This I did in the first year of the "Children's Houses" adopting a great variety of stimuli, with a number of which I had already experimented in the school for deficients.
Much of the material used for deficients is abandoned in the education of the normal child—and much that is used has been greatly modified. I believe, however, that I have arrived at a selection of objects (which I do not here wish to speak of in the technical language of psychology as stimuli) representing the minimum necessary to a practical sense education.
These objects constitute the didactic system (or set of didactic materials) used by me. They are manufactured by the House of Labour of the Humanitarian Society at Milan.
A description of the objects will be given as the educational scope of each is explained. Here I shall limit myself to the setting forth of a few general considerations.
First. The difference in the reaction between deficient and normal children, in the presentation of didactic material made up of graded stimuli. This difference is plainly seen from the fact that the same didactic material used with deficients makes education possible, while with normal children it provokes auto-education.
This fact is one of the most interesting I have met with in all my experience, and it inspired and rendered possible the method of observation and liberty.
Let us suppose that we use our first object,—a block in which solid geometric forms are set. Into corresponding holes in the block are set ten little wooden cylinders, the bases diminishing gradually about the millimetres. The game consists in taking the cylinders out of their places, putting them on the table, mixing them, and then putting each one back in its own place. The aim is to educate the eye to the differential perception of dimensions.
With the deficient child, it would be necessary to begin with exercises in which the stimuli were much more strongly contrasted, and to arrive at this exercise only after many others had preceded it.
With normal children, this is, on the other hand, the first object which we may present, and out of all the didactic material this is the game preferred by the very little children of two and a half and three years. Once we arrived at this exercise with a deficient child, it was necessary continually and actively to recall his attention, inviting him to look at the block and showing him the various pieces. And if the child once succeeded in placing all the cylinders properly, he stopped, and the game was finished. Whenever the deficient child committed an error, it was necessary to correct it, or to urge him to correct it himself, and when he was able to correct an error he was usually quite indifferent.
Now the normal child, instead, takes spontaneously a lively interest in this game. He pushes away all who would interfere, or offer to help him, and wishes to be alone before his problem.