Before seeing this “lesson of silence” one does not realize that there is a lack in the world of the Casa dei Bambini. After seeing it one feels instantly that it is an essential element, this brief period of perfect repose from the mental activity which, though unstimulated, is practically incessant; this brief excursion away from all the restless, shifting, rapid things of the world into the region of peace and calm and immobility. And yet who of us, without seeing this in actual practice, would ever have dreamed that little children would care for such an exercise, would submit to it for an instant, much less throw themselves into it with all the ardor of little Yogis, and emerge from it sweeter, more obedient, calmed, and gentler as from a tranquilizing prayer? Sometimes, once in a day is not enough for them, and later they ask of their own accord to have this experience repeated. Their pleasure in it is inexpressible. The expression which comes over their little faces when, in the midst of their busy play, they feel the first hush fall about them is something never to be forgotten.
It makes one feel a sort of envy of these children who are so much better understood than we were at their age. And the fact that our own hearts are somehow calmed and refreshed by this bath of silent peace makes one wonder if we are not all of us still children enough to benefit by many of the habits of life taught there, to profit by the adaptation to our adult existence of some of the principles underlying this scheme of education for babies.
CHAPTER IV
SOMETHING ABOUT THE APPARATUS AND ABOUT THE THEORY UNDERLYING IT
AS I look at the title of this chapter before setting to work on it, the sight of the word “Theory” makes me apprehensively aware that I am stepping down into very deep water without any great confidence in my powers as a swimmer. But I recall again the reflection which has buoyed me up more than once in the composition of these unscientific impressions, namely that I am addressing an audience no more scientific than I am, an audience of ordinary, fairly well educated American parents. Furthermore I am convinced that my book can do no more valuable service than if by the tentative incompleteness of its account it drives every reader to the study of the system in Dr. Montessori’s own carefully written treatise.
It is always, I believe, essential to an understanding of any educational system to comprehend first of all the underlying principle before going on to its adaptation to actual conditions. This adaptation naturally varies as the actual conditions vary, and should change in many details if it is to embody faithfully, under differing conditions, the fundamental principle. But the master idea in every system is unvarying, eternal, and it should be stated, studied, and grasped, before any effort is made to learn the details of its practical application. A statement of this fundamental principle will be found in different phrasings, several times in the course of this book, because it is essential not only to learn it once, but to bear it constantly in mind. Any attempt to use the Montessori apparatus or system by anyone who does not fully grasp or is not wholly in sympathy with its bed-rock idea, results inevitably in a grotesque, tragic caricature of the method, such a farcical spectacle as we now see the attempt to Christianize people by forcible baptism to have been.
The central idea of the Montessori system, on which every smallest bit of apparatus, every detail of technic rests solidly, is a full recognition of the fact that no human being can be educated by anyone else. He must do it himself or it is never done. And this is as true at the age of three as at the age of thirty; even truer, for the man of thirty is at least as physically strong as any self-proposed mentor is apt to be, and can fight for his own right to chew and digest his own intellectual food.
It can be readily seen how this dominating idea changes completely the old-established conditions in the schoolroom, turning the high light from the teacher to the pupil. Since the child can really be taught nothing by the teacher, since he himself must do every scrap of his own learning, it is upon the child that our attention centers. The teacher should be the all-wise observer of his natural activity, giving him such occasional quick, light-handed guidance as he may for a moment need, providing for him in the shape of the ingenious Montessori apparatus stimuli for his intellectual life and materials which enable him to correct his own mistakes; but, by no means, as has been our old-time notion, taking his hand in hers and leading him constantly along a fixed path, which she or her pedagogical superiors have laid out beforehand, and into which every childish foot must be either coaxed or coerced.
We have admitted the entire validity of this theory in physical life. We no longer send our children for their outdoor exercise bidding them walk along the street, holding to Nurse’s hand like little ladies and gentlemen. If we can possibly manage it we turn them loose with a sandpile, a jumping-rope, hoops, balls, bats, and other such stimuli to their natural instinct for vigorous body-developing exercise. And we have a “supervisor” in our public playgrounds only to see that children are rightly started in their use of the different games, not at all to play every game with them. We do this nowadays because we have learned that little children are so devoted to those exercises which tend to increase their bodily strength that they need no urging to engage in them. The Montessori child, analogously, is allowed and encouraged to let go the hand of his mental nurse, to walk and run about on his own feet, and an almost endless variety of stimuli to his natural instinct for vigorous mind-developing, intellectual exercise is placed within his reach.