“Exactly. As the most valuable part. With the babies, as you may have noticed, we first provide an environment which feeds the mind without tiring it; all manner of simple and interesting things to do, as soon as they are old enough to do them; physical properties, of course, come first. But as early as possible, going very carefully, not to tax the mind, we provide choices, simple choices, with very obvious causes and consequences. You’ve noticed the games?”
I had. The children seemed always playing something; or else, sometimes, engaged in peaceful researches of their own. I had wondered at first when they went to school, but soon found that they never did—to their knowledge. It was all education but no schooling.
“We have been working for some sixteen hundred years, devising better and better games for children,” continued Somel.
I sat aghast. “Devising games?” I protested. “Making up new ones, you mean?”
“Exactly,” she answered. “Don’t you?”
Then I remembered the kindergarten, and the “material” devised by Signora Montessori, and guardedly replied: “To some extent.” But most of our games, I told her, were very old—came down from child to child, along the ages, from the remote past.
“And what is their effect?” she asked. “Do they develop the faculties you wish to encourage?”
Again I remembered the claims made by the advocates of “sports,” and again replied guardedly that that was, in part, the theory.
“But do the children like it?” I asked. “Having things made up and set before them that way? Don’t they want the old games?”
“You can see the children,” she answered. “Are yours more contented—more interested—happier?”