Pedagogical Anthropology

by Maria Montessori

The Stature of Abnormals.—The name of abnormals is applied to the entire series of individuals who are not normal: hence the categories already considered (infantilism, gigantism, rachitis) are included by implication. The group of abnormals, however, includes besides a long series of other classes, neuropathics, epileptics, and degenerates.

Under the head of abnormals may also be included those who are abnormal in character, such as criminals, etc. It is not irrational to group together the different types of abnormals, for the purpose of anthropological research, in contrast with those who are normal. In America, for instance, such studies are conducted on a large scale, precisely for the purpose of showing the deviation of abnormal dimensions of the body from normal dimensions, not only in the definitive development of the body, but also during growth. The abnormals depart from the mean measurements, now rising above and again falling below, as though they were intermittently impelled by the biological impulse of their organism, which at one time manifests a hypergenesis and at another a hypogenesis. A clear illustration of these facts is afforded by MacDonald's diagram (see page ([168])): the solid line which rises regularly represents the growth in stature of normal individuals; the dotted line which forms a zig-zag, now rising rapidly above the normal line and then falling very much below it, represents the growth in stature of the abnormals. Naturally such a chart must be interpreted by comparison with the standards of mean measurements gathered at successive ages from a large number of different children. It shows that normal children are nearly uniform among themselves, and in relation to the years of their growth: while abnormal children differ greatly one from another and do not accord with the mean stature of the age they represent.

Regarding the stature of criminals there can be nothing special to say: criminals do not represent an anthropological entity. They belong to a large extent, whenever the criminal act has a psychophysiological basis, to various categories of abnormals. From the victim of rickets to the infantile, to the submicrocephalic, to the ultra-macroscele or ultra-brachyscele, all abnormal organisms may contribute to the number of those predisposed to the social phenomenon of criminality. And it is for this reason that we may say in general that the stature of abnormals is sometimes above and sometimes below the normal, but with a prevailing tendency to fall below.

Moral and Pedagogic Considerations.—The objection may be raised that a medico-pedagogic system of treatment, designed to prevent a threatened arrest of development or to minimise its progressive symptoms, demands on the part of society an excessive effort, out of proportion to the end in view. To cure or ameliorate the condition of the weak may even be regarded as a principle of social ethics that is contrary to nature, whose laws lead inexorably to the selection of the strong and to the elimination of all those who are unfitted for the struggle for life. Sparta has furnished us with a practical example that is very far from the principles which scientific pedagogy is to-day seeking to formulate as a new necessity of social progress.

Mac Donald.

Stature of normal persons

Stature of abnormal persons

Fig. 35.

But we are too far removed from the triumphant civilisation of Greece, to recur to the authority of her example: the principle sanctioned to-day by modern civilisation, that of "respect for human life," forbids the violent elimination of the weak: Mount Taygetus is no longer a possible fate for innocent babes in a social environment the civic spirit of which has abolished the death penalty for criminals. Consequently, since the weak have a right to live, as many of them as naturally survive are destined to become a burden, as parasites, upon the social body of normal citizens; and they furnish a living picture of physiological wretchedness, a spectacle of admonitory misery, inasmuch as it represents an effect of social causes constituting the collective errors of human ethics. Ignorance of the hygiene of generation, maladies due to the vices and the ignorance of men, such as syphilis, other maladies such as tuberculosis, malaria and pellagra, representing so many scourges raging unchecked among the people, are the actual causes that are undermining the social structure, and manifesting themselves visibly through their pernicious fruit: the birth of weaklings. To forget the innocent results of such causes, as we forget the causes themselves, would be to run the risk of plunging precipitously into an abyss of perdition. It is precisely these disastrous effects upon posterity that ought to warn us and shed light upon the errors through which we are passing lightly and unconsciously. Accordingly, to gather in all the weaklings is equivalent to erecting a barrier against the social causes which are enfeebling posterity: since it is impossible to conceive that if the existence of such a danger were once demonstrated, society would rest until every effort had been made to guard against the possibility of its recurrence.