The mothercraft manual

by Mary L. Read

The chief guide in the child’s self-activity is his interest. In this connection interest signifies not a passing whim or fancy but the child’s needs, the inner urgings of his instincts, his nerves, and muscles. Probably no one can know so well as the individual child exactly what his needs and interests are at any given time. The best the teacher can do is to know the typical interests of children at the same stage of development, and then to supply an environment that will provide stimulus and the most valuable means for exercise. For instance, at the noise-loving stage, providing a great range of instruments, suited to his muscular development, that will give good qualities and range of sound, and accustom his ear to melodious sounds.

Liberty, as Montessori means it, is freedom for self-activity. Her meaning is often misinterpreted and distorted, as will be noted from the following statement, quoted directly from her “Method”: “The liberty of the child should have as its limit the collective interest; as its form, what we universally consider good breeding. We must, therefore, check in the child whatever offends or annoys others, or whatever tends toward rough or ill-bred acts. But all the rest,—every manifestation having a useful scope,—whatever it may be, and under whatever form it expresses itself, must not only be permitted, but must be observed by the teacher.... If any educational act is to be efficacious, it will be only that which tends to help toward the complete unfolding of this life. To be thus helpful it is necessary rigorously to avoid the arrest of spontaneous movements and the imposition of arbitrary tasks. It is, of course, understood that here we do not speak of useless or dangerous acts, for these must be suppressed, destroyed.”

The child’s life is a constant unity of physical-mental-spiritual, of thinking-feeling-willing-living-doing. Only for purposes of discussion should we attempt to separate these. In education there is danger of overemphasizing some one, especially the thinking, of neglecting the spiritual, the feeling and willing, and of ignoring the doing, the motor expression of the thought.

In teaching anything new, build on what the child already knows or is interested in or can do. Begin with simple processes and proceed by gradual steps to the more complex and difficult. The child thinks in concrete terms, therefore let his instruction and education be chiefly in concrete terms, at least up to nine years. Let his learning come through living experience, at first hand, so far as possible. Especially avoid mere forms of words, without meaning and appreciation. Cultivate initiative by following the child’s problems, rather than by substituting your problems for his and thus leading him to depend upon others for such initiative.

It is a great responsibility of early education to cultivate and plant many centers of normal interest, both of thought and feelings. The wider the range of the child’s normal interests and feelings, the greater the scope of richness in his life. Intensive development of interests has its period in youth and in later adolescence.

Any effort to force an interest is likely to result in a reaction against the subject; an effort to force any motor activity, as speech, walking, dancing, is likely to result in strain of muscles and nerves, and ultimate retardation. Too early an intellectual interest, of a bookish sort, needs careful watching, to see that it does not result in overstrain and later mediocrity. Such a child, especially of the nervous, slender type, may need to be diverted to wholly motor and outdoor interests, for the sake of his future good. Genius develops early, especially artistic genius, and needs much physical life to maintain a balance. Mental precocity often is not genius but a morbid development. Infant prodigies are not the ideal, and it is a false ambition to attempt to produce one. The mental powers should not atrophy, but they should be exercised in personal exploration, experimentation, construction, getting acquainted with the natural world, learning how to do motor work, and thinking leisurely on the countless problems that present themselves to the child’s own mind.

Sensory and Motor Training. These begin almost at birth and should proceed much together. The sense of touch should be cultivated by having a variety of shapes and sizes to handle from infancy; sound by a variety of musical toys and agreeable noise-producing implements; color and form by varieties of color in toys and fabrics. Sense discrimination begins consciously in the second and third year, and the child should then have graded series of sizes, shapes, colors, and sounds, to compare, match, discriminate between, and arrange in order. The child should learn to discriminate direction of sound, to judge of distances and relative weights. Every possible advantage should be taken of material about the house and in everyday life; many simple games should be invented for testing of sense discrimination and accuracy. Taste and smell deserve but little attention. With a very sensitive child a limited amount of sense-discrimination work should be done; with a phlegmatic child much of such training may increase his sensitiveness. Sensation should never be stimulated as an end in itself but as a means to perception and action.

Opportunity for exercise, and the simple exercises given elsewhere, are all the child needs for motor training during the first year. During the second year he should be taught how to go up and down stairs, to feed himself; and in the next year to dress himself, the fastenings of clothing being in front or on the shoulder, and the apparatus adapted to his fingers, using snappers or buttons that he can manage. By teaching rhythm, as elsewhere directed, marching and skipping can be done as soon as the necessary muscles and nerves are sufficiently developed. Swimming can be learned at about four years. Muscles of trunk, limbs, and hands (the fundamental muscles) should be trained early; the accessory muscles—fingers, eyes—are not ready for fine adjustments and training until about seven years. Space and apparatus are the chief needs in motor education, with occasional help in technique.

Language. After the babblings of the first year, with their natural voice gymnastics, language becomes a matter of observation and imitation. Provide all through childhood accurate examples of articulation, grammar, and accent. The first impressions and speech habits are relatively fixed. “Baby talk” to the child, as incorrect articulation and pronunciation, may retard normal speech a year or more, and give incorrect words that will be a cause of embarrassment and cost great effort to eradicate later. At one year the vocabulary will include about four words. The child who hears a wide range of vocabulary and who has his share of stories, will naturally acquire a vocabulary of several hundred words in the second year and about a thousand in each succeeding year. Sentence formation begins in the second year and should be cultivated in the third. Sounds incorrectly given by four years should receive special attention through brief imitation games, or have the attention of a specialist. The simplest rudiments of grammar may be given in youth, but correct grammatical speech is chiefly a matter of good examples in childhood. A large store of good adjectives and exclamations will be the surest preventive of slang. It is considered wiser to wait until about five years, when the child has mastered the accent, practical grammar, idioms and feeling for his native tongue, before cultivating intensive acquaintance with a foreign language. Such additional language teaching should, of course, be by conversation, songs, stories, games, following as closely as possible the natural method of learning the mother tongue. A few conversational phrases from a number of different languages will broaden the child’s horizon. They should be given by some one who speaks the language with native accent.

Reading and writing are further use of language through symbols. They are slower forms of expression than speech, and their acquisition at too early an age impedes the freedom of thought and may retard the natural growth of thought and language powers. The eyes and fingers are not ready for fine work until about eight years of age. The child needs the outdoor life and first-hand experiences. As a matter of general observation, normal children with a natural environment, who do not enter the traditional school until about nine years, are able to proceed with children of their own age who have spent three years in school. The former children pick up reading at home, and have acquired the physical development, power of initiative, and expression, which enable them to cope fully as well as, if not better than the earlier entering children, with the problems of the school curriculum and of life.