I do not think that it can be truthfully said that there are no moral elements in his life. He is a baby Sir Galahad, with roses for his maidens in distress. He has felt and exercised and strengthened the same impulse that drove Judge Lindsey to his battle for the children of Denver against the powers of graft. He has recognized spontaneously his duty to aid the good and useful against their enemies, the responsibility into which he was born when he opened his eyes upon the world of mingled good and evil.
All this is not a fanciful literary flight of the imagination. It is not sentimentality. It is calling things by their real names. Because the little child’s capacity for a genuine moral impulse is small and has, like all his other capacities, little continuity, is no reason why we should not think clearly about it and recognize it for what it is—the key to the future. Because he “makes a play” of his good action and is not priggishly aware of his virtue is all the more reason for us to be thankful, for that is a proof of its unforced existence in his spirit. Just as the child “makes a play” out of his geometric insets, and is not pedantically aware that he is acquiring knowledge, so, to take an instance from the Casa dei Bambini, the little girls who set the tables and bring in the soup are only vastly interested in the fun of “playing waitress.” It is their elders who perceive that they are unconsciously and painlessly acquiring the habit of willing and instinctive service to others, which will aid them in many a future conscious and painful struggle against their own natural selfishness and inertia.
This use of the sincerely common life in the Children’s Home to promote sincerely social feeling among the children has been mentioned in the preceding chapter. It is one of the most vitally important of the elements in the Montessori schools. The genuine, unforced acceptance by the children of the need for sacrifices by the individual for the good of all, is something which can only be brought about by genuinely social life with their equals, such as they have in the Children’s Home and not elsewhere. We must do the best we can in the family-life by seeing that the child shares as much as possible and as sincerely as possible in the life of the household. But at home he is inevitably living with his inferiors, plants, animals, and babies; or his superiors, older children and adults; whereas in the Children’s Home he is living as he will during the rest of his life, mostly with his equals. And it is in the spontaneous adjustments and compromises of this continuous life with his equals that he learns most naturally, most soundly, and most thoroughly, the rules governing social life.
As for moral life, it seems to me that we need neither make a vain attempt to subscribe to a too-rosy belief in the unmixed goodness of human nature, and blind ourselves to the saddening fact that the battle against one’s egotism is bound to be painful, nor, on the other hand, go back to the grim creed of our forefathers, that the sooner children are thrust into the thick of this unending war the better, since they must enter it sooner or later. The truth seems to lie in its usual position, between two extremes, and to be that children should be strengthened by proper moral food, care, and exercises suited to their strength, and allowed to grow slowly into adult endurance before they are forced to face adult moral problems; and that we may protect them from too great demands on their small fund of capacity for self-sacrifice by allowing them and even encouraging them to wreathe their imaginative “plays” about the self-sacrificing action, provided, of course, that we keep our heads clear to make sure that the “plays” do not interfere with the action.
It is well to make a plain statement to the child of five, that he is requested to wipe the silver-ware because it will be of service to his mother (if he is lucky enough to have a mother who ever does so obviously necessary and useful a thing as to wash the dishes herself), but it is not necessary to insist that this conception of service shall uncompromisingly occupy his mind during the whole process. It does no harm if, after this statement, it is suggested that the knives and forks and spoons are shipwrecked people in dire need of rescue, and that it would be fun to snatch them from their watery predicament and restore them safely to their expectant families in the silver-drawer. By so doing we are not really confusing the issue, or “fooling” the child into a good action, if clear thinking on the part of adults accompany the process. We are but suiting the burden to the childish shoulders, but inducing the child-feet to take a single step, which is all that any of us can take at one time, in the path leading to the service of others.
Most of this chapter has been drawn from Montessori ideas by inference only, by the development of hints, and it is probable that other mothers, meditating on the same problems, may see other ways of applying the principle of self-education and spontaneous activity to this field of moral life. It is apparent that the first element necessary, after a firm grasp on the fundamental idea that our children must do their own moral as well as physical growing, and after a vivid realization that the smallest amount of real moral life is better than much simulated and unreal feeling, is clear thinking on our part, a definite notion of what we really mean by moral life, a definition which will not be bounded and limited by the repetition of committed-to-memory prayers. This does not mean that simple nightly aspirations to be a good child the next day may not have a most beneficial effect on even a very young child and may satisfy the first stirrings to life of the religious instinct, as much as the constant daily kindnesses to plants and animals satisfy the ethical instinct. This latter, however, at his age, is apt to be vastly more developed and more important than the religious instinct.
Indeed the religious instinct, which apparently never develops in some natures, although so strong in others, is in all cases slow to show itself and, like other slowly germinating seeds, should not be pushed and prodded to hasten it, but should be left untouched until it shows signs of life. Our part is to prepare, cultivate, and enrich the nature in which it is to grow.