Pedagogical Anthropology

by Maria Montessori

Fig. 40.

The illustration represents a number of different animal skulls; and at the top are two human skulls, the one of an Australian and the other of a European. It will be seen that the proportions between the facial and cerebral portions are very different; in the animals, even in the higher orders such as the primates (orang-utan, gorilla, etc.), the facial and masticatory parts predominate over the cerebral.

One might even say that the skeleton gives us at a glance the characteristic psychological difference; the animal eats, man thinks; that is, the animal is destined only to vegetate, to feed itself; man is an entirely different species; he has a very different task before him; he is the creative being, who, through thought and labour, is destined to subjugate and transform the world.

There are still other characteristic differences between the animal and the human skull. The cerebral cranium of the ape is not only smaller but it is furnished with strong bony ridges, to serve as points of attachment for powerful muscles intended to protect the cranial cavity. The human skull is completely devoid of such ridges; it is perfectly smooth, with delicate contours; it might be described as "frail and naked"; for the word nakedness precisely expresses the absence of those defences with which the cranium of the anthropoid ape is so abundantly provided. Accordingly, the human cranium is undefended by soft tissues; and even the bony walls themselves are far from thick. If we take a transverse section of the bones of the cranium, we find that they are formed of two very thin layers of bone united by a porous, osseous substance; the external layer is in direct contact with the muscles of the scalp, and the internal layer with the brain. These two layers differ widely in their degree of elasticity: the external layer is so elastic that if it receives a bruising blow (provided this is not so heavy as to surpass its limits of elasticity) it will yield even to the point of touching the inner layer and then spring back to its original position without leaving any perceptible trace of the blow received (this is especially true in the case of infants),[36] while the inner layer is so unelastic as to appear almost as brittle as glass: so much so, for example, that the indirect shock of the same contusion may cause it to splinter into fragments, which may either penetrate the substance of the brain, or produce hemorrhages, or inflammatory reactions in the meninges—and sometimes may constitute the sole cause of epilepsy, and various forms of inflammation of the brain (even resulting in idiocy), and sometimes of meningitis and death.

Contusions on the heads of children, and in general blows resulting from falls or other causes, must be taken into serious consideration, in the history of the individual, even though they have left no profound traces externally.

This human characteristic of nakedness, of the absence of powerful bodily defences, is not limited to the head alone, but is diffused over the entire morphological organism. Man, considered as an animal, is weak; he is born naked and he remains naked, and destitute of those natural defences which explain the endurance and the survival of other species; neither the fur nor the plumage of mammals and of birds nor the bony shields of reptiles and scales of fishes serve as defences for this vertebrate, who has raised himself to the highest eminence in the zoological scale; neither the muscular strength and powerful teeth of the felines, nor the talons of the birds of prey have been his arms of conquest.

Nevertheless, man who has conquered the earth and overcome all his powerful biological enemies, owes his survival, equally with all other living creatures, to his victory over other animals and over his environment. Wherein lies the special strength of this little, feeble being, who has become the lord of the earth? It lies in his brain. The arms of this conqueror are wholly psychic. It is his intelligence which has prevailed over the might of other animals and enabled him to acquire the means of adapting himself to his environment, or else of adapting his environment to himself. His intelligence, which sufficed him as a weapon with which to achieve victory in the struggle for existence, is also the means which still permits him to continue on the road toward self-perfectionment.

The morphological importance attached by anthropologists to the cerebral cranium depends precisely upon this: that it is the envelope of the brain. If we examine the interior of the human cerebral cranium, we find that it has adapted its bony contours so faithfully to those of the soft tissues that it bears the imprint of the various parts of the brain (cerebrum, cerebellum), the convolutions, and even the blood-vessels of the meninges. Accordingly, a study of the cerebral cranium amounts to an indirect study of the brain itself.

Characteristics of the Human Cranium.—The characteristics of the human cranium are all associated with the great development of the volume of the brain. Let us assume that we have an elastic vessel, representing in form an animal cranium, open at the base through an orifice corresponding to the occipital foramen. If we inflate this vessel, it will not only begin to enlarge at the expense Of its folds (ridges), and to stretch and distend its walls (thinness and fragility of the cranial bones); but furthermore it will undergo a change in form, acquiring a more pronounced rotundity and pushing upward in its anterior part above the face. This part, rising erect above the face, and determined by the volume of the brain, is the forehead. Animals do not have an erect forehead; their orbits continue backward in an almost horizontal line, giving them an extremely receding brow. Corresponding to this preponderance of the cerebral portion, the facial portion retires below the brow, the mandibles do not extend beyond the anterior axis of the brain, and are so far diminished in volume that they assume, as compared with animals, a new function; in short, the mouth is no longer merely the organ of mastication, but also the organ of speech; its animal part has been spiritualised.

The Evolution of the Forehead.—Inferior Skull Caps; the Skull of the Pithecanthropus; the Skull of the Neanderthal Man. The forehead is so distinctly a human characteristic that mankind has not needed the help of anthropology in order to realise its importance—and as a sign of superiority, nobility or sovereignty, has placed upon the forehead the crown of laurel, or the crown of nobility or kingship.