exercise of the senses, to
fastening up something, to washing plates it is all the same.
Our share in strengthening this experience is contributed through
the repeated lessons in ‘silence’. The perfect immobility, the
attention on the alert to catch the sound of his name pronounced
from a distance and in a toneless voice, and then the slight move¬
ments co-ordinated for the purpose of avoiding objects and of
touching the floor very lightly with the feet—all these constitute
a powerful preparation for controlling the individual personality,
motor and mental.
The power to concentrate on work being established, we must
superintend it with scrupulous exactitude, graduating the exercises
as experience has taught us. Our duty as teachers in the creation
of discipline is to apply the ‘ method ’ rigorously.
Here is encountered the great difficulty of really disciplining
man. It is not only by words that it will be done; neither is
man disciplined by hearing another speak; there is required as
 DISCIPLINE IN THE CHILDREN’S HOUSE 37!

preparation a series of complicated actions exemplified by those

involved in the complete application of a method of eduation.
We find therefore that discipline comes by an indirect route,
by developing activity in spontaneous work. Every individual
must find out how to control himself by his own efforts and through
calm, silent activity which is directed towards no external aim but
is meant to keep alive that inner flame on which our life depends.
Work cannot be offered in an arbitrary manner; this is the
principle embodied in the ‘ method ’; it must be the work for
which man craves in his inmost soul, the work which in some
mysterious way is demanded by the latent requirements of life,
and towards which the individual ascends step by step. It is work
• of this nature which determines the personality and which opens
up the ill-defined road leading to expansion. Let us take as an
example the undisciplined behaviour of the little child. The child
is continually on the move, and in an irregular way; he throws
himself on the ground, makes strange gestures, shouts, destroys
things. Deep down in all this there lies hidden a tendency to try
and co-ordinate the movements, which will be established later.
The child is the man who is not yet quick in movement and in
language, and who will have to become so; but he is passing
through an experience full of mistakes and is struggling painfuEy
towards the right goal which his instinct keeps hidden, which is
not clear to his understanding. Whatever the movements which
have to be established are those corresponding to the behaviour
of man. The children must acquire the movements, the customs
wliich they find in their environment. That is why he must have
an opportunity to exercise them; it is not enough merely to see
them done by others. His movements do not belong to an engine
which only needs checking up; they belong to a mechanism with
a definite task to be accomplished. Motor activity therefore must
have a purpose and be connected with mental activity. There is
a close link between movement and the intelEgence eager to learn.
The many children who are disorderly in their movements are not
merely children who have not learned how to move, they are above
372 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

all children whose mind is undernourished, who suffer from mental

starvation.
Saying to the child “ Stand still like me ” does not enhghten
him. It is not with a command that one can order the complex
psycho-muscular system of an individual into the path of evolution.
In doing so, we are confusing the case with that of the man who
prefers to behave badly because of an innate bent, but who can
(within the limits of possibihty) obey a firm command which directe
his will towards something different, towards an order which is
well known and within the hmits of his powers. But in the case
of the small child it is a matter of helping forward the natural
evolution of voluntary movement. AH the co-ordinated move¬
ments must be taught by analyzing them as far as possible and
developing them one by one. The child must be taught the various
degrees of immobility leading up to the ‘silence’. Included in
these are the movements of getting up and sitting down, of walking
naturally, of walking on the points of the toes, of walking on a
line drawn on the ground whilst preserving erect balance; of
removing objects, of setting them up more or less dehcately; the
complicated movements of dressing and undressing himself, which
are analyzed in the fastening together of pieces of cloth, and for
each one ,of these in the separate movements of the fingers; the
movements req[uired for keeping the body and the surroundings
clean. Perfect immobility, and the perfecting of movements one
after the other must be substituted for the customary “Stand
still, keep quiet
AH these exercises which promote the co-ordination of move¬
ments are done in order to reach a definite aim envisaged by the
mind. These children did not only move their muscles, but ordered
and enriched the mind. This activity, developed the will which
was buHt up in an environment of motives for their activity.
Although, therefore, the movements were co-ordinated, the indi¬
vidual who actively co-ordinated them occupies the central place.
By means of these motor exercises he expanded his inteHigence
and became ever more conscious of his environment and of himself.
 DISCIPLINE IN THE CHILDREN’S HOUSE 373

Real co-ordination of movement is the result of a perfectionment

of the total personality.
These were therefore not children who had learned how to
move, they were disciplined because they had reached a superior
degree of development of their personality and which they had
done by means of a free choice of their occupations.,
It is not wonderful, but really most natural, that the child
should have disciplined himself by these exercises, however great
may be the muscular unstability natural to his age. In fact, he is
responding to a natural urge when he is moving, but as his move¬
ments are infused with a purpose they no longer look like disorder
but like work. Here we have the discipline which represents an
aim which is attained through a multitude of victories; .the child
disciplined in this way is not the child of other days who could
" be good,’ but is an individual who has trained himself, who has
progressed beyond the usual limits of his age, who has made a
leap forward; in mastering th,e present he has mastered his own
future. He has grown up. He will not need anyone to be
constantly near him telling him repeatedly to keep still, to
be good—commands embodying two contradictory ideas. The
goodness which he has acquired can no longer make him keep
still in idleness; his goodness now is wholly expressed in
movement.
In truth, the ‘good’ are those who move forward towards
the goodness which has been built up by their own efforts, and
by their orderly activity in external work.
The external work in our case constitutes the means for attain¬
ing internal progress, and appears as the explanation of it; the
two factors are interwoven. Work leads to internal progress in
the child, but the child who has improved himself works better;
the improved work fascinates him; therefore he continues to develop
his inward powers.
Discipline, therefore, is not a fact, but a way, in the course
of which the child masters with a precision, which one might call
scientific, the idea of goodness.
374 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD
But above all he tastes the supreme pleasures associated with
the inward order which he has evolved through victories leading
to the right goal.
In the course of the long preparation the child experiences
ioy excitement and contentment, which form the intimate treasure
of Lis mind, a treasure which is a fount of a special sweetness, a
strength which wiU prove to be a source of goodness. The child
has not only learnt to move about and to carry out useful opera¬
tions, but he possesses a special grace of movement which makes
his gestures more correct and beautiful and shows itself m beauty
of the hand, the face and the calm shining eyes-the whole a
revelation of the inward life which has been born in a man.
That the co-ordinated movements developing little by itt e
spontaneously, that is, which are chosen and directed during the
active and the resting periods by the child himself, are the equivalent
of the inferior efforts belonging to the irregular movements which
the child practices when left to himself, is easy to understand.
Rest for the muscles, which are intended by nature to move, is
found in orderly movement, just as rest for the lungs is represented
by the normal rhythm of respiration in the open air. Just as the
movements of the lungs aim at respiration, so the movements ot
the child are connected with the intelligence and the consciousness
in course of developiuent.
To deprive the muscles of all movement is to drive them m
opposition to right motor impulses, and therefore not only tires
them out but leads to their degeneration.
It is well to make clear to ourselves the idea that the rest of
anything which moves resides in a definite form of motion acting
in accord with the ruling of nature. To move in a proper manner,
in obedience to the hidden decrees of life—that is rest. And in
this special case, since man is intelligent, the movements are the
more restful, the more intelligent they are. The effort made by
the child who is jumping about aimlessly and without restraint is
wearing out nerves and heart, whereas the inteUigent movement
which gives the child inward satisfaction, almost inward pride in
 DISCIPLINE IN THE CHILDREN’S HOUSE 375

having conquered himself, in finding himself in a world from which

he was supposed to be debarred, enveloped by the silent conside¬
ration of one who guides him without showing it—such effort
increases his strength.
This ‘ multiplication of strength ’ is a way of saying that it
may be analyzed physiologically into the development of organs
by reasonable use, the improvement of the blood supply, the
renewal of the substance of the tissues—all these are factors which
favour the development of the body and ensure physical health.
The spirit assists in the growth of the body; the heart, the
nerves, the muscles, will all develop better in their several ways,
because there is only one way.
One might say the same about the intellectual development
of the child: child mentality, characteristically unreg:ulated, yet
pursues its own purposes, suffering sometimes from neglect and
too often from general persecution.
Once in the public gardens of the Pincio in Rome I saw a
child of about a year and a half, very beautiful, brimming over
with laughter; he had an empty bucket and a small spade and he
was busy collecting pebbles from the path to fill the bucket. Near
him sat a superior-looking nurse, one who might be expected to
bestow affectionate and intelligent care on the child. It was time
to go away, and the maid patiently begged the child to leave his
work and let himself be put into his carriage. All her exhortations
having had no effect on the eager little worker, she herself filled
the pail with gravel, then placed baby and bucket in the carriage,
quite convinced that she had pleased him. The child’s loud cries,
the expression of protest against violence and injustice which his
little face bore struck me forcibly. What a weight of resentment
. filled that young heart! The little one did not want to have his pail
full of gravel; he wanted the exercise involved in filling it, in which
he would be responding to the call made by his vigorous organism.
The end pursued by the child was his internal growth, not the
external matter of getting a pailful of stones. His apparently very
close connection with the outside world was illusory, that need of
376 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

his a reahty. If he had filled the bucket he would perhaps have

emptied it, to refill it many times until his ego was completely
satisfied. In pursuit of this satisfaction, I had, a short time before,
seen him with a rosy, smiling countenance; inward happiness
exercise and the sun constituted the three beams of light whic
were helping to build up that splendid life.
This simple episode forms an illustration of what happens to
children aU over the world, to the best and the most dearly loved
of them. They are not understood because the adult judges them
by his own standard; he believes that the child is bent upon external
projects, and in a friendly way helps him to attain them, whereas
the child is dominated unconsciously by the need to develop lum-
self. For that reason he disparages what is done and loves what
there is to be done. For instance, he prefers the act of dressing
himself to the time when he sees himself dressed, even grandly,
he likes the act of washing himself better than the comfort of feeling
clean; he hkes to build a house rather than to possess one. This
is because what he has to do is to form life foi himself, not just
to enjoy it. In this formation exists his true and almost only
enjoyment. That very beautiful baby of the Pincio is the symbol
of it. He wanted to co-ordinate his voluntary movements, to exert
his muscular energy in lifting things, to use his eyes in measuring
distances, to use his intelligence in the reasoning needed for the
work of filling his bucket, to develop his own will in deciding what
should be done. Instead of that, some one who loved him,
imagining that his desire was to possess stones, made him unhappy.
Similar to this error, and of very common occurrence is the
assumption that the object to be aimed at for the pupil is intel¬
lectual knowledge, and the teacher teaches children just as the
mother or the nurse wa'.hes them and dresses them. Children,
however, must acquire knowledge by their own activity according
to the dictates of nature.
But by leaving our children at liberty we have been able to
foEow them with great certainty along the paths in which their
powers develop spontaneously.
 DISCIPLINE IN, THE CHILDREN’S HOUSE 377

■To have learnt something is for the child a starting point-;

when he has learnt, then he begins to get enjoyment from the
repetition of the exercise; he repeats what he has learnt an indefinite
number of times, with evident satisfaction; he enjoys doing things,
because in this he is -developing his mental power. Having regard
to this fact, criticism may be directed towards what is done today
in many schools: when, for example, in the course of questioning
pupils, it happens that the master says to some one w^ho has offered
to answer No, you may not answer because you know,” and he
questions the scholar who, he thinks, does not know^
Those who do not know must answer, those who do know
must keep silent. That is because it is ■ considered useless to go
•outside knowledge. Yet how often dt happens to us in the
common course of life to repeat what we know best, that which
•enthrals us, which corresponds to a life within us!
That is why we love to sing musical themes which are well
known, and therefore savoured, lived. We love to repeat the story
•of things which have delighted us, which we know well, even if we
are quite well aware that we have nothing new to say, that we
have recited this story many times. The prayers which we have
learnt are always repeated with a renewal of interest.
But in order to repeat in this way, it is necessary that there
should first exist the thing to be repeated; knowledge corresponds
ito this existence, to this sine qua non, to what is indispensable
for beginning the repetition of actions; and it is the repetition,
not the learning, which affords the exercise which develops life.
Now when the child has reached the stage of repeating an
•exercise, he is on the way set for the development of his life, and
this shows itself externally in his being a disciplined child.
The phenomenon does not always occur. The same exercises
.are not repeated at all ages. The repetition must answer a need.
In this is to be found the experimental method of education; the
exercises offered must respond to the necessity for development of
the organism, and if the definite necessity has disappeared as the
result of age, the child will no longer have a chance of reaching
378 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

the fullness of development which was missed at the opportune

time. Thus it is that children often grow up fatally, permanently

Another interesting observation is that which

length of time required for carrying out actions. Children who
are making their first attempts by themselves are very slow in
doing things. Their life is governed by special laws quite different
from ours. . , „ ™„i:
Little children perform slowly and deliberately many o p
cated actions which they love-dressing and undressing themse ves„
setting the table, eating, etc. In doing all these things they show
extreme patience, and they carry on to a conclusion their laborious,
tasks, overcoming every difficulty which arises from an organisxn
being stiU in the process of development. Seeing them toi mg an
‘wasting time’ in doing something which we could manage in a
moment without any trouble, we substitute ourselves for the child
and do it ourselves. , • * *
Always animated by the same prejudice that the object to
strive for is the completion of an external act, we clothe and wash
the child, take out of his hands the things which he loves to handle,,
pour the soup into his basin for him, feed him, set the table for
him. And after rendering such services, we most unjustly judge-
him to be incapable, inept, as always happens when someone
suppresses another whilst apparently benefiting him. We often
consider the child impatient just because we cannot find the patience
to wait for the conclusion of these doings of his which are obeying
time-laws different from ours ; or, being powerful, we use our power
over him. This blot, this brand, this calumny is like a dogma
which presses hard on the patient and gentle nature of the child.
He, as does every strong character who defends the rights o
life within him, rebels against anyone who opposes this something
winch he feels within him, which is a voice of nature which he
must obey; then he shows in violent actions, in screams and
weeping that he has been thwarted in his mission. In the eyes o
those who do not understand him and who, whilst thinking they
 DISCIPLINE IN THE CHILDREN’S HOUSE 37S^

are' helping him, are pushing him backward along the ways of life,,
he appears as a rebel, a revolutionary, a destroyer. Thus the-
adult who loves him fastens on his bent neck still another slander,-
confusing the defence of obstructed life with a form of original,
sin natural in children of tender age.
How would we feel if we were plunged into the midst of
Fregoii people, who are extravagantly rapid in their movements, like-
those who astound us and make us laugh in our theatre by their
rapid transformations? And if, continuing to move in our usual
way, we found ourselves assaulted by these Fregoii^ dressed and
undressed badly by them, made to put our food so fast into our-
mouths that we had no time to swallow it, had our work taken,
out of our hands to be done by them much more rapidly, found
ourselves reduced to impotency and an idleness indescribably
humiliating—we, not knowing how to express ourselves better,,
would defend ourselves from these madmen with our fists and with
shouts, and they, solely animated with the desire to serve us, would
say that we were bad, rebels, unfit for anything. We, who knew
our own country, would say to such: “ Come to our country, and
you will see a splendid civilization built up there by us, you will
see our marvellous works.” These Fregoii would admire us de¬
lightedly, not able to believe their own eyes, when they saw how
our world went on—so beautiful, busy, orderly, peaceful and
kindly, but much slower than their world.
Something similar happens between us and the children.
The education of the senses is completely provided for by the
repetition of the exercises. Its object is not that the child should
acquire knowledge of the colours, shapes and qualities of the~
various objects but that his senses should be sharpened by exercises
in observation, comparison, judgement—which constitute true intel¬
lectual gymnastics. Such gymnastics, thoughtfully carried out with
various stimuli, aid in intellectual development, just as physical
gymnastics improve the health and regulate the growth of the body.-
The child who is exercising himself in receiving stimuli from
the different senses taken separately concentrates his attention.
380 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

and develops his mental powers one by one, just as, by means of
movements , prepared for separately, he regulates his muscular
activity. He is not hmited to psycho-sensorial gymnastics, but
prepares a special activity of spontaneous association among ideas,
an order of reasoning basing itself on positive knowledge, a
harmonious balance of the intellect. Out of such unseen gym¬
nastic work are bom and developed the roots of those psychic
■outbursts—which bring so much joy to the child when he makes
discoveries in the world around him, when he meditates and at the
•same time admires the new things which reveal themselves outside
himself, and the exquisite inward emotions of his growing con¬
sciousness, when, finally, there is born in him almost for
•spontaneous maturing, like phenomena of interior development,
the products of knowledge—writing and reading.
I once happened to see a child two years of age, the son of
a doctor-colleague of mine, who almost dragged himself out of
the arms of the mother who had brought him to me and flung
himself on things heaped up on his father s desk the rectangular
block of papers, the round cover of the inkstand. I was touched
to see this inteUigent little one who was trying to do the very things
which our little ones, with so much devotion, repeat again with the
plane insets. The father and the mother drew him away, scolding
him and explaining that they found it impossible to prevent him
from meddling with his father s papers and other things ^the
child was restless and naughty. How often do we see all the
children of the world when they are reproved for touching every¬
thing, rebelling against every correction.
Yet it is by guiding and developing this natural instinct for
'‘ touching everything ’ and for recognizing the harmony of geo¬
metrical figures, that our little men of four and a half have found
•the sources of so many joys and emotions in the acquirement of
self-taught writing.
The child who flung himself on the pile of papers, on the
ink-well and such things, trying in vain to reach his object,
.always opposed and overborne by persons stronger than himself.
 DISCIPLINE IN THE CHILDREN’S HOUSE SSI

always agitated and weeping over the frustration of Ms desperate-

eiTorts—that child is wasting Ms nervous energy, and Ms parents-
are suffering from an illusion when they believe that such a cMid
should rest; just as it is an ignorant calumny to consider to be
wicked that little man who is striving already to lay the foundation
for his intellectual edifice. On the contrary, children are really
resting ardently and happily when they are left lat liberty to-
displace and replace the geometrical plaques ^of the plane
insets offered to their better developed powers. They enjoy
themselves in the most perfect mental peace, quite unaware that
eye and hand are being initiated into the mysteries of a new
language.
Most of our children grow calm over their exercises; the
nervous system rests. Then we say that these little ones are good
and quiet; the external discipline so much sought after in ordinary
schools is already far surpassed.
But as a calm man and a disciplined man are not the same,
so here the fact which reveals itself to the w'orld in The calmress
of the children is too physical a symptem, too partial and super¬
ficial, compared with the true discipline which is being established
within them.
Often, and in this there exists another prejudice, we believe
that in order to obtain a willing act from the child it is necessary to
give Mm an order. We pretend that this is so, and we call such a
pretence the ‘ obedience of the child ’. We find very small children
particularly disobedient; also, their resistance when they are three
or four years old is enough to drive us to despair and into giving
up the attempt to obtain obedience. We extol to the children the
value of obedience which, according to us, ought to be peculiar to
childhood, an infantile virtue, just because we do not find it in
children except with great difficulty.
It is a very common illusion that one should seek with prayer
or command, or with agitation, anytMng wMch is difficult or
impossible to obtain. We ask for obedience from cMldren; cMldren
ask for the moon.
1(82 the discovery of the child

Obedience can be secured only through a complex formation

of personality; in order to obey there is necessary no.
Aniv the desire to obey but also the ability to obey. Since, when
,e order anything, we expect an active or an ■
■obedience must include an act of the w,U and “ “‘f ^
To prepare for this active growth in detail, by means of separate
■LercLes! is to urge the child, although indirectly, towards

-obedKnce^eti^o^ which we advocate contains in every

a voluntary exercise; when the child carries out
■ordinated for a definite purpose he reaches a goa which he had
•set UP repeats an exercise patiently, exercises his wi .
siXIy, in fairly complicated series of exercises he brings
into action inhibitory powers. For instance, the
demand prolonged control forbidding all movement: when the child
is waiting for the call, and also strict control of the acts whidi
follow wLn the child would like to shout for joy and rudr out at
the call- instead of that he is silent and moves lightly, taking caie
to nvtfd’rsmclcs so as to mahc no noise. Other inhibitory exer¬
cises are those of arithmetic; when the chdd, having taken out a
number, has to take from the great heap which is all apparently
.at his disposal, only the number of objects ^
numeral, whereas (as experiment has shown) he would like to take
the greatest possible quantity, and if fate deals out to him _
zero, he waits patiently with empty hands. Another exercise which
forbids action is found in the zero lesson: when the child, having
been invited in so many ways to come zero times, and give us zero
kisses remains motionless, mastering the impulse which would
^r"\L a. once to obey tins caU. The child who is carrymg
the great pan full of hot soup must shut out every outside attiac-
tion, must resist the temptation to jump about, must put up with
the itch from the fly on his face, and be completely absorbed m the
great responsibility of preventing the pan from tipping up or falling.
One baby girl of four and a half, every time she was resting
the pan on the table till the Uttle guests should be served, made
 DISCIPLINE IN THE CHILDREN’S HOUSE 383

two or three little jumps; then she took up the dish and carried
it to another table, always repeating her jumping. But never did
she interrupt her long round of work in serving twenty tables with
her soup-dish, and never did she relax the vigilance required for
controlling her movements.
The will, like every other function, is strengthened and deve¬
loped by methodical exercise. In our method exercises of the
will are incorporated with all intellectual exercises and in the
everyday life of the child. Outwardly the child is learning
accuracy and grace of movement, refines his sensations, learns
to count and to write, but, as a more deep-seated result, he
becomes master of himself, the forerunner of the man of strong,
ready will.
One often hears it said that the child’s will should be sub¬
ordinated in obedience, and that in this way that will is being
trained, because the child ought to submit and obey. But this
theory is irrational, because the child cannot give up what he does
not possess. It is in this way that we prevent him from cultivating
his own will-power, and commit the greatest sins against the child.
He is never allowed either the time or the means to test himself,
to evaluate his own strength or his limitations, because he is always
being interrupted and overborne by our superior power; he loses
heart over the injustice of his treatment when he hears himself
reproved sharply because he does not possess what is continually
being destroyed within him.
In this way there originates in the child timidity, which is a
kind of malady acquired by a will which cannot develop, and
which, in the usual slanderous fashion in which the tyrant,
deliberately or not, covers up his own errors, is considered among
us to be a characteristic of childhood.
Our children are never timid. One of the most fascinating of
their qualities is the fearlessness with which they approach those
with whom they are working in the presence of others, and show
what they are doing freely and with a desire to get them to
participate in their doings.
 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD
384
That moral monster, the precise, timid child who breaks out
when he is alone with companions and becomes a httle rascal
because he had not been allowed to exercise his wiU except
stealtl ily, disappears in our Children’s Houses.
Besides the action of will-power there is another factor m
obedience which consists of knowledge of the act which has to
be performed. - , , -i
One of the most interesting observations made by my pupil
Anna Maccheroni, first in the Children’s House in Milan, and
then in that in the Via Giusti in Rome, referred to the way in which
the development of obedience is dependent on the extent of the
child’s knowledge. . . . ,■
Obedience springs up in the child as a latent instinct, directly
his personality has begun, as we say, to control itself. For
example, a child begins to try to do a certain exercise, and once,
all of a sudden, he does it perfectly. He is surprised about it, he
looks at it, then he tries to do it again, but not for some time does
he get the same results. In the end he almost always manages to
succeed, but if anyone asks him to do it, he does not always succeed,
indeed he almost always makes a mistake. The external comman
does not yet eUcit the voluntary act. ’When, however, he has reached
the stage when his efforts always succeed with absolute accuracy,
then the external invitation calls forth orderly actions adequate
for the task; the child can always fulfil the order received.
That these facts, individual variations being disregarded, are
laws of mental growth is seen as a matter of common experience
repeatedly in schools and in life. One may often hear a child
say; “ I have done that, but I can no longer do it.” Or a master,
on giving a command, is misled by the inability of the child and
says: “ Yet the child used to do it well, now he cannot do it.
Finally, there is the period of finished development, consisting in
this: that when he can do a thing there remains as a permanency
the capacity to reproduce it.
There exist three periods of development. The first is a sub¬
conscious condition in which in the intelligence of the child order
 DISCIPLINE IN THE CHILDREN’S HOUSE 385

is being produced by some mysterious inward impulse out of dis¬

order, showing itself in a perfect external act which, however, as
it lies outside the field of consciousness, the individual cannot
reproduce at will. In a second period, of a conscious character
now, there appears the influence of the will which can assist in the
process of the growth and of the fixation of actions. In the third
period the will is able to direct and instigate the acts themselves,
responding also to external commands.
Now obedience follows a parallel course. In the first period,
that of internal disorder, the child does not obey, as if he were
mentally deaf, impervious to commands. In the second period,
he would like to obey, seems to understand an order and be willing
to comply with it, but he cannot, or at least he does not, always
succeed in obeying because he is not ready, does not show any
pleasure in obeying. In the third period, he responds at once and
joyfully; and, as he perfects himself in the exercise, there is born
in the child the delight of being able to obey.
This last is the period in which he hastens with eager pleasure
to leave whatever he is doing at the slightest command.
From the order thus established in the conscience, where before
there had been chaos, there emanates the whole picture of the
events associated with discipline and intellectual development,
which expands from within outwards like a creation. In such
orderly minds, in which light has been separated from darkness,
there are born unexpected sentiments and intellectual victories.
Already there are perceived the first flowers of kindliness, of love,
of the sincere desire for goodness, which send forth their perfume
from the hearts of these children, and which give promise of
St. Paul’s ‘ fruits of spiritual life ’—“ Love, joy, peace, long-
suffering, gentleness, goodness, faith, meekness.”

25
c H A P T E R XXV

CONCLUSIONS AND IMPRESSIONS

I THINK that the part of the method which is described here will
be clear enough to enable teachers to apply it practicaUy. Anyone
who has grasped as a whole the idea embodied in tlris method
will understand why the part referring to the material appUcation
of it is excessively simple and easy.
The figure of the common mistress who maintains, so pain¬
fully, the discipline of immobility and who expends her lung
power in loud and continuous talking, has disappeared.
For verbal teaching there has been substituted a “ material
for development,” which includes in itself the control of error,
and which permits individual children to teach themselves by their
own efforts. Thus the teacher becomes a director of the sponta¬
neous work of the children; she is a “patient one,” a “silent
one”.
Each child is occupied with different work, and the teacher can,
whilst supervising them, make mental observations; these, collected
and arranged in orderly, scientific form, may serve as a base for
formulating a reconstruction of child psychology and preparing
for experimental pedagogy. I think I have, in my method, created
the conditions of study necessary for building up a scheme of
 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPRESSIONS 387

scientific teaching, and anyone who adopts this method will open
hy the use of this alone, in every school and every class, a
laboratory of experimental pedagogy.
Henceforth we must wait for the real, positive solution of aU
the teaching problems of which we talk, as there have already
been reached solutions for others, such as the liberty of the
pupils, self-education and the harmonizing of household work with
scholastic work for the common purpose of educating the children.
Turning to the practical side of the school, we have, according
to our methods, the advantage of drawing together children in
very different stages of advancement. In our fii'st Children’s
Houses, there associated together in their work little ones of two
.and a half, still unable to carry out the simplest of the sense exer¬
cises, and children over five, who, judged by their acquirements,
might in a few months pass into the third class of the elementary
school. Each one of them is training himself, and carries on
according to his own individual ability. What an immense advan¬
tage belongs to this method, one which would make very easy the
instruction in rural schools and in schools in small villages in the
provinces, in which there are a few children and in which many
different classes could not be formed and which would have a few
teachers. The result of our experiment is that a single mistress
can handle children who are at such varying levels as those between
three years of age in the infant school and the third class in the
elementary school. In addition to this practical advantage there
appears another, the extreme facility with which written language
is learned, which means that illiteracy can be fought, and the
national language cultivated.
As for the mistress, she is able, without danger of exhausting
her strength, to remain all day with children who belong to such
diverse grades of development, just as in a home the mother is in
■company with her children of all ages, from morning till night, and
does not grow weary.
The children work by themselves, thus becoming endowed
with active discipline—independence in practical daily life, and
388 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD ■

the progressive development of intelligence. Directed by an

intelligent teacher, in their physical development as much as in
the intellectual and moral, the children may, through our methods,
acquire not only a remarkably fine physical organism, but also-
the magnificence possible to the human mind.
There are stiE some who believe erroneously that the natural
education of little children ought to be wholly physical; but the
spirit also has its nature, and it is spiritual life which dominates
existence throughout all its stages.
Our methods- take into consideration the spontaneous mental
development of children, and assist it with means derived from
observation and experience.
If physical care gives the children the chance of enjoying a
healthy body, intellectual and moral care brings them to the lofty
joys of the spirit and urges them forward to continual surprises,
to discoveries both in the environment and in the intimate world
of their soul.
These are the joys which prepare for the life of man and
which alone are capable of giving true education to the childhood
of humanity.
Our children are markedly different from all others met with
up till now in the subdued flock in the schools; they display the
serene aspect of those who are happy, and the fearlessness of those
who feel that they are masters of their doings. When they run to
meet visitors, they speak to them frankly, gravely holding out their
tiny little hands for a cordial handshake; they offer thanks for the
visit, received more with their shining eyes than with their shrill
voices; they make one fancy that they are extraordinary little men.
When they display their accomplishments in so simple and con¬
fidential a manner they seem to be asking for a mother’s opinion
from aE those who are observing them; when, in the neighbour¬
hood of two visitors who are talking together, they squat on the
ground close to their feet, and silently write their names with a
poEte word of thanks, it is almost as if they wanted to express
affectionate, gratitude to those who had come to call on them*
 CONCLUSIONS AND IMPRESSIONS 389

When tliey give proof of their respect by the most profound silence,
then we feel their behaviour as being touching enough to stir our
hearts.
The Children’s House seems to have a spiritual influence on
everybody. I have seen business men, men of high position, men
overburdened with heavy work, or full of a sense of their own
social importance, become serene, shake off some of the stiff
formality of their rank, become lost in pleasant forgetfulness of
themselves. It is the effect of the spectacle of the human mind
expanding in accordance with its true nature; it is this which makes
us call our little ones wonderful children, happy children, the
infancy of a humanity developed further than our own.
I understand the great English poet Wordsworth, who, in love
with Nature, began to hear the mysterious voices of her colours
and of her silences and asked from her the secret of all life. At
last, as in a vision, the revelation came to him: the secret of all
Nature dwells in the heart of a little child.
He discloses for us the true meaning of the life which is found
in the soul of humanity. But that spirit which envelops us in
childhood is afterwards obscured because the shades of the
prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy,” and the man
sees the vision “ die away and fade into the light of common day
Truly our social life is very often the gradual darkening and the
death of the natural life which is within us.
c H A T E R XXVi

THE TRIUMPHAL CHARIOT

The results of instruction reached in the Childrens Houses repre¬

sent the limit of the education which separates such schools from
the elementary classes which follow them. It is well to fix this
boundary line, though it is in part artificial. The Children’s House
is not a preparation for the elementary classes but forms a begin¬
ning of education which goes on uninterruptedly. With our
method we can no longer distinguish the ‘pre-scholastic’ from
the ‘ scholastic ’ period. Indeed we have not in this case a
programme governing the instruction of the child, but a case in
which the child himself, wliilst living and developing himself with
the help of physical and intellectual work, indicates stages of
culture corresponding, generally speaking, to successive ages.
The need for observing, reflecting, learning and also the need
for concentration, for isolating himself, and for suspending his
activities in silence from time to time has been demonstrated so
clearly in the child that we can confidently declare to be wrong
the idea that the small child, when outside a place intended to
educate him, rests. It is rather our duty to direct childish activity,
spare the baby from those useless efforts which dissipate his energy,
thwart his instinctive search after knowledge, and so often give
Classified reading material imparting fundamental information in geography and botany.
 THE TRIUMPHAL CHARIOT 391

rise in him to nervous disturbances and check his development.

The duty of employing oneself in the education of the very youngest
children does not have for its external aim the facilitation of their
entry into the obligatory period of instruction, but is a duty towards
the life, and therefore the health, of the child. What now interests
us to ascertain is the level of attainment which can be fixed as a
separation between the two kinds of school—^the Children’s House
and the Elementary School.
The children of the Children’s Houses have begun four
branches of learning—drawing, writing, reading and arithmetic¬
al! of which will be continued by degrees in the elementary schools.
Our recent experiences may add to these: Geometry, Biology,
Geography, Grammar and others.
These branches of learning depend upon the education of the
senses, in which exist the prepai'ations and the initial impulses of
the four branches, which germinate from them in a kind of sudden
outburst. Arithmetic is derived from a sense-exercise in estimating
dimensions, that is» the quantitative relations between things.
Drawing originates from educating the eye in the valuation of
forms and in distinguishing colours, together with the preparation
of the hand in following the outlines of speciaUy chosen objects.
Writing begins with the more complicated group of touch exercises
in which the light hand is trained to move in specified directions,
the eye is taught to analyse outlines and abstract forms, the hearing
to perceive the sound of the voice which speaks framing the words
according to their component sounds, Reading arises from
writing, and extends the individual conquest into the wealth of
language revealed in the writing of others.
Such conquests are powerful manifestations of internal energy,
and occur like sudden irruptions; the outbreak of the higher
activities is accompanied by the enthusiasm and joy of the child.
It was not then a mere matter of dry learning, but a triumphant
manifestation of personality, which found the means for linking
up with the profound needs of life. And like an ancient Roman
conqueror who drove through the streets in his superb quadriga.
392 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

the spirit of the child, erect and balanced, is guiding by itself the
four intellectual victories-the four horses of the triumphal chariot
which races onward, instinct with strength, towards the far
distant goals of culture.
The real centre of this great experience is, however, a discovery
in the field of child psychology. Every further development follows
that first revelation by the children of San Lorenzo, that strange,
inexplicable capacity to reproduce such long words, the meaning
of which was not even always known to them, by means of the
movable alphabet, that surprising phenomenon of the explosion
into writing, but also the almost miraculous fact of the establish¬
ment of spontaneous discipline in such young children. All this
happened in the most inexplicable way, because they were not
taught directly, neither were they submitted to any compulsion.
Yet these phenomena did not happen only once in a special
environment, they were repeated in every part of the world where
our procedure was followed with sincerity and exactitude.
These extraordinary phenomena revealed a hidden part of the
soul of the child. This is the real pivot of all our work, because
it was developed round these phenomena and guided by them.
That is also why these experiments and the method that was built
upon them cannot be understood lest recognition is given to the
fact that it is connected with a special mental form found only in
the creative period of early infancy.
Above all else there emerges from this great experiment the
demonstration of the fact that in the child under six years of age
there exists a “ mental form ” different from that which is develop¬
ed after six or seven years of age, and which is therefore different
from that of the adult. The difference is accentuated in the
smallest children, back to the time of birth. We call this the
“absorbent mind” of the child, and a first account has already
appeared in the book, “ Nuova Educazione per un Nuovo Hondo ”
{Education for a New World); but there is in preparation a book,
“La Mente Assordznte ” {The Absorbent Mind), dealing with child
psychology, which will soon be published.
 THE TRIUMPHAL CHARIOT 393

It is certain that mysterious facts, referrable to the unconscious

mind at first and then to the subconscious at the same time as
conscious ideas are appearing, reveal in the child a power to absorb
images from the environment even when these are deposited in
the mental labyrinths—as it reveals itself in the truly miraculous fact
that the child can absorb what is erroneously called “ the mother
tongue ” with all its phonetic and grammatical peculiarities, when
it does not yet possess the mental faculties which are necessary
in order to learn-, the voluntary attention, the memory, the
reasoning power. It is also true that things absorbed at the
unconscious age, by force of nature, are those which persist in
such a profound manner that they become identified with the
person, so that the mother tongue actually becomes a character of
the race, the property of the human individual.
On the other hand adults, who learn a foreign language when,
the mind is mature, do it with difflmlty and do not succeed in
imitating to perfection the spoken sounds, never losing their foreign
accent and always making some grammatical mistake.
The child, in the first two years of its life, is preparing with
its absorbent mind all the characters of the individual, although
he is unaware of it. At three years of age there is shown the motor
activity through which experiences are establishing the definite
“ conscious mind ”. The motor organ employed in the transfor¬
mation is essentially the hand which has to make use of objects.
It is well known that the child wants to touch everything and
concentrates on games which are carried out by the intelligence
and the hand in partnership.
The importance of the hand as an organ which co-operates in
the age of childhood in the building up of the conscious mind is
not yet utilized in education.
The powers of the absorbent mind are obscured by degrees
as the organization of the conscious mind advances; they are, how¬
ever, still in existence during childhood, and permit, as is shown
in our universal experience (that is, among almost all the human
races), the “ absorption ” of culture to a vastly surprising extent.
394 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Whilst the child in its earliest years (two years and a little
more) is capable of miraculous achievements simply by his uncon¬
scious absorbing power, whilst he is immobile, aftei the age of
three he becomes capable of obtaining a great deal of knowledge
by his own efforts in exploring his surroundings. It is in this
period that he seizes things by his own activity, and lays hold of
his mental world as if he were gathering it with his two hands.
He has not yet, however, acquired that maturity which enables
him later to learn through the speech of an adult. This is the
reason why the small child has been considered incapable of
profiting by the teaching of the ordinary school.
But it is certain that things gained during the absorbing period
are those which are fixed, not in the memory, but in the living
organism, when they become the guide for the formation of the
mind, for the character of the individual. Hence if educational
help can be given at that age it must be through the enviionment,
and not through oral teaching. What is taken in by the child in
the form of culture is like a permanent victory which kindles a
blaze of enthusiasm, as if he were launched into a sudden con¬
flagration. From this childhood-culture sparks of intelligence are
given off winch lead to expansion, to more victories in the
future.
That is the age during which man works without growing
weary and takes in knowledge like a life-giving food. Without
the possibility of functioning in accordance with the mental char¬
acters which nature has furnished as a key to the secret of the
creation of a human intelligence, the child suffers and deviates
from normality.
Today psychologists are beginning to recognize a form of
“ mental starvation ” in difficult children, who seem to be arrested
in their development and to have wandered from the straight way
which human development ought to follow.
The surprising results obtained in our schools and described
in these pages are therefore not caused by a more perfect method
of education, they are the exponents of a special mental form, of
 THE TRIUMPHAL CHARIOT 395^

psychological sensibilities found only in the creative period of^

growth.
Credit therefore should not be given to our scientific work, ,
neither to the method we used with defective children as applied
to the education of normal children. The point of departure for’
any true understanding of our work is not to consider a “ method
of education’’ rather the reverse: the method is the consequence-
of having assisted the development of psychological phenomena
which had remained unobserved and hence unknown for thousands^
of years.
The problem, therefore, is not pedagogic; ' but psychologic ’ p
and the education which aids life is a problem which concerns-
humanity.
■c H A P T E R xxvn

SEQUENCE AND GRADES IN THE

PRESENTATION OF THE MATERIAL

In the practical application of the method it is necessary to know

-the serial arrangement of the exercises, which must be presented
in succession to the child. In the course of this book there has
been indicated a progressive course for every exercise. But in the
Children’s Houses, the most varied exercises are begun at the same
time, and it happens that there exist grades in the presentation of
the material in its entirety. That is indicated as follows:

First Grade

Practical life: moving chairs silently, carrying objects, walking

■ on the points of the feet.
Fastening up.
The solid insets (sense exercises).
Within the group of the insets is found the following gradation
from easy to difficult—
(a) Insets of the same height and decreasing diameter.
(b) Insets decreasing in all dimensions.
(c) Insets decreasing only in height.
The globe is a source of profound interest and a starting point for great spontaneous activity
in geography. Montessori School, Gwalior, India.
 SEQUENCE AND GRADES 397^

Second Grade

Practical life: Dressing and undressing themselves, washing,

themselves, etc«
Yarious cleaning operations in the surroundings.
Eating properly, using table-ware.
Exercises in movement.

Third Grade

Practical life: dressing and undressing themselves, washing

themselves, etc.
Various cleaning operations in the surroundings.
Eating properly, using the table-ware.
Exercises in movement.
Various exercises in the control of movements, whilst walking
on the line.
All the sense-exercises according to gradation.
Drawing.
Exercises in silence.

Fourth Grade

Practical life: laying the table, washing the dishes, keeping the
room in order, etc.
Exercises in movement: rhythmic marches.
Analyses of movement.
The alphabet.
Drawing*
Arithmetic: various exercises with the material.
Entry of the children into the Church.

Fifth Grade

Practical life: all the exercises in practical life as set out above,
besides applications to personal details of the toilet such as cleaning
the teeth and the nails.
Learning external social manners, such as greeting people.
398 THE DISCOVERY OF THE CHILD

Water-colours and drawing.

Writing and reading words. Commands.
First operations in written arithmetic.
Reading scientific words—geographical, historical, biological,
geometrical, etc.
Development of reading through grammatical details accom¬
panied by games.
In the same class there ought to be mixed together children of
ithree ages; the youngest, who of their own accord interest them¬
selves in the work of the oldest and learn from them, ought to be
helped. A child who shows a desire to work and to learn must
be left free to do so, even if the work lies outside the regulai
programme, which is indicated only for the mistress who is begin¬
ning a class.