xt70rx937t9n_438 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dipstest/xt70rx937t9n/data/mets.xml https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dipstest/xt70rx937t9n/data/46m4.dao.xml unknown 13.63 Cubic Feet 34 boxes, 2 folders, 3 items In safe - drawer 3 archival material 46m4 English University of Kentucky The physical rights to the materials in this collection are held by the University of Kentucky Special Collections Research Center.  Contact the Special Collections Research Center for information regarding rights and use of this collection. Laura Clay papers Temperance. Women -- Political activity -- Kentucky. Women's rights -- Kentucky. Women's rights -- United States -- History. Women -- Suffrage -- Kentucky. Women -- Suffrage -- United States. McClure's Magazine text McClure's Magazine 2020 https://exploreuk.uky.edu/dipstest/xt70rx937t9n/data/46m4/Box_17/Folder_19/Multipage19095.pdf 1911 December 1911 1911 December section false xt70rx937t9n_438 xt70rx937t9n  

THE MONTESSORI METHO

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OF' EfiUCATING CHILDREN

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 McCLURE’S MAGAZINE

VOL. XXXVIII DECEMBER, 1911 No.2
THE MONTESSORI SCHOOLS IN ROME

THE REVOLUTIONARY EDUCATIONAL WORK
OF MARIA MONTESSORI AS CARRIED
OUT IN HER OWN SCHOOLS

BY

JOSEPHINE TOZIER

\ [FOUR years ago Maria Montessori, an Italian physician and educator, opened the Iirst
"House of Childhood” (Casa dei Bambim’) in Rome, and began to apply her revolutionary
methods of education to the teaching of little children. Her work has set on foot a new educa-
tional movement that is not only transforming the schools of Italy, but is making rapid progress
in other countries. In june, 191 I, Switzerland passed a law establishing the Montessori system in
all its public schools. Two model schools were opened in Paris this September, one of them under
the direction of the daughter of the French minister to Italy, who has studied with Montessori in
Rome. Preparations are being made to establish Montessori schools this year in England, India,
China, Mexico, Corea, Argentine Republic, and Honolulu. In the United States schools have
already been started in New York and Boston, and Montessori has received applications from
teachers in nearly every State in the Union who wish to study with her in order to apply her

methods.

this winter for teachers from England and America.

HE Montessori system of education*

is more than a mere method of teach-

ing young children: it is a branch of

applied modern science—directed

toward the development of a new

race of men. “The external world,” says
Madame Montessori, “transformed by the tre—
mendous development of experimental science
in the last century, must have as its master a
transformed man. If the progress of the human
individual does not keep pace with the progress
of science, civilization will find itselfchecked.”
Madame Montessori, who is an anthropolo—
gist of European reputation as well as a
teacher, has adopted the inductive methods of

To meet the demand for instruction, Montessori will open a training class in Rome

EDITORS.]

ment of the individual, under freedom, to his
highest capacity.

“The conception of freedom which must in-
spire pedagogy,” she says, “is that which the
biological sciences of the nineteenth century
have shown us in their methods of studying life.
The old-time pedagogy was incompetent and
vague, because it did not understand the prin-
ciples ofstudyingthe pupil before educating him,
and ofleaving him free for spontaneous manifest-
ations. Such an attitude has been rendered pos-
sible and practical only through the contribution
of the experimental sciences of the last century."

The methods of this new system of pedagogy
are exactly the same as are adopted by all modern

experimental science to insure the develop- investigators in the field of biology.

* A previous article describing the Montessori system of education appeared in MCCLURE'S for May, [911

(ppm-13111. 19/},[11' '17:? ”ICC/Hr? I‘ll/I/I'cn/Ibnx, fm‘.

123

 

 124 THE MONTESSORI

Definess and Bodily Poise a Result of 2‘le
Montessori Sense Training

In the first place, Madame Montessori tries to
give the child an environment that liberates his
personality; she places him in an atmosphere
where there are no restraints, where there is no
, opposition, nothing to make him perverse or
self-conscious, or to put him on the defensive.
His personalitvis thus liberated into free action,
and the thing he is expresses itself.

Secondly, by her system of sense training she
develops in the child a sense of his relation to
his material surroundings and a facility in ac—
commodating himself to them. As a result of
the sense training, he learns to manage his body
deftly, to walk without stumbling, to carry
without dropping, to touch objects delicately
and surely — in short, to move among the ma-
terial things that surround him, whatever they
may be, with ease and freedom, and with the
least possible fret and wear to his spirit and to

SCHOOLS IN ROME

his body. livery element of embarrassment and
self—consciousness is overcome, and he inevitably
prefers harmonious action to the discord by
which the untrained and awkward child so
often tries to hide his inadeptness.

Thirdly, Madame Montessori tries, through
her sense education, to reach and to stimulate
the intellect itself. Through the child’s interest
in the materials with which he works, she leads
him to purely intellectual concepts of form and
the relation of numbers.

The Modern Baby No Longer the Play-
f/ng of Its Parents

Madame Montessori starts all her system of
primary training from the premise of indepen—
dence and self-reliance which underlies the
modern practice of infant hygiene — a compara—
tively new branch of medical science which, she
says, has sprung out of the experimental meth-
ods of modern biology. A new~born baby is
no longer allowed to be wrapped in

 

 

 

 

 

 

folds of woolen or cotton cloth, to _be
shaken or patted into sleep, to be
talked to and constantly handled.
Its clothing is arranged to give its
body as much freedom as possible.
It is kept free from excitement, and
is no longer made the plaything of
its parents. The nurse has now
become an observer rather than an
arbitrary personage imposing her
authority upon a helpless charge.
The nurse’s first duty is to watch
the little animal grow; her second
duty is to prevent the expenditure
of energy by useless effort on the
part of the child.

And these, Madame Montessori
believes, are the first duties of the
teachers of young children. The
whole movement of society to-day
is toward the protection of a child’s
individuality. Formerly, in hos—
pitals, orphan asylums, and chil-
dren’s homes, the ell‘ort was to
protect the child’s life merely—
to prevent infant mortality and to
conserve so many living human
organisms to society. But society
is beginning to realize that it may
have succeeded in preserving the
living human organism and still
have lost something that might have
been infinitely valuable to the world.

 

 

 

 

 

 

LITTLE GIRLS IN THE SCHOOL
COMING THE DOTTORESSA MONTESSORI,

OF ST. ANGELO \NEL-
WHO HAS
COME IN TO OBSERVE AND TO GIVE LESSONS

In other words, we have begun to
give protection to the potential in—
dividual which is in every child’s

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

LITTLE GIRLS IN THE Gl’llzTTO SCHOOL OF

ST. ANGELO, IN

ROME, CARRYING TllE MONTESSORI

MATERIALS FROM THEIR SCHOOL-ROOM ON THE THIRD FLOOR TO THE OPEN COURT.
THE CHILDREN MAKE THE jOURNEY DOWN THE STEEP FLIGHTS OF NARROW

STEPS WITH

body — to keep it away from those things that
would distort and destroy it, or force it into any
given mold. We are tryingr to insure this indi—
viduality a chance to reveal itself, rare or com—
monplace, whatever it may be.

The protection of this individuality, then, is
the foremost duty of the nurse in the first
instance, and of the teacher in the second.

The most thoughtful modern teachers in
America will find in the Montessori system all
their best ideas reduced to scientific simplicity
and precision. Dr. Montessori’s chapter on

PERFECT ORDER AND SECURITY

OF MOVEMENT

discipline, one of the most important in her
book. may be given briefly as follows:

Moniessori Methods of Discipline

“ Discipline through liberty. Here is a prin-
ciple difficult for the followers of the common—
school methods to understand. How shall one
attain discipline in a class of free children?
Certainly, in our system, we have a different
conception of what discipline is. If the dis-
cipline be founded upon liberty, it (the dis-

125

 

  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

CLARA, FOUR AND A HALF YEARS OLD,

DORA, AGED FOUR, SWEEPING THE CORRIDOR.
EXTENT
I’EI’I’INEIIA \VITH

\ CHILDREN IS SHOWN TO SOME
S\VEEPING VERY CAREFULLY,

We do not call an

cipline) must be ac/ivc.
individual disciplined only when he is rendered
artificially silent as a mute and immovable as a

paralytic. Such an individual is annihilated,
not disciplined.

“We call an individual disciplined when he
is master of himself, and can, therefore, regulate
his own conduct when it shall be necessary to
follow some rule of life.

”Such a concept of active discipline is not
easy either to comprehend or to attain; but
certainly it contains a great educational prin—
ciple, and is very dillerent from the absolute
coercion to immobility.

”A special technique is necessary to the
teacher if she is to lead the child along such a
road of discipline, if she is to make it possible for
him to continue in this way all his life, advanc—
ing always toward perfect self—mastery. Since

PEPI’INELLA, THREE AND A HALF, AND

THE INDIVIDUALITY OF THE
IN THE PICTURE. CLARA IS
GREAT VIGOR

the child now learns to move rather than to sit
still, he prepares himself, not for the school, but
for life; for he becomes able, through habit and
through practice, to perform easily and correctly
the simple acts of social or community life.
The discipline to which the child habituates him-
self here is, in its character, not limited to the
school environment, but extends to society.

The Children Must be Allowed Perfect
Freedom

”Thelibertyolthe pupil must have as its limit
the collective interests; as its/arm, that educa—
tion of acts and manners universally considered
good breeding. We must, then, check in the child
whatever ofl'ends or annoys others, or whatever
tends toward coarse or ill-bred behavior. But:
all the rest every manifestation having a

The italics are Madame Montessori's own

126

 

 jOSEPHINh

useful scope, whatever it be and in whatever
form expressed H must not only be permitted,
but must be observed by the teacher. l-lere lies
the essential point. From her preparation the
teacher should bring not only the ability to
observe natural phenomena, but an interest
in doing so. She, in our system, must be a
paziente (patient one), passive much more than
active; and her patience shall be composed of
anxious scientific curiosity, and of absolute
respect toward the phenomenon that she wishes
to observe. The teacher must understand and
feel her position of observer; the activity must
lie in the phenomenon.

“Such principles surely have a place in schools
for little children who are exhibiting the first
spiritual and mental manifestations of their
lives. We can not know the consequences of
suffocating a spontaneous action when the child
is just beginning to act; perhaps we suffocate life
itself. We must respect religiously, reverently,
these first indications of individuality; and, if
any educational act is to be efficacious, it will
be only that which tends to help toward the
complete unfolding of the

TUZ l E R 127
scope while the worlds whirl through space.
This idea that life arts of itself, and that to
study it, to divine its secrets, or to direct
its activity, it is necessary to observe it,
and to come to know it without interven—
ing, is very difficult to grasp. The teacher
has too thoroughly learned to be the one free
activity of the school, for too long it has been
virtually her duty to suffocate the activity of
the pupils. If, in her first days in a Casa dei
Bambini, she does not obtain order and silence,
she looks about abashed, as if calling the by-
standers to witness her innocence; in vain we
repeat to her that the disorder of the first mo-
ment is necessary. When she is obliged to do
nothing but watch, she asks if she had not better
resign, since she is no longer a teacher. But
when she begins to find it her duty. to discern
which acts of the child she ought to hinder
and which she ought to observe, then the teacher
of the old school feels a great lack in herself, and
begins to ask if she will not be quite inadequate
to her task. In fact, she who is unprepared
finds herself for a long time abashed or impotent,

 

inner life of the child. To

 

 

be thus helpful, it is neces—
sary rigorously to avoid the
arrest of spontaneous 1110220-

ments and the imposition of
purely arbitrary tasks. It is,
of course, understood that
here we do not refer to use-
less or dangerous actions, for
these must be suffocated ——
destroyed.

 

”The Old— Fashioned
Teacher Sztflocated the
Activity of Her
Pupils

“The training of teachers
not prepared for scientific
observation, or perhaps
trained in the old imperial-
istic methods of the public
schools, has cohvinced me
of the great distance be—
tween those methods and
this. Even an intelligent
teacher who understands
the principle finds much
difficulty in putting it into
practice. She can not un—
derstand that her task is

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

. apparently passive, like that
of the astronomer who sits
immovable before the tele-

LITTLE

GlRLS ARRANGINL}

TlllilR \V‘L)RK-'l‘r\l$l,li5 lN
ANGELO IN l’ESCllERlA

Tl-lli COURTYARD}

OF ST.

 

 128 THE MONTI‘ZSSURI
while the broader the scientific culture and the
practice in experimentation of a teacher, the
sooner will come for her the marvel of unfolding
life and her interest in it.

" In those first days of training my teachers,
I saw the dangers of blind intervention in the
children’s activities. These teachers almost
involuntarily recalled the children to im—
mobility, without obserz‘ing and distinguish—
ing the nature of the movements that they
repressed. There was, for example, a little girl
who gathered her companions about her, and
then, in the midst of them, began to talk and
gesticulate. ,The teacher at once ran to her,
took held of her arms, and told her to be still;
but I, observing the child, saw that she was
playing at being teacher or mother to the
others, and was teaching them the morning
prayer, the invocation to the saints, and the sign
of the cross; she already showed herself as a
director. Another child, who continually made
disorganized and misdirected movements, and
who was considered abnormal, one day, with an
expression of intense attention, set about mov—
ing the tables. Instantly they were upon him
to make him stand still because he made too
much noise. Yet this was one of the first mam"—
festations, in this child, of movements that were
coon/[natal and directed toward a useful end, and
it was therefore an action that should have been
respected. In fact, alter this the child began to
be quiet and happy like the others whenever he
had any small objects to move about and to
arrange upon his desk.

The Ordinary 'l‘eae/zer’s Mistaken
Notions of Helpfulness

‘lt often happened that, while the directress
replaced in the boxes various materials that had
been used, a child would draw near, picking up
the objects, with the evident desire of imitating
the teacher. The first impulse was to send the
child back to her place with the remark, ‘Let it
alone; go to your seat.’ Yet the child ex-
pressed by this act a desire to be useful.”

Madame Montessori here gives an illustra—
tion of a little girl of two and a half who, finding
that she could not see either under the legs or
over the heads of the other children, who were
crowded about a basin of floating toys, stood for
a moment in deep thought; then, with her face
alight with interest, ran toward a little chair,
with the evident intention of placing it so that
she might see over the heads of her friends. just
at this moment she was spied by a young teacher,
who, before Montessori could prevent, seized
the baby and, lifting her up so that she could
see above the heads of the others, cried:

SCHOOLS

l N ROME

"Come, dear, come, poor little one. you shall
see, too.” Montessori says:

“Certainly the child, seeing the toys, experi—
enced no such joy as that she felt in overcoming
the obstacle with her own powers. The teacher
prevented the child from educating itself with—
out bringing to it any compensating good. She
had been about to feel herself a victor, and
instead she found herself held fast in tWo
imprisoning arms, an impotent.

Good-Hess Too Often confounded
wit/1 [Ilmzob'z'lz'ty

“When the teachers were weary of my ob-
servations, they began to allow the children to
do whatever they pleased. I saw children with
their feet on the tables, or with their fingers in
their noses, and no intervention was made to
correct them. I saw others push their com—
panions, and I saw dawn in the faces of these
an expression of violence; and not the slightest
attention on the part of the teacher. Then l
had to intervene to show with what absolute
rigor it is necessary to hinder, and little by little
suffocate, all those things which we must not do,
so that the child may come to discern clearly
between good and evil. ' The first idea that the
child must acquire, in order to be actively disci—
plined, is that of the difference between good and
evil; and the task of the educator lies in seeing
that the child does not confound good with
z'mrrzobz'lity, and cell with activity, as often hap—
pens in the case of the old—time discipline. And
all this because our aim is to disciplinefor activ—
ity, for work, for good; not for innuobility, not
for passivity, not for obedience.

“A room in which all the children move about
usefully,intelligently, and voluntarily, without
committing any rough or rude act, would seem
to me a class—room disciplined very well indeed.

“To seat the children in rows, as in the corn—
mon schools, to assign to each little one a place.
and to propose that they shall sit thus quietly
observant of the order of the whole class as an
assemblage ~- this can be attained later, the
starting-place of collerti'ee education. For also, in
life,itsometimes happens tltatwérnustallremain
seated and quiet, when, for example, we attend a
concert or a lecture. And we know that even to
its, as grown people, this costs no little sacrifice.

”If we can, when we begin this collective
education, arrange the children, sending each
one to his own place in order, trying to make
them understand the idea that, thus placed,
they look well, and that it is a good thing to be
thus placed in order, that it is a good and pleas-
ing arrangement in the room, this ordered and
tranquil adjustment of theirs—— then their re—

 

  

 

 

, run

 

 

 

 

m

 

 

 

 

(jllll‘DRl-LN
oAME

IN THE CLOISTER
WITH

SCHOOL
REELS OF COLORED SILK.

TEACHER WHO SPENT A W'INTER STUDYING

IS STANDINO AT THE
maining in their places, quiet and silent, is the
result of a species of lesson, not an imposition.
To make them understand the idea of the
practice, to have them assimilate a principle of
collective order— that is the important thing.
“If, after they have understood this idea,
they rise, speak, change to another place, they
no longer do this without knowing and without
thinking, but they do it because they wisl) to
rise, to speak, etc.; that is, from that state of
repose and order well understood they depart in
order to undertake some voluntary action; and,
knowing; that there are actions which are pro-

OF THE FRANCISCAN NUNS lN

ROME, PLAYING A
Miss GEORGE, THE YOUNG AMERICAN
WITH MONTESSORI.

LEFT or THE PICTURE
hibited, this idea of collective order will give
them a new impulse to remember to discriminate
between good and evil.

“The movements ofthe children from the state
ol‘ order become always more coordinated and
perfect with the passing of the days; in fact,
they learn to rellect upon their own acts. Now, ,
with the idea of order understood by the chil-
dren, the observation of the way in which they
pass from the first disordered movements to
those which are spontaneous and ordered— this
is the book of the teacher; this is the book
which must inspire her actions; it is the one

120

 

 THE MONTESSORI

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

QUEEN MARGI‘IERITA VISITING A MONTESSORI
CLASS IN THE SCIIOOI. OF ST. ANGELO.
THE QUEEN HAS FROM THE BEGINNING
TAKEN A GREAT INTEREST IN
MONTESSORI'S \‘VORK

in which she must read and study, if she is to
become a real educator."

How Awhwardness is Done Away With
in the Case dei ‘Bambini

Sense training is one of the most important
factors in obtaining this discipline through
liberty. The children in Case dei Bambini are
just at the age when they are forming all their
bodily habits. If these are properly fixed in the
beginning, that awkwardness and clumsiness
which are the chief incentives to uncouth be—
havior are practically done away with by the
time the child is out of infancy. Everything
that he handles and works with in the Casa
dei Bambini has been carefully planned for his
use. The squares of carpet upon which the
children work are so small that they can con—
veniently brush and fold them and carry them
about. The tables are. so light that babies

SCHOOLS

IN ROME

of two and three can easily move them. When
the children are taught to wash their faces and
hands, they use little basins and pitchers which
they can handle easily and safely. The cup—
boards in which the children keep the apparatus
are low and open easily. The children are pro—
vided with three kinds of comfortable chairs,
although they spend a good deal of their time
standing by the tables or sitting on the squares
of carpet. By the time the children are live or
six years old, therefore, they have a repose and
freedom of body that make them masters of
themselves. Not only the sense exercises, but
every piece of apparatus used, as well as the
furnishing of the school-room, is the result of an
investigation as scientific and thorough as it is
human. Every piece of apparatus or furniture
has been tested by use in many schools, and by a
large numberofchildren. Nothingin the Case dei
Bambini is accidental; the apparatus and the ap—
pointments of the schools represent twelve years
ofstudy and experimentation on Dr.Montessori’s
part. Indeed, Montessori says that her method

. of teaching represents the work of three physi-
cians, Itard, Seguin, and herself, and that it be-
gan at the time of the French revolution.

The Disturbing Voice of the Teacher
Rare/y Heard in the Montessori
Schools

The gulf between the cultivated mentality of
the adult and the primitive groping mind of the
most precocious child is so great that even gifted
children unconsciously tax their brains in the
effort to understand and to assimilate the words
that most teachers use in presenting a lesson or
directingagame. Dr.Montessoristernlydiscoun-
tenances the folly of useless words. She insists
upon the direct presentation of the object in the
simplest manner, with the fewest words possible.

In the Case dei Bambini, the teacher, when
she is preparing to give a lesson, seats herself
beside the little one and firmly and distinctly
calls his name. To sit down beside a little child
in the attitude of a comrade, and to call his
name distinctly, clearly, is to call, not to the
body, but to the master spirit and owner of
that body. Hearing his name, the child in—
stantly knows that somethingis required of him.
When, by his expression or by an intelligent
gesture, he responds to this personal call, the
teacher may begin her lesson, saying calmly, in—
tently: “ Listen!” No other explanatory word.

Giving a Lesson on Color

In her lesson on color, which is one of the
first lessons that Montessori gives to children

 

 jOSEPHINE

of three and a hall or tour, the teacher selects
from the boxes of flat spools wound with colored
silks two or three colors strongly contrasted and
in pairs. The lesson proceeds according to the
three periods borrowed by Montessori from
Seguinf‘: Let us suppose the colors chosen to
be red and yellow.

”Yellow." says the teacher. putting down the
first spool of that color.

The average child will at once look pleased
with the brilliant object. “This is _i't'//o:c',” the
teacher may say again. She must repeat the
name ol~ the color clearly and emphatically, that
the sound may carry a meaning.

After a moment’s pause, when she is quite sure
that the child’s eye has abSorbed the yellow
color, she puts down the second color, saying,
“And this is rrd~— red — red.” The child
commonly is moved to take the object in her
hands and look at it. She has seen both of these
colors before, many times, probably has been
attracted to them before she could speak or
even crawl; for all babies with normal sight
usually laugh and crow at the sight ol~ bright
colors.

Notwithstanding the fact that the teacher
knows that the child likes and recognizes yellow
and red, she must allow her to contemplate. the
bright pieces {or a moment undisturbed. A
large proportion of children know the colors only
perfunctorily, and in this lesson will come the
first intellectual idea in connection with them.
They will look at yellow or red for the first time
in an intelligent fashion. For this reason the
child must not be hurried. Some children abSorb
ideas slowly, and this is a very new, large, and
important idea for the little brain. When she
requires more information, she will look up with
an intelligent glance.

Then only may the teacher proceed to the
second period, which is to prove whether
the child has understood the contrast and the
names of the two colors. It is the trial of
precision.

“Give me the yellow,” demands the teacher.
Then, “Give me the red.” If the child obeys
correctly and properly,—— which is almost in-
variably the case with strong colors, unless the
vision be defective, then comes the third
period of the lesson. The teacher points to the
yellow object and says: “What color is that?”
And then, being answered accurately, the three
periods are closed.

Then may follow the little game in which, by
the use of duplicate stimuli, Dr. Montessori so

*The three periods of Seguin proceed in the following manner:
First. the teacher shows the child the object. and speaks its name

carefully. Secondly, she calls the name of the object, and signifies
that she wishes him to give it to her. Thirdly, she points to the
object and requires the child to pronounce its name.

TOZIER 1;]
often allows the child to establish for himself the
points in the explanatory lesson. Taking the
two red spools. she places them carel‘ully side
by side, saying: “See, these are the same;
these are red." Then, having done the same
with the blue and yellow spools, she breaks
up the neat little carpet of colors, and,
mixing the spools, says, pointing to the red
piece: ”(live me the one like this.” When
the child has done this, she lets him place
the two side by side, as she did, and leads
him to pair, in this way, the other colors. She
then shows him how to break up the. line he
has made, and leaves him to play the game by
himself.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A STREET [N THE GHETTO OF ROME. IT IS FROM
THIS FILTHY, DISEASE-STRICKEN OJJARTER
THAT THE CHILDREN OF THE ST.
ANGELO SCHOOL COME

 

 T H [L MUNTESSURI

The Individual Taste of Each Chi/d
Must be Respected

152

If the child fails to respond to one of these
periods, the teacher must not urge her. The
little one has not learned the colors, either be-
cause her eyes are defective, or she was not suffi—
ciently interested at the moment, or perhaps her
young intelligence was not yet ripened to care
about the matter at all. In such a case, the
teacher, with a smile or a caress which implies
that the child is not to continue trying to do a
thing that seems wearisome to her, will leave the
little one at liberty to go and get some game she
knows and which pleases her more. Dr. Mon—
tessori says in her book: “If a child fails to
respond at once to the lesson, the teacher must
leave her, in order that the brain shall remain
quite clear to receive a new impression the next
timethislessonisattempted.” lfachilddoesnot
respond voluntarily to the object, nothing that
the teacher can say is likely to help him much.
When a child touches an object which appeals to
his intelligent curiosity, he receives an infinitely
greater stimulus than he can possibly receive
from words. There are certain minds that
spring forward to comprehend, and which in
turn react, almost before they are called; others
need to be led slowly, gently, before the same
result is attained.

It is impossible to change fundamental quali-
ties of mind. Not all children will respond to
these exercises in the same way. Some children
are anxious to drop an object as soon as they
grasp its meaning; others never appear to take
actual pleasure in it until they realize the scope of
the object, and then love to repeat the exer-
cisewithitcountlcss times. Dr. Montessori never
ceases to reiterate that the tastes of each class of
mind must be respected, encouraged, and strictly
observed. Her teachers must never for one mo-
ment forget that ”lilies can never be transformed
into roses, norcan any amount of training change
thetpersonality or alter the color of the soul.”

Dr. Montessori has the great sympathetic
soulwhich is the basis of her physician’s temper-
ament, and it was in caring for unfortunate chil-
dren that her genius discovered a method to
broaden the outlook, lighten the drudgery, and
assist the tender brain of the normal child.
Her great and brilliantly emphasized principle
is that, from the first entrance into the garden
of education, the dignity of the individual
explorer must be respected. He may be led
to look upon the character of the flowers and
plants, and to be guided into the best and most
useful paths, but he must be left to choose the
' plants which he wishes to examine, to under—
stand, and to cultivate.

SCHOOLS [N ROME.

She does all she can in training her teachers
to understand this theory; she reiterates, she
repeats, she emphasizes, she reproves; she goes
personally into the classes to show her teachers
how to handle the children, so that their nerves
may be kept calm and their brains left untaxed.
The only Casa dei Bambini as yet established by
the Roman board of education has so many in-
teresting circumstances in connection with its
foundation, developments, and ultimate results,
that l have selected it to illustrate this article.

The School of Sr. Angelo 1'12 the
Roman Slums

This school is situated in the picturesque and
foul quarter of the mediaeval Ghetto. The dark,
reeking streets and lanes, which wind about and
lose themselves near the Ara Coeli, skirting the
old palace of the turbulent Orsini, swarm with
a population diseased, filthy, and degenerate.
In this appalling setting the Signora Galli—
Saccenti, principal of a girls’ public school, actu-
ally persuaded the Roman board of education to
organize a Casa dei Bambini. Her first endeav—
ors met everywhere with stolid indifference and
intense opposition. The poor parents of that
squalid region have no political influence; nor,
indeed, have they vigor enough in their miserable

frames to do anything more than turn the chil—
dren they bear (their “creatures,” to use the
pathetic Italian term) into the narrow, noisy,
dirty streets. This region was in the olden times
the haunt of the pest, and to-day is a breeding-
place for every epidemic. The physicians fear
it, and the authorities have little interest in

it or in its denizens. At first the municipal
officials hardly listened to Signora Galli’s
eloquent appeals; but finally she compelled
attention, and at last she was permitted to use
a bare, desolate room in the school of which she
is superintendent. This room and a narrow
courtyard, with the promise of the didactic
materials necessary to teach the method, was all
she could get from the Roman bureau of educa—
tion. With eagerness, if not with thankfulness,
Signora Galli took what they would allow her.
To overcome the squalor, and to inspire the
pupils, she brought the riches of her own
glorious spirit.

There are none of the comfortable chairs
suited to little bodies, or the light, well-balanced
low tables seen in the other Case dei Bambini.
The board would not expend one penny beyond
buying the didactic materials. In the class-room
were the usual impossible ltalian school benches
and narrow, crampe