initial commit of ebook 29635HEADmain

1 files changed, 3368 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/29635-8.txt b/29635-8.txt
new file mode 100644
index 0000000..74a3cf8
--- /dev/null
+++ b/29635-8.txt
@@ -0,0 +1,3368 @@
+Project Gutenberg's Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook, by Maria Montessori
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook
+
+Author: Maria Montessori
+
+Release Date: August 8, 2009 [EBook #29635]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DR. MONTESSORI'S OWN HANDBOOK ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Alicia Williams, Dan Horwood and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Dr. Maria Montessori]
+
+
+
+
+               DR. MONTESSORI'S
+                 OWN HANDBOOK
+
+                      BY
+
+               MARIA MONTESSORI
+
+    AUTHOR OF "THE MONTESSORI METHOD" AND
+          "PEDAGOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY"
+
+       _WITH FORTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS_
+
+
+
+
+                   NEW YORK
+         FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
+                  PUBLISHERS
+
+
+
+
+            _Copyright, 1914, by_
+         FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
+
+   _All rights reserved, including that of
+     translation into foreign languages_
+
+
+                FASC May, 1914
+
+
+
+
+              TO MY DEAR FRIEND
+
+             DONNA MARIA MARAINI
+        MARCHIONESS GUERRIERI-GONZAGA
+
+                     WHO
+         DEVOTEDLY AND WITH SACRIFICE
+            HAS GENEROUSLY UPHELD
+  THIS WORK OF EDUCATION BROUGHT TO BIRTH IN
+             OUR BELOVED COUNTRY
+                 BUT OFFERED
+         TO THE CHILDREN OF HUMANITY
+
+
+
+
+NOTE BY THE AUTHOR
+
+
+  As a result of the widespread interest that has been taken
+  in my method of child education, certain books have been
+  issued, which may appear to the general reader to be
+  authoritative expositions of the Montessori system. I wish
+  to state definitely that the present work, the English
+  translation of which has been authorised and approved by
+  me, is the only authentic manual of the Montessori method,
+  and that the only other authentic or authorised works of
+  mine in the English language are "The Montessori Method,"
+  and "Pedagogical Anthropology."
+
+                                  [Signed: Maria Montessori]
+
+
+
+
+PREFACE
+
+
+If a preface is a light which should serve to illumine the contents of
+a volume, I choose, not words, but human figures to illustrate this
+little book intended to enter families where children are growing up.
+I therefore recall here, as an eloquent symbol, Helen Keller and Mrs.
+Anne Sullivan Macy, who are, by their example, both teachers to
+myself--and, before the world, living documents of the miracle in
+education.
+
+In fact, Helen Keller is a marvelous example of the phenomenon common
+to all human beings: the possibility of the liberation of the
+imprisoned spirit of man by the education of the senses. Here lies the
+basis of the method of education of which the book gives a succinct
+idea.
+
+If one only of the senses sufficed to make of Helen Keller a woman of
+exceptional culture and a writer, who better than she proves the
+potency of that method of education which builds on the senses? If
+Helen Keller attained through exquisite natural gifts to an elevated
+conception of the world, who better than she proves that in the
+inmost self of man lies the spirit ready to reveal itself?
+
+Helen, clasp to your heart these little children, since they, above
+all others, will understand you. They are your younger brothers: when,
+with bandaged eyes and in silence, they touch with their little hands,
+profound impressions rise in their consciousness, and they exclaim
+with a new form of happiness: "I see with my hands." They alone, then,
+can fully understand the drama of the mysterious privilege your soul
+has known. When, in darkness and in silence, their spirit left free to
+expand, their intellectual energy redoubled, they become able to read
+and write without having learnt, almost as it were by intuition, they,
+only they, can understand in part the ecstasy which God granted you on
+the luminous path of learning.
+
+MARIA MONTESSORI.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                                                  PAGE
+ PREFACE                                                           vii
+ INTRODUCTORY REMARKS                                                1
+ A "CHILDREN'S HOUSE"                                                9
+ THE METHOD                                                         17
+     Didactic Material for the Education of the Senses              18
+     Didactic Material for the Preparation of Writing
+         and Arithmetic                                             19
+ MOTOR EDUCATION                                                    20
+ SENSORY EDUCATION                                                  29
+ LANGUAGE AND KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD                                69
+ FREEDOM                                                            77
+ WRITING                                                            80
+     Exercises for the Management of the Instrument of
+         Writing                                                    86
+     Exercises for the Writing of Alphabetical Signs                92
+ THE READING OF MUSIC                                               98
+ ARITHMETIC                                                        102
+ MORAL FACTORS                                                     114
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+ Dr. Maria Montessori                                   _Frontispiece_
+
+ FIG.                                                      FACING PAGE
+  1.  Cupboard with Apparatus                                       12
+  2.  The Montessori Pædometer                                      13
+  3.  Frames for Lacing and Buttoning                               22
+  4.  Child Buttoning On Frame                                      23
+  5.  Cylinders Decreasing in Diameter only                         30
+  6.  Cylinders Decreasing in Diameter and Height                   30
+  7.  Cylinders Decreasing in Height only                           30
+  8.  Child using Case of Cylinders                                 31
+  9.  The Tower                                                     31
+ 10.  Child Playing with Tower                                      31
+ 11.  The Broad Stair                                               36
+ 12.  The Long Stair                                                36
+ 13.  Board with Rough and Smooth Surfaces                          37
+ 14.  Board with Gummed Strips of Paper                             37
+ 15.  Wood Tablets Differing in Weight                              47
+      Color Spools                                                  42
+ 16.  Cabinet with Drawers to hold Geometrical Insets               44
+ 17.  Set of Six Circles                                            44
+ 18.  Set of Six Rectangles                                         45
+ 19.  Set of Six Triangles                                          45
+ 20.  Set of Six Polygons                                           46
+ 21.  Set of Six Irregular Figures                                  46
+ 22.  Set of Four Blanks and Two Irregular Figures                  47
+ 23.  Frame to hold Geometrical Insets                              48
+ 24.  Child Touching the Insets                                     49
+ 25.  Series of Cards with Geometrical Forms                        54
+ 26.  Sound Boxes                                                   55
+ 27.  Musical Bells                                                 60
+ 28.  Sloping Boards to Display Set of Metal Insets                 90
+ 29.  Single Sandpaper Letter                                       90
+ 30.  Groups of Sandpaper Letters                                   91
+ 31.  Box of Movable Letters                                        94
+ 32.  The Musical Staff                                             98
+ 33.  Didactic Material for Musical Reading                        100
+ 34.  Didactic Material for Musical Reading                        100
+ 35.  Didactic Material for Musical Reading                        100
+ 36.  Didactic Material for Musical Reading                        101
+ 37.  Didactic Material for Musical Reading                        101
+ 38.  Didactic Material for Musical Reading                        101
+ 39.  Dumb Keyboard                                                102
+ 40.  Diagram Illustrating Use of Numerical Rods                   107
+ 41.  Counting Boxes                                               110
+ 42.  Arithmetic Frame                                             110
+
+
+
+
+DR. MONTESSORI'S OWN HANDBOOK
+
+
+Recent years have seen a remarkable improvement in the conditions of
+child life. In all civilized countries, but especially in England,
+statistics show a decrease in infant mortality.
+
+Related to this decrease in mortality a corresponding improvement is
+to be seen in the physical development of children; they are
+physically finer and more vigorous. It has been the diffusion, the
+popularization of science, which has brought about such notable
+advantages. Mothers have learned to welcome the dictates of modern
+hygiene and to put them into practice in bringing up their children.
+Many new social institutions have sprung up and have been perfected
+with the object of assisting children and protecting them during the
+period of physical growth.
+
+In this way what is practically a new race is coming into being, a
+race more highly developed, finer and more robust; a race which will
+be capable of offering resistance to insidious disease.
+
+What has science done to effect this? Science has suggested for us
+certain very simple rules by which the child has been restored as
+nearly as possible to conditions of a natural life, and an order and a
+guiding law have been given to the functions of the body. For example,
+it is science which suggested maternal feeding, the abolition of
+swaddling clothes, baths, life in the open air, exercise, simple short
+clothing, quiet and plenty of sleep. Rules were also laid down for the
+measurement of food adapting it rationally to the physiological needs
+of the child's life.
+
+Yet with all this, science made no contribution that was entirely new.
+Mothers had always nursed their children, children had always been
+clothed, they had breathed and eaten before.
+
+The point is, that the same physical acts which, performed blindly and
+without order, led to disease and death, when ordered _rationally_
+were the means of giving strength and life.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+The great progress made may perhaps deceive us into thinking that
+everything possible has been done for children.
+
+We have only to weigh the matter carefully, however, to reflect: Are
+our children only those healthy little bodies which to-day are growing
+and developing so vigorously under our eyes? Is their destiny
+fulfilled in the production of beautiful human bodies?
+
+In that case there would be little difference between their lot and
+that of the animals which we raise that we may have good meat or
+beasts of burden.
+
+Man's destiny is evidently other than this, and the care due to the
+child covers a field wider than that which is considered by physical
+hygiene. The mother who has given her child his bath and sent him in
+his perambulator to the park has not fulfilled the mission of the
+"mother of humanity." The hen which gathers her chickens together, and
+the cat which licks her kittens and lavishes on them such tender care,
+differ in no wise from the human mother in the services they render.
+
+No, the human mother if reduced to such limits devotes herself in
+vain, feels that a higher aspiration has been stifled within her. She
+is yet the mother of man.
+
+Children must grow not only in the body but in the spirit, and the
+mother longs to follow the mysterious spiritual journey of the
+beloved one who to-morrow will be the intelligent, divine creation,
+man.
+
+Science evidently has not finished its progress. On the contrary, it
+has scarcely taken the first step in advance, for it has hitherto
+stopped at the welfare of the body. It must continue, however, to
+advance; on the same positive lines along which it has improved the
+health and saved the physical life of the children, it is bound in the
+future to benefit and to reenforce their inner life, which is the real
+_human life_. On the same positive lines science will proceed to
+direct the development of the intelligence, of character, and of those
+latent creative forces which lie hidden in the marvelous embryo of
+man's spirit.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+As the child's body must draw nourishment and oxygen from its external
+environment, in order to accomplish a great physiological work, the
+_work of growth_, so also the spirit must take from its environment
+the nourishment which it needs to develop according to its own "laws
+of growth." It cannot be denied that the phenomena of development are
+a great work in themselves. The consolidation of the bones, the
+growth of the whole body, the completion of the minute construction of
+the brain, the formation of the teeth, all these are very real labors
+of the physiological organism, as is also the transformation which the
+organism undergoes during the period of puberty.
+
+These exertions are very different from those put forth by mankind in
+so-called _external work_, that is to say, in "social production,"
+whether in the schools where man is taught, or in the world where, by
+the activity of his intelligence, he produces wealth and transforms
+his environment.
+
+It is none the less true, however, that they are both "work." In fact,
+the organism during these periods of greatest physiological work is
+least capable of performing external tasks, and sometimes the work of
+growth is of such extent and difficulty that the individual is
+overburdened, as with an excessive strain, and for this reason alone
+becomes exhausted or even dies.
+
+Man will always be able to avoid "external work" by making use of the
+labor of others, but there is no possibility of shirking that inner
+work. Together with birth and death it has been imposed by nature
+itself, and each man must accomplish it for himself. This difficult,
+inevitable labor, this is the "work of the child."
+
+When we say then that little children should _rest_, we are referring
+to one side only of the question of work. We mean that they should
+rest from that _external_ visible work to which the little child
+through his weakness and incapacity cannot make any contribution
+useful either to himself or to others.
+
+Our assertion, therefore, is not absolute; the child in reality is
+not resting, he is performing the mysterious inner work of his
+autoformation. He is working to make a man, and to accomplish this it
+is not enough that the child's body should grow in actual size; the
+most intimate functions of the motor and nervous systems must also
+be established and the intelligence developed.
+
+The functions to be established by the child fall into two groups:
+(1) the motor functions by which he is to secure his balance and
+learn to walk, and to coordinate his movements; (2) the sensory
+functions through which, receiving sensations from his environment,
+he lays the foundations of his intelligence by a continual exercise
+of observation, comparison and judgment. In this way he gradually
+comes to be acquainted with his environment and to develop his
+intelligence.
+
+At the same time he is learning a _language_, and he is faced not only
+with the motor difficulties of articulation, sounds and words, but
+also with the difficulty of gaining an intelligent understanding of
+names and of the syntactical composition of the language.
+
+If we think of an emigrant who goes to a new country ignorant of its
+products, ignorant of its natural appearance and social order,
+entirely ignorant of its language, we realize that there is an immense
+work of adaptation which he must perform before he can associate
+himself with the active life of the unknown people. No one will be
+able to do for him that work of adaptation. He himself must observe,
+understand, remember, form judgments, and learn the new language by
+laborious exercise and long experience.
+
+What is to be said then of the child? What of this emigrant who comes
+into a new world, who, weak as he is and before his organism is
+completely developed, _must_ in a short time adapt himself to a world
+so complex?
+
+Up to the present day the little child has not received rational aid
+in the accomplishment of this laborious task. As regards the psychical
+development of the child we find ourselves in a period parallel to
+that in which the physical life was left to the mercy of chance and
+instinct--the period in which infant mortality was a scourge.
+
+It is by scientific and rational means also that we must facilitate
+that inner work of psychical adaptation to be accomplished within the
+child, a work which is by no means the same thing as "any external
+work or production whatsoever."
+
+This is the aim which underlies my method of infant education, and it
+is for this reason that certain principles which it enunciates,
+together with that part which deals with the technique of their
+practical application, are not of a general character, but have
+special reference to the particular case of the child from three to
+seven years of age, _i.e._, to the needs of a formative period of
+life.
+
+My method is scientific, both in its substance and in its aim. It
+makes for the attainment of a more advanced stage of progress, in
+directions no longer only material and physiological. It is an
+endeavor to complete the course which hygiene has already taken, but
+in the treatment of the physical side alone.
+
+If to-day we possessed statistics respecting the nervous debility,
+defects of speech, errors of perception and of reasoning, and lack of
+character in normal children, it would perhaps be interesting to
+compare them with statistics of the same nature, but compiled from the
+study of children who have had a number of years of rational
+education. In all probability we should find a striking resemblance
+between such statistics and those to-day available showing the
+decrease in mortality and the improvement in the physical development
+of children.
+
+
+
+
+A "CHILDREN'S HOUSE"
+
+
+The "Children's House" is the _environment_ which is offered to the
+child that he may be given the opportunity of developing his
+activities. This kind of school is not of a fixed type, but may vary
+according to the financial resources at disposal and to the
+opportunities afforded by the environment. It ought to be a real
+house; that is to say, a set of rooms with a garden of which the
+children are the masters. A garden which contains shelters is ideal,
+because the children can play or sleep under them, and can also bring
+their tables out to work or dine. In this way they may live almost
+entirely in the open air, and are protected at the same time from rain
+and sun.
+
+The central and principal room of the building, often also the only
+room at the disposal of the children, is the room for "intellectual
+work." To this central room can be added other smaller rooms according
+to the means and opportunities of the place: for example, a bathroom,
+a dining-room, a little parlor or common-room, a room for manual work,
+a gymnasium and rest-room.
+
+The special characteristic of the equipment of these houses is that it
+is adapted for children and not adults. They contain not only didactic
+material specially fitted for the intellectual development of the
+child, but also a complete equipment for the management of the
+miniature family. The furniture is light so that the children can move
+it about, and it is painted in some light color so that the children
+can wash it with soap and water. There are low tables of various
+sizes and shapes--square, rectangular and round, large and small. The
+rectangular shape is the most common as two or more children can work
+at it together. The seats are small wooden chairs, but there are also
+small wicker armchairs and sofas.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 1.--CUPBOARD WITH APPARATUS.]
+
+In the working-room there are two indispensable pieces of furniture.
+One of these is a very long cupboard with large doors. (Fig. 1.) It is
+very low so that a small child can set on the top of it small objects
+such as mats, flowers, etc. Inside this cupboard is kept the didactic
+material which is the common property of all the children.
+
+The other is a chest of drawers containing two or three columns of
+little drawers, each of which has a bright handle (or a handle of some
+color to contrast with the background), and a small card with a name
+upon it. Every child has his own drawer, in which to put things
+belonging to him.
+
+Round the walls of the room are fixed blackboards at a low level, so
+that the children can write or draw on them, and pleasing, artistic
+pictures, which are changed from time to time as circumstances direct.
+The pictures represent children, families, landscapes, flowers and
+fruit, and more often Biblical and historical incidents. Ornamental
+plants and flowering plants ought always to be placed in the room
+where the children are at work.
+
+Another part of the working-room's equipment is seen in the pieces of
+carpet of various colors--red, blue, pink, green and brown. The
+children spread these rugs upon the floor, sit upon them and work
+there with the didactic material. A room of this kind is larger than
+the customary class-rooms, not only because the little tables and
+separate chairs take up more space, but also because a large part of
+the floor must be free for the children to spread their rugs and work
+upon them.
+
+In the sitting-room, or "club-room," a kind of parlor in which the
+children amuse themselves by conversation, games, or music, etc., the
+furnishings should be especially tasteful. Little tables of different
+sizes, little armchairs and sofas should be placed here and there.
+Many brackets of all kinds and sizes, upon which may be put
+statuettes, artistic vases or framed photographs, should adorn the
+walls; and, above all, each child should have a little flower-pot, in
+which he may sow the seed of some indoor plant, to tend and cultivate
+it as it grows. On the tables of this sitting-room should be placed
+large albums of colored pictures, and also games of patience, or
+various geometric solids, with which the children can play at
+pleasure, constructing figures, etc. A piano, or, better, other
+musical instruments, possibly harps of small dimensions, made
+especially for children, completes the equipment. In this "club-room"
+the teacher may sometimes entertain the children with stories, which
+will attract a circle of interested listeners.
+
+The furniture of the dining-room consists, in addition to the tables,
+of low cupboards accessible to all the children, who can themselves
+put in their place and take away the crockery, spoons, knives and
+forks, table-cloth and napkins. The plates are always of china, and
+the tumblers and water-bottles of glass. Knives are always included in
+the table equipment.
+
+_The Dressing-room._ Here each child has his own little cupboard or
+shelf. In the middle of the room there are very simple washstands,
+consisting of tables, on each of which stand a small basin, soap and
+nail-brush. Against the wall stand little sinks with water-taps. Here
+the children may draw and pour away their water. There is no limit to
+the equipment of the "Children's Houses" because the children
+themselves do everything. They sweep the rooms, dust and wash the
+furniture, polish the brasses, lay and clear away the table, wash up,
+sweep and roll up the rugs, wash a few little clothes, and cook eggs.
+As regards their personal toilet, the children know how to dress and
+undress themselves. They hang their clothes on little hooks, placed
+very low so as to be within reach of a little child, or else they fold
+up such articles of clothing, as their little serving-aprons, of which
+they take great care, and lay them inside a cupboard kept for the
+household linen.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+In short, where the manufacture of toys has been brought to such a
+point of complication and perfection that children have at their
+disposal entire dolls' houses, complete wardrobes for the dressing and
+undressing of dolls, kitchens where they can pretend to cook, toy
+animals as nearly lifelike as possible, this method seeks to give all
+this to the child in reality--making him an actor in a living scene.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: FIG 2.--THE MONTESSORI PAEDOMETER.]
+
+My pedometer forms part of the equipment of a "Children's House."
+After various modifications I have now reduced this instrument to a
+very practical form. (Fig. 2.)
+
+The purpose of the pedometer, as its name shows, is to measure the
+children. It consists of a wide rectangular board, forming the base,
+from the center of which rise two wooden posts held together at the
+top by a narrow flat piece of metal. To each post is connected a
+horizontal metal rod--the indicator--which runs up and down by means
+of a casing, also of metal. This metal casing is made in one piece
+with the indicator, to the end of which is fixed an india-rubber ball.
+On one side, that is to say, behind one of the two tall vertical
+wooden posts, there is a small seat, also of wood. The two tall wooden
+posts are graduated. The post to which the seat is fixed is graduated
+from the surface of the seat to the top, whilst the other is graduated
+from the wooden board at the base to the top, _i.e._ to a height of
+1.5 meters. On the side containing the seat the height of the child
+seated is measured, on the other side the child's full stature. The
+practical value of this instrument lies in the possibility of
+measuring two children at the same time, and in the fact that the
+children themselves cooperate in taking the measurements. In fact,
+they learn to take off their shoes and to place themselves in the
+correct position on the pedometer. They find no difficulty in raising
+and lowering the metal indicators, which are held so firmly in place
+by means of the metal casing that they cannot deviate from their
+horizontal position even when used by inexpert hands. Moreover they
+run extremely easily, so that very little strength is required to move
+them. The little india-rubber balls prevent the children from hurting
+themselves should they inadvertently knock their heads against the
+metal indicator.
+
+The children are very fond of the pedometer. "Shall we measure
+ourselves?" is one of the proposals which they make most willingly and
+with the greatest likelihood of finding many of their companions to
+join them. They also take great care of the pedometer, dusting it, and
+polishing its metal parts. All the surfaces of the pedometer are so
+smooth and well polished that they invite the care that is taken of
+them, and by their appearance when finished fully repay the trouble
+taken.
+
+The pedometer represents the scientific part of the method, because it
+has reference to the anthropological and psychological study made of
+the children, each of whom has his own biographical record. This
+biographical record follows the history of the child's development
+according to the observations which it is possible to make by the
+application of my method. This subject is dealt with at length in my
+other books. A series of cinematograph pictures has been taken of the
+pedometer at a moment when the children are being measured. They are
+seen coming of their own accord, even the very smallest, to take their
+places at the instrument.
+
+
+
+
+THE METHOD
+
+
+The technique of my method as it follows the guidance of the natural
+physiological and psychical development of the child, may be divided
+into three parts:
+
+  Motor education.
+  Sensory education.
+  Language.
+
+The care and management of the environment itself afford the principal
+means of motor education, while sensory education and the education of
+language are provided for by my didactic material.
+
+The didactic material for the _education of the senses_ consists of:
+
+  (_a_) Three sets of solid insets.
+  (_b_) Three sets of solids in graduated sizes, comprising:
+        (1) Pink cubes.
+        (2) Brown prisms.
+        (3) Rods: (_a_) colored green; (_b_) colored alternately
+            red and blue.
+  (_c_) Various geometric solids (prism, pyramid, sphere, cylinder,
+          cone, etc.).
+  (_d_) Rectangular tablets with rough and smooth surfaces.
+  (_e_) A collection of various stuffs.
+  (_f_) Small wooden tablets of different weights.
+  (_g_) Two boxes, each containing sixty-four colored tablets.
+  (_h_) A chest of drawers containing plane insets.
+  (_i_) Three series of cards on which are pasted geometrical forms
+          in paper.
+  (_k_) A collection of cylindrical closed boxes (sounds).
+  (_l_) A double series of musical bells, wooden boards on which are
+          painted the lines used in music, small wooden discs for
+          the notes.
+
+
+_Didactic Material for the Preparation for Writing and Arithmetic_
+
+  (_m_) Two sloping desks and various iron insets.
+  (_n_) Cards on which are pasted sandpaper letters.
+  (_o_) Two alphabets of colored cardboard and
+          of different sizes.
+  (_p_) A series of cards on which are pasted sandpaper
+          figures (1, 2, 3, etc.).
+  (_q_) A series of large cards bearing the same
+          figures in smooth paper for the enumeration
+          of numbers above ten.
+  (_r_) Two boxes with small sticks for counting.
+  (_s_) The volume of drawings belonging specially
+          to the method, and colored pencils.
+  (_t_) The frames for lacing, buttoning, etc., which
+          are used for the education of the movements
+          of the hand.
+
+
+
+
+MOTOR EDUCATION
+
+
+The education of the movements is very complex, as it must correspond
+to all the coordinated movements which the child has to establish in
+his physiological organism. The child, if left without guidance, is
+disorderly in his movements, and these disorderly movements are the
+_special characteristic of the little child._ In fact, he "never keeps
+still," and "touches everything." This is what forms the child's
+so-called "unruliness" and "naughtiness."
+
+The adult would deal with him by checking these movements, with the
+monotonous and useless repetition "keep still." As a matter of fact,
+in these movements the little one is seeking the very exercise which
+will organize and coordinate the movements useful to man. We must,
+therefore, desist from the useless attempt to reduce the child to a
+state of immobility. We should rather give "order" to his movements,
+leading them to those actions towards which his efforts are actually
+tending. This is the aim of muscular education at this age. Once a
+direction is given to them, the child's movements are made towards a
+definite end, so that he himself grows quiet and contented, and
+becomes an active worker, a being calm and full of joy. This education
+of the movements is one of the principal factors in producing that
+outward appearance of "discipline" to be found in the "Children's
+Houses." I have already spoken at length on this subject in my other
+books.
+
+Muscular education has reference to:
+
+  The primary movements of everyday life (walking, rising, sitting,
+    handling objects).
+  The care of the person.
+  Management of the household.
+  Gardening.
+  Manual work.
+  Gymnastic exercises.
+  Rhythmic movements.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 3.--FRAMES FOR LACING AND BUTTONING.]
+
+In the care of the person the first step is that of dressing and
+undressing. For this end there is in my didactic material a collection
+of frames to which are attached pieces of stuff, leather, etc. These
+can be buttoned, hooked, tied together--in fact, joined in all the
+different ways which our civilization has invented for fastening our
+clothing, shoes, etc. (Fig. 3.) The teacher, sitting by the child's
+side, performs the necessary movements of the fingers very slowly and
+deliberately, separating the movements themselves into their different
+parts, and letting them be seen clearly and minutely.
+
+For example, one of the first actions will be the adjustment of the
+two pieces of stuff in such a way that the edges to be fastened
+together touch one another from top to bottom. Then, if it is a
+buttoning-frame, the teacher will show the child the different stages
+of the action. She will take hold of the button, set it opposite the
+buttonhole, make it enter the buttonhole completely, and adjust it
+carefully in its place above. In the same way, to teach a child to tie
+a bow, she will separate the stage in which he ties the ribbons
+together from that in which he makes the bows.
+
+In the cinematograph film there is a picture which shows an entire
+lesson in the tying of the bows with the ribbons. These lessons are
+not necessary for all the children, as they learn from one another,
+and of their own accord come with great patience to analyze the
+movements, performing them separately very slowly and carefully. The
+child can sit in a comfortable position and hold his frame on the
+table. (Fig. 4.) As he fastens and unfastens the same frame many times
+over with great interest, he acquires an unusual deftness of hand, and
+becomes possessed with the desire to fasten real clothes whenever he
+has the opportunity. We see the smallest children _wanting_ to dress
+themselves and their companions. They go in search of amusement of
+this kind, and defend themselves with all their might against the
+adult who would try to help them.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 4.--CHILD BUTTONING ON FRAME. (PHOTO TAKEN AT MR.
+HAWKER'S SCHOOL AT RUNTON.)]
+
+In the same way for the teaching of the other and larger movements,
+such as washing, setting the table, etc., the directress must at the
+beginning intervene, teaching the child with few or no words at all,
+but with very precise actions. She teaches all the movements: how to
+sit, to rise from one's seat, to take up and lay down objects, and to
+offer them gracefully to others. In the same way she teaches the
+children to set the plates one upon the other and lay them on the
+table without making any noise.
+
+The children learn easily and show an interest and surprising care in
+the performance of these actions. In classes where there are many
+children it is necessary to arrange for the children to take turns in
+the various household duties, such as housework, serving at table, and
+washing dishes. The children readily respect such a system of turns.
+There is no need to ask them to do this work, for they come
+spontaneously--even little ones of two and a half years old--to offer
+to do their share, and it is frequently most touching to watch their
+efforts to imitate, to remember, and, finally, to conquer their
+difficulty. Professor Jacoby, of New York, was once much moved as he
+watched a child, who was little more than two years old and not at all
+intelligent in appearance, standing perplexed, because he could not
+remember whether the fork should be set at the right hand or the left.
+He remained a long while meditating and evidently using all the powers
+of his mind. The other children older than he watched him with
+admiration, marveling, like ourselves, at the life developing under
+our eyes.
+
+The instructions of the teacher consist then merely in a hint, a
+touch--enough to give a start to the child. The rest develops of
+itself. The children learn from one another and throw themselves into
+the work with enthusiasm and delight. This atmosphere of quiet
+activity develops a fellow-feeling, an attitude of mutual aid, and,
+most wonderful of all, an intelligent interest on the part of the
+older children in the progress of their little companions. It is
+enough just to set a child in these peaceful surroundings for him to
+feel perfectly at home. In the cinematograph pictures the actual work
+in a "Children's House" may be seen. The children are moving about,
+each one fulfilling his own task, whilst the teacher is in a corner
+watching. Pictures were taken also of the children engaged in the care
+of the house, that is, in the care both of their persons and of their
+surroundings. They can be seen washing their faces, polishing their
+shoes, washing the furniture, polishing the metal indicators of the
+pedometer, brushing the carpets, etc. In the work of laying the table
+the children are seen quite by themselves, dividing the work among
+themselves, carrying the plates, spoons, knives and forks, etc., and,
+finally, sitting down at the tables where the little waitresses serve
+the hot soup.
+
+Again, gardening and manual work are a great pleasure to our children.
+Gardening is already well known as a feature of infant education, and
+it is recognized by all that plants and animals attract the children's
+care and attention. The ideal of the "Children's Houses" in this
+respect is to imitate the best in the present usage of those schools
+which owe their inspiration more or less to Mrs. Latter.
+
+For manual instruction we have chosen clay work, consisting of the
+construction of little tiles, vases and bricks. These may be made with
+the help of simple instruments, such as molds. The completion of the
+work should be the aim always kept in view, and, finally, all the
+little objects made by the children should be glazed and baked in the
+furnace. The children themselves learn to line a wall with shining
+white or colored tiles wrought in various designs, or, with the help
+of mortar and a trowel, to cover the floor with little bricks. They
+also dig out foundations and then use their bricks to build division
+walls, or entire little houses for the chickens.
+
+Among the gymnastic exercises that which must be considered the most
+important is that of the "line." A line is described in chalk or
+paint upon a large space of floor. Instead of one line, there may also
+be two concentric lines, elliptical in form. The children are taught
+to walk upon these lines like tight-rope walkers, placing their feet
+one in front of the other. To keep their balance they make efforts
+exactly similar to those of real tight-rope walkers, except that they
+have no danger with which to reckon, as the lines are only _drawn_
+upon the floor. The teacher herself performs the exercise, showing
+clearly how she sets her feet, and the children imitate her without
+any necessity for her to speak. At first it is only certain children
+who follow her, and when she has shown them how to do it, she
+withdraws, leaving the phenomenon to develop of itself.
+
+The children for the most part continue to walk, adapting their feet
+with great care to the movement they have seen, and making efforts to
+keep their balance so as not to fall. Gradually the other children
+draw near and watch and also make an attempt. Very little time elapses
+before the whole of the two ellipses or the one line is covered with
+children balancing themselves, and continuing to walk round, watching
+their feet with an expression of deep attention on their faces.
+
+Music may then be used. It should be a very simple march, the rhythm
+of which is not obvious at first, but which accompanies and enlivens
+the spontaneous efforts of the children.
+
+When they have learned in this way to master their balance the
+children have brought the act of walking to a remarkable standard of
+perfection, and have acquired, in addition to security and composure
+in their natural gait, an unusually graceful carriage of the body. The
+exercise on the line can afterwards be made more complicated in
+various ways. The first application is that of calling forth rhythmic
+exercise by the sound of a march upon the piano. When the same march
+is repeated during several days, the children end by feeling the
+rhythm and by following it with movements of their arms and feet. They
+also accompany the exercises on the line with songs.
+
+Little by little the music is _understood_ by the children. They
+finish, as in Miss George's school at Washington, by singing over
+their daily work with the didactic material. The "Children's House,"
+then, resembles a hive of bees humming as they work.
+
+As to the little gymnasium, of which I speak in my book on the
+"Method," one piece of apparatus is particularly practical. This is
+the "fence," from which the children hang by their arms, freeing their
+legs from the heavy weight of the body and strengthening the arms.
+This fence has also the advantage of being useful in a garden for the
+purpose of dividing one part from another, as, for example, the
+flower-beds from the garden walks, and it does not detract in any way
+from the appearance of the garden.
+
+
+
+
+SENSORY EDUCATION
+
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 5.--CYLINDERS DECREASING IN DIAMETER ONLY.]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 6.--CYLINDERS DECREASING IN DIAMETER AND HEIGHT.]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 7.--CYLINDERS DECREASING IN HEIGHT ONLY.]
+
+My didactic material offers to the child the _means_ for what may be
+called "sensory education."
+
+In the box of material the first three objects which are likely to
+attract the attention of a little child from two and a half to three
+years old are three solid pieces of wood, in each of which is inserted
+a row of ten small cylinders, or sometimes discs, all furnished with a
+button for a handle. In the first case there is a row of cylinders of
+the same height, but with a diameter which decreases from thick to
+thin. (Fig. 5.) In the second there are cylinders which decrease in
+all dimensions, and so are either larger or smaller, but always of the
+same shape. (Fig. 6.)
+
+Lastly, in the third case, the cylinders have the same diameter but
+vary in height, so that, as the size decreases, the cylinder gradually
+becomes a little disc in form. (Fig. 7.)
+
+The first cylinders vary in two dimensions (the section); the second
+in all three dimensions; the third in one dimension (height). The
+order which I have given refers to the degree of _ease_ with which the
+child performs the exercises.
+
+The exercise consists in taking out the cylinders, mixing them and
+putting them back in the right place. It is performed by the child as
+he sits in a comfortable position at a little table. He exercises his
+hands in the delicate act of taking hold of the button with the tips
+of one or two fingers, and in the little movements of the hand and arm
+as he mixes the cylinders, _without letting them fall_ and _without
+making too much noise_ and puts them back again each in its own
+place.
+
+In these exercises the teacher may, in the first instance, intervene,
+merely taking out the cylinders, mixing them carefully on the table
+and then showing the child that he is to put them back, but without
+performing the action herself. Such intervention, however, is almost
+always found to be unnecessary, for the children _see_ their
+companions at work, and thus are encouraged to imitate them.
+
+They like to do it _alone_; in fact, sometimes almost in private for
+fear of inopportune help. (Fig. 8.)
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 8.--CHILD USING CASE OF CYLINDERS.]
+
+But how is the child to find the right place for each of the little
+cylinders which lie mixed upon the table? He first makes trials; it
+often happens that he places a cylinder which is too large for the
+empty hole over which he puts it. Then, changing its place, he tries
+others until the cylinder goes in. Again, the contrary may happen;
+that is to say, the cylinder may slip too easily into a hole too big
+for it. In that case it has taken a place which does not belong to it
+at all, but to a larger cylinder. In this way one cylinder at the end
+will be left out without a place, and it will not be possible to find
+one that fits. Here the child cannot help seeing his mistake in
+concrete form. He is perplexed, his little mind is faced with a
+problem which interests him intensely. Before, all the cylinders
+fitted, now there is one that will not fit. The little one stops,
+frowning, deep in thought. He begins to feel the little buttons and
+finds that some cylinders have too much room. He thinks that perhaps
+they are out of their right place and tries to place them correctly.
+He repeats the process again and again, and finally he succeeds. Then
+it is that he breaks into a smile of triumph. The exercise arouses the
+intelligence of the child; he wants to repeat it right from the
+beginning and, having learned by experience, he makes another attempt.
+Little children from three to three and a half years old have repeated
+the exercise up to _forty_ times without losing their interest in it.
+
+If the second set of cylinders and then the third are presented, the
+_change_ of shape strikes the child and reawakens his interest.
+
+The material which I have described serves to _educate the eye_ to
+distinguish _difference in dimension_, for the child ends by being
+able to recognize at a glance the larger or the smaller hole which
+exactly fits the cylinder which he holds in his hand. The educative
+process is based on this: that the control of the error lies in _the
+material itself_, and the child has concrete evidence of it.
+
+The desire of the child to attain an end which he knows, leads him to
+correct himself. It is not a teacher who makes him notice his mistake
+and shows him how to correct it, but it is a complex work of the
+child's own intelligence which leads to such a result.
+
+Hence at this point there begins the process of auto-education.
+
+The aim is not an external one, that is to say, it is _not_ the object
+that the child should learn how to place the cylinders, and _that he
+should know how to perform an exercise_.
+
+The aim is an inner one, namely, that the child train himself to
+observe; that he be led to make comparisons between objects, to form
+judgments, to reason and to decide; and it is in the indefinite
+repetition of this exercise of attention and of intelligence that a
+real development ensues.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 9.--THE TOWER.]
+
+The series of objects to follow after the cylinders consists of three
+sets of geometrical solid forms:
+
+(1) Ten wooden cubes colored pink. The sides of the cubes diminish
+from ten centimeters to one centimeter. (Fig. 9.)
+
+With these cubes the child builds a tower, first laying on the ground
+(upon a carpet) the largest cube, and then placing on the top of it
+all the others in their order of size to the very smallest. (Fig. 10.)
+As soon as he has built the tower, the child, with a blow of his hand,
+knocks it down, so that the cubes are scattered on the carpet, and
+then he builds it up again.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 10.--CHILD PLAYING WITH TOWER. (PHOTO TAKEN AT MR.
+HAWKER'S SCHOOL AT RUNTON.)]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 11.--THE BROAD STAIR.]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 12.--THE LONG STAIR.]
+
+(2) Ten wooden prisms, colored brown. The length of the prisms is
+twenty centimeters, and the square section diminishes from ten
+centimeters a side to the smallest, one centimeter a side. (Fig. 11.)
+
+The child scatters the ten pieces over a light-colored carpet, and
+then beginning sometimes with the thickest, sometimes with the
+thinnest, he places them in their right order of gradation upon a
+table.
+
+(3) Ten rods, colored green, or alternately red and blue, all of which
+have the same square section of four centimeters a side, but vary by
+ten centimeters in length from ten centimeters to one meter. (Fig.
+12.)
+
+The child scatters the ten rods on a large carpet and mixes them at
+random, and, by comparing rod with rod, he arranges them according to
+their order of length, so that they take the form of a set of organ
+pipes.
+
+As usual, the teacher, by doing the exercises herself, first shows the
+child how the pieces of each set should be arranged, but it will often
+happen that the child learns, not directly from her, but by watching
+his companions. She will, however, always continue to watch the
+children, never losing sight of their efforts, and any correction of
+hers will be directed more towards preventing rough or disorderly use
+of the material than towards any _error_ which the child may make in
+placing the rods in their order of gradation. The reason is that the
+mistakes which the child makes, by placing, for example, a small cube
+beneath one that is larger, are caused by his own lack of education,
+and it is the _repetition of the exercise_ which, by refining his
+powers of observation, will lead him sooner or later to _correct_
+_himself_. Sometimes it happens that a child working with the long
+rods makes the most glaring mistakes. As the aim of the exercise,
+however, is _not_ that the rods be arranged in the right order of
+gradation, but that the child _should practise by himself_, there is
+no need to intervene.
+
+One day the child will arrange all the rods in their right order, and
+then, full of joy, he will call the teacher to come and admire them.
+The object of the exercise will thus be achieved.
+
+These three sets, the cubes, the prisms, and the rods, cause the child
+to move about and to handle and carry objects which are difficult for
+him to grasp with his little hand. Again, by their use, he repeats the
+_training of the eye_ to the recognition of differences of size
+between similar objects. The exercise would seem easier, from the
+sensory point of view, than the other with the cylinders described
+above.
+
+As a matter of fact, it is more difficult, as there is _no control of
+the error in the material itself_. It is the child's eye alone which
+can furnish the control.
+
+Hence the difference between the objects should strike the eye at
+once; for that reason larger objects are used, and the necessary
+visual power presupposes a previous preparation (provided for in the
+exercise with the solid insets).
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 13.--BOARD WITH ROUGH AND SMOOTH SURFACES.]
+
+During the same period the child can be doing other exercises. Among
+the material is to be found a small rectangular board, the surface of
+which is divided into two parts--rough and smooth. (Fig. 13.) The
+child knows already how to wash his hands with cold water and soap; he
+then dries them and dips the tips of his fingers for a few seconds in
+tepid water. Graduated exercises for the thermic sense may also have
+their place here, as has been explained in my book on the "Method."
+
+After this, the child is taught to pass the soft cushioned tips of his
+fingers _as lightly as possible_ over the two separate surfaces, that
+he may appreciate their difference. The delicate _movement_ backwards
+and forwards of the suspended hand, as it is brought into light
+contact with the surface, is an excellent exercise in control. The
+little hand, which has just been cleansed and given its tepid bath,
+gains much in grace and beauty, and the whole exercise is the first
+step in the education of the "tactile sense," which holds such an
+important place in my method.
+
+When initiating the child into the education of the sense of touch,
+the teacher must always take an active part the first time; not only
+must she show the child "how it is done," her interference is a little
+more definite still, for she takes hold of his hand and guides it to
+touch the surfaces with the finger-tips in the lightest possible way.
+She will make no explanations; her words will be rather to _encourage_
+the child with his hand to perceive the different sensations.
+
+When he has perceived them, it is then that he repeats the act by
+himself in the delicate way which he has been taught.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 14.--BOARD WITH GUMMED STRIPS OF PAPER.]
+
+After the board with the two contrasting surfaces, the child is
+offered another board on which are gummed strips of paper which are
+rough or smooth in different degrees. (Fig. 14.)
+
+Graduated series of sandpaper cards are also given. The child perfects
+himself by exercises in touching these surfaces, not only refining his
+capacity for perceiving tactile differences which are always growing
+more similar, but also perfecting the movement of which he is ever
+gaining greater mastery.
+
+Following these is a series of stuffs of every kind: velvets, satins,
+silks, woolens, cottons, coarse and fine linens. There are two similar
+pieces of each kind of stuff, and they are of bright and vivid
+colors.
+
+The child is now taught a new movement. Where before he had to
+_touch_, he must now _feel_ the stuffs, which, according to the
+degree of fineness or coarseness from coarse cotton to fine silk,
+are felt with movements correspondingly decisive or delicate. The
+child whose hand is already practised finds the greatest pleasure
+in feeling the stuffs, and, almost instinctively, in order to enhance
+his appreciation of the tactile sensation he closes his eyes.
+Then, to spare himself the exertion, he blindfolds himself with a
+clean handkerchief, and as he feels the stuffs, he arranges the
+similar pieces in pairs, one upon the other, then, taking off the
+handkerchief, he ascertains for himself whether he has made any
+mistake.
+
+This exercise in _touching_ and _feeling_ is peculiarly attractive to
+the child, and induces him to seek similar experiences in his
+surroundings. A little one, attracted by the pretty stuff of a
+visitor's dress, will be seen to go and wash his hands, then to come
+and touch the stuff of the garment again and again with infinite
+delicacy, his face meanwhile expressing his pleasure and interest.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+A little later we shall see the children interest themselves in a much
+more difficult exercise.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 15.--WOOD TABLETS DIFFERING IN WEIGHT.]
+
+There are some little rectangular tablets which form part of the
+material. (Fig. 15.) The tablets, though of identical size, are made
+of wood of varying qualities, so that they differ in weight and,
+through the property of the wood, in color also.
+
+The child has to take a tablet and rest it delicately on the inner
+surfaces of his four fingers, spreading them well out. This will be
+another opportunity of teaching delicate movements.
+
+The hand must move up and down as though to weigh the object, but the
+movement must be as imperceptible as possible. These little movements
+should diminish as the capacity and attention for perceiving the
+weight of the object becomes more acute and the exercise will be
+perfectly performed when the child comes to perceive the weight
+almost without any movement of the hands. It is only by the repetition
+of the attempts that such a result can be obtained.
+
+Once the children are initiated into it by the teacher, they blindfold
+their eyes and repeat by themselves these exercises of the _baric
+sense_. For example, they lay the heavier wooden tablets on the right
+and the lighter on the left.
+
+When the child takes off the handkerchief, he can see by the color of
+the pieces of wood if he has made a mistake.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+A long time before this difficult exercise, and during the period when
+the child is working with the three sorts of geometrical solids and
+with the rough and smooth tablets, he can be exercising himself with a
+material which is very attractive to him.
+
+This is the set of tablets covered with bright silk of shaded colors.
+The set consists of two separate boxes each containing sixty-four
+colors; that is, eight different tints, each of which has eight shades
+carefully graded. The first exercise for the child is that of _pairing
+the colors_; that is, he selects from a mixed heap of colors the two
+tablets which are alike, and lays them out, one beside the other. The
+teacher naturally does not offer the child all the one hundred and
+twenty-eight tablets in a heap, but chooses only a few of the brighter
+colors, for example, red, blue and yellow, and prepares and mixes up
+three or four pairs. Then, taking one tablet--perhaps the red one--she
+indicates to the child that he is to choose its counterpart from the
+heap. This done, the teacher lays the pair together on the table. Then
+she takes perhaps the blue and the child selects the tablet to form
+another pair. The teacher then mixes the tablets again for the child
+to repeat the exercise by himself, _i.e._, to select the two red
+tablets, the two blue, the two yellow, etc., and to place the two
+members of each pair next to one another.
+
+Then the couples will be increased to four or five, and little
+children of three years old end by pairing of their own accord ten or
+a dozen couples of mixed tablets.
+
+[Illustration: COLOR SPOOLS]
+
+When the child has given his eye sufficient practise in recognizing
+the identity of the pairs of colors, he is offered the shades of one
+color only, and he exercises himself in the perception of the
+slightest differences of shade in every color. Take, for example, the
+blue series. There are eight tablets in graduated shades. The teacher
+places them one beside another, beginning with the darkest, with the
+sole object of making the child understand "what is to be done."
+
+She then leaves him alone to the interesting attempts which he
+spontaneously makes. It often happens that the child makes a mistake.
+If he has understood the idea and makes a mistake, it is a sign that
+_he has not yet reached the stage_ of perceiving the differences
+between the graduations of one color. It is practise which perfects in
+the child that capacity for distinguishing the fine differences, and
+so we leave him alone to his attempts!
+
+There are two suggestions that we can make to help him. The first is
+that he should always select the darkest color from the pile. This
+suggestion greatly facilitates his choice by giving it a constant
+direction.
+
+Secondly, we can lead him to observe from time to time any two colors
+that stand next to each other in order to compare them directly and
+apart from the others. In this way the child does not place a tablet
+without a particular and careful comparison with its neighbor.
+
+Finally, the child himself will love to mix the sixty-four colors and
+then to arrange them in eight rows of pretty shades of color with
+really surprising skill. In this exercise also the child's hand is
+educated to perform fine and delicate movements and his mind is
+afforded special training in attention. He must not take hold of the
+tablets anyhow, he must avoid touching the colored silk, and must
+handle the tablets instead by the pieces of wood at the top and
+bottom. To arrange the tablets next to one another in a straight line
+at exactly the same level, so that the series looks like a beautiful
+shaded ribbon, is an act which demands a manual skill only obtained
+after considerable practise.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+These exercises of the chromatic sense lead, in the case of the older
+children, to the development of the "color memory." A child having
+looked carefully at a color, is then invited to look for its companion
+in a mixed group of colors, without, of course, keeping the color he
+has observed under his eye to guide him. It is, therefore, by his
+memory that he recognizes the color, which he no longer compares with
+a reality but with an image impressed upon his mind.
+
+The children are very fond of this exercise in "color memory"; it
+makes a lively digression for them, as they run with the image of a
+color in their minds and look for its corresponding reality in their
+surroundings. It is a real triumph for them to identify the idea with
+the corresponding reality and to _hold in their hands_ the proof of
+the mental power they have acquired.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Another interesting piece of material is a little cabinet containing
+six drawers placed one above another. When they are opened they
+display six square wooden "frames" in each. (Fig. 16.)
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 16.--CABINET WITH DRAWERS TO HOLD GEOMETRICAL INSETS.]
+
+Almost all the frames have a large geometrical figure inserted in the
+center, each colored blue and provided with a small button for a
+handle. Each drawer is lined with blue paper, and when the geometrical
+figure is removed, the bottom is seen to reproduce exactly the same
+form.
+
+The geometrical figures are arranged in the drawers according to
+analogy of form.
+
+(1) In one drawer there are six circles decreasing in diameter. (Fig.
+17.)
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 17.--SET OF SIX CIRCLES.]
+
+(2) In another there is a square, together with five rectangles in
+which the length is always equal to the side of the square while the
+breadth gradually decreases. (Fig. 18.)
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 18.--SET OF SIX RECTANGLES.]
+
+(3) Another drawer contains six triangles, which vary either according
+to their sides or according to their angles (the equilateral,
+isosceles, scalene, right angled, obtuse angled, and acute angled).
+(Fig. 19.)
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 19.--SET OF SIX TRIANGLES.]
+
+(4) In another drawer there are six regular polygons containing from
+five to ten sides, _i.e._, the pentagon, hexagon, heptagon, octagon,
+nonagon, and decagon. (Fig. 20.)
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 20.--SET OF SIX POLYGONS.]
+
+(5) Another drawer contains various figures: an oval, an ellipse, a
+rhombus, and a trapezoid. (Fig. 21.)
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 21.--SET OF SIX IRREGULAR FIGURES.]
+
+(6) Finally, there are four plain wooden tablets, _i.e._, without any
+geometrical inset, which should have no button fixed to them; also two
+other irregular geometrical figures. (Fig. 22.)
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 22.--SET OF FOUR BLANKS AND TWO IRREGULAR FIGURES.]
+
+Connected with this material there is a wooden frame furnished with a
+kind of rack which opens like a lid, and serves, when shut, to keep
+firmly in place six of the insets which may be arranged on the bottom
+of the frame itself, entirely covering it. (Fig. 23.)
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 23.--FRAME TO HOLD GEOMETRICAL INSETS.]
+
+This frame is used for the preparation of the _first presentation_ to
+the child of the plane geometrical forms.
+
+The teacher may select according to her own judgment certain forms
+from among the whole series at her disposal.
+
+At first it is advisable to show the child only a few figures which
+differ very widely from one another in form. The next step is to
+present a larger number of figures, and after this to present
+consecutively figures more and more similar in form.
+
+The first figures to be arranged in the frame will be, for example,
+the circle and the equilateral triangle, or the circle, the triangle
+and the square. The spaces which are left should be covered with the
+tablets of plain wood. Gradually the frame is completely filled with
+figures; first, with very dissimilar figures, as, for example, a
+square, a very narrow rectangle, a triangle, a circle, an ellipse and
+a hexagon, or with other figures in combination.
+
+Afterwards the teacher's object will be to arrange figures similar to
+one another in the frame, as, for example, the set of six rectangles,
+six triangles, six circles, varying in size, etc.
+
+This exercise resembles that of the cylinders. The insets are held by
+the buttons and taken from their places. They are then mixed on the
+table and the child is invited to put them back in their places. Here
+also the control of the error is in the _material_, for the figure
+cannot be inserted perfectly except when it is put in its own place.
+Hence a series of "experiments," of "attempts" which end in victory.
+The child is led to compare the various forms; to realize in a
+concrete way the differences between them when an inset wrongly placed
+will not go into the aperture. In this way he educates his eye to the
+_recognition of forms_.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 24.--CHILD TOUCHING THE INSETS. (MONTESSORI SCHOOL,
+RUNTON.)]
+
+The new movement of the hand which the child must coordinate is of
+particular importance. He is taught to _touch the outline of the
+geometrical figures_ with the soft tips of the index and middle finger
+of the right hand, or of the left as well, if one believes in
+ambidexterity. (Fig. 24.) The child is made to touch the outline, not
+only of the _inset_, but also of the corresponding aperture, and, only
+after _having touched_ them, is he to put back the inset into its
+place.
+
+The _recognition_ of the form is rendered much easier in this way.
+Children who evidently do not _recognize the identities of form_ by
+the eye and who make absurd attempts to place the most diverse figures
+one within the other, _do recognize_ the forms after having touched
+their outlines, and arrange them very quickly in their right places.
+
+The child's hand during this exercise of touching the outlines of the
+geometrical figures has a concrete guide in the object. This is
+especially true when he touches the frames, for his two fingers have
+only to follow the edge of the frame, which acts as an obstacle and is
+a very clear guide. The teacher must always intervene at the start to
+teach accurately this movement, which will have such an importance in
+the future. She must, therefore, show the child _how to touch_, not
+only by performing the movement herself slowly and clearly, but also
+by guiding the child's hand itself during his first attempts, so that
+he is sure to touch all the details--angles and sides. When his hand
+has learned to perform these movements with precision and accuracy, he
+will be _really_ capable of following the outline of a geometrical
+figure, and through many repetitions of the exercise he will come to
+coordinate the movement _necessary_ for the exact delineation of its
+form.
+
+This exercise could be called an indirect but very real preparation
+for drawing. It is certainly the preparation of the hand to _trace an
+enclosed form_. The little hand which touches, feels, and knows how to
+follow a determined outline is preparing itself, without knowing it,
+for writing.
+
+The children make a special point of touching the outlines of the
+plane insets with accuracy. They themselves have invented the exercise
+of blindfolding their eyes so as to recognize the forms by touch only,
+taking out and putting back the insets without seeing them.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 25.--SERIES OF CARDS WITH GEOMETRICAL FORMS.]
+
+Corresponding to every form reproduced in the plane insets there are
+three white cards square in shape and of exactly the same size as the
+wooden frames of the insets. These cards are kept in three special
+cardboard boxes, almost cubic in form. (Fig. 25.)
+
+On the cards are repeated, in three series, the same geometrical forms
+as those of the plane insets. The same measurements of the figures
+also are exactly reproduced.
+
+In the first series the forms are filled in, _i.e._, they are cut out
+in blue paper and gummed on to the card; in the second series there is
+only an outline about half a centimeter in width, which is cut out in
+the same blue paper and gummed to the card; in the third series,
+however, the geometrical figures are instead outlined only in black
+ink.
+
+By the use of this second piece of the material, the exercise of the
+eye is gradually brought to perfection in the recognition of "plane
+forms." In fact, there is no longer the concrete control of error in
+the material as there was in the _wooden_ insets, but the child, by
+his eye alone, must judge of identities of form when, instead of
+_fitting_ the wooden forms into their corresponding apertures, he
+simply _rests_ them on the cardboard figure.
+
+Again, the refinement of the eye's power of discrimination increases
+every time the child passes from one series of cards to the next, and
+by the time that he has reached the third series, he can see the
+relation between a wooden object, which he holds in his hand, and an
+outline drawing; that is, he can connect the concrete reality with an
+_abstraction_. The _line_ now assumes in his eyes a very definite
+meaning; and he accustoms himself to recognize, to interpret and to
+judge of forms contained by a simple outline.
+
+The exercises are various; the children themselves invent them. Some
+love to spread out a number of the figures of the geometric insets
+before their eyes, and then, taking a handful of the cards and mixing
+them like playing cards, deal them out as quickly as possible,
+choosing the figures corresponding to the pieces. Then as a test of
+their choice, they place the wooden pieces upon the forms on the
+cards. At this exercise they often cover whole tables, putting the
+wooden figures above, and beneath each one in a vertical line, the
+three corresponding forms of the cardboard series.
+
+Another game invented by the children consists in putting out and
+mixing all the cards of the three series on two or three adjoining
+tables. The child then takes a wooden geometrical form and places it,
+as quickly as possible, on the corresponding cards which he has
+recognized at a glance among all the rest.
+
+Four or five children play this game together, and as soon as one of
+them has found, for example, the filled-in figure corresponding to the
+wooden piece, and has placed the piece carefully and precisely upon
+it, another child takes away the piece in order to place it on the
+same form in outline. The game is somewhat suggestive of chess.
+
+Many children, without any suggestion from any one, touch with the
+finger the outline of the figures in the three series of cards, doing
+it with seriousness of purpose, interest and perseverance.
+
+We teach the children to name all the forms of the plane insets.
+
+At first I had intended to limit my teaching to the most important
+names, such as square, rectangle, circle. But the children wanted to
+know all the names, taking pleasure in learning even the most
+difficult, such as trapezium, and decagon. They also show great
+pleasure in listening to the exact pronunciation of new words and in
+their repetition. Early childhood is, in fact, the age in which
+language is formed, and in which the sounds of a foreign language can
+be perfectly learned.
+
+When the child has had long practise with the plane insets, he begins
+to make "discoveries" in his environment, recognizing forms, colors,
+and qualities already known to him--a result which, in general,
+follows after all the sensory exercises. Then it is that a great
+enthusiasm is aroused in him, and the world becomes for him a source
+of pleasure. A little boy, walking one day alone on the roof terrace,
+repeated to himself with a thoughtful expression on his face, "The sky
+is blue! the sky is blue!" Once a cardinal, an admirer of the children
+of the school in Via Guisti, wished himself to bring them some
+biscuits and to enjoy the sight of a little greediness among the
+children. When he had finished his distribution, instead of seeing the
+children put the food hastily into their mouths, to his great surprise
+he heard them call out, "A triangle! a circle! a rectangle!" In fact,
+these biscuits were made in geometrical shapes.
+
+In one of the people's dwellings at Milan, a mother, preparing the
+dinner in the kitchen, took from a packet a slice of bread and butter.
+Her little four-year-old boy who was with her said, "Rectangle." The
+woman going on with her work cut off a large corner of the slice of
+bread, and the child cried out, "Triangle." She put this bit into the
+saucepan, and the child, looking at the piece that was left, called
+out more loudly than before, "And now it is a trapezium."
+
+The father, a working man, who was present, was much impressed with
+the incident. He went straight to look for the teacher and asked for
+an explanation. Much moved, he said, "If I had been educated in that
+way I should not be now just an ordinary workman."
+
+It was he who later on arranged for a demonstration to induce all the
+workmen of the dwellings to take an interest in the school. They ended
+by presenting the teacher with a parchment they had painted
+themselves, and on it, between the pictures of little children, they
+had introduced every kind of geometrical form.
+
+As regards the touching of objects for the realization of their form,
+there is an infinite field of discovery open to the child in his
+environment. Children have been seen to stand opposite a beautiful
+pillar or a statue and, after having admired it, to close their eyes
+in a state of beatitude and pass their hands many times over the
+forms. One of our teachers met one day in a church two little brothers
+from the school in Via Guisti. They were standing looking at the small
+columns supporting the altar. Little by little the elder boy edged
+nearer the columns and began to touch them, then, as if he desired his
+little brother to share his pleasure, he drew him nearer and, taking
+his hand very gently, made him pass it round the smooth and beautiful
+shape of the column. But a sacristan came up at that moment and sent
+away "those tiresome children who were touching everything."
+
+The great pleasure which the children derive from the recognition of
+_objects_ by touching their form corresponds in itself to a sensory
+exercise.
+
+Many psychologists have spoken of the _stereognostic_ sense, that is,
+the capacity of recognizing forms by the movement of the muscles of
+the hand as it follows the outlines of solid objects. This sense does
+not consist only of the sense of touch, because the tactile sensation
+is only that by which we perceive the differences in quality of
+surfaces, rough or smooth. Perception of form comes from the
+combination of two sensations, tactile and muscular, muscular
+sensations being sensations of movement. What we call in the blind the
+_tactile_ sense is in reality more often the stereognostic sense. That
+is, they perceive by means of their hands the _form of bodies_.
+
+It is the special muscular sensibility of the child from three to six
+years of age who is forming his own muscular activity which stimulates
+him to use the stereognostic sense. When the child spontaneously
+blindfolds his eyes in order to recognize various objects, such as the
+plane and solid insets, he is exercising this sense.
+
+There are many exercises which he can do to enable him to recognize
+with closed eyes objects of well defined shapes, as, for example, the
+little bricks and cubes of Froebel, marbles, coins, beans, peas, etc.
+From a selection of different objects mixed together he can pick out
+those that are alike, and arrange them in separate heaps.
+
+In the didactic material there are also geometrical solids--pale blue
+in color--a sphere, a prism, a pyramid, a cone, a cylinder. The most
+attractive way of teaching a child to recognize these forms is for him
+to touch them with closed eyes and guess their names, the latter
+learned in a way which I will describe later. After an exercise of
+this kind the child when his eyes are open observes the forms with a
+much more lively interest. Another way of interesting him in the solid
+geometrical forms is to make them _move_. The sphere rolls in every
+direction; the cylinder rolls in one direction only; the cone rolls
+round itself; the prism and the pyramid, however, stand still, but the
+prism falls over more easily than the pyramid.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 26.--SOUND BOXES.]
+
+Little more remains of the didactic material for the education of the
+senses. There is, however, a series of six cardboard cylinders, either
+closed entirely or with wooden covers. (Fig. 26.)
+
+When these cases are shaken they produce sounds varying in intensity
+from loud to almost imperceptible sounds, according to the nature of
+the objects inside the cylinder.
+
+There is a double act of these, and the exercise consists, first, in
+the recognition of sounds of equal intensity, arranging the cylinders
+in pairs. The next exercise consists in the comparison of one sound
+with another; that is, the child arranges the six cylinders in a
+series according to the loudness of sound which they produce. The
+exercise is analogous to that with the color spools, which also are
+paired and then arranged in gradation. In this case also the child
+performs the exercise seated comfortably at a table. After a
+preliminary explanation from the teacher he repeats the exercise by
+himself, his eyes being blindfolded that he may better concentrate his
+attention.
+
+We may conclude with a general rule for the direction of the education
+of the senses. The order of procedure should be:
+
+(1) Recognition of _identities_ (the pairing of similar objects and
+the insertion of solid forms into places which fit them).
+
+(2) Recognition of _contrasts_ (the presentation of the extremes of a
+series of objects).
+
+(3) Discrimination between objects very _similar_ to one another.
+
+To concentrate the attention of the child upon the sensory stimulus
+which is acting upon him at a particular moment, it is well, as far as
+possible, to _isolate_ the sense; for instance, to obtain silence in
+the room for all the exercises and to blindfold the eyes for those
+particular exercises which do not relate to the education of the sense
+of sight.
+
+The cinematograph pictures give a general idea of all the sense
+exercises which the children can do with the material, and any one who
+has been initiated into the theory on which these are based will be
+able gradually to recognize them as they are seen practically carried
+out.
+
+It is very advisable for those who wish to guide the children in these
+sensory exercises to begin themselves by working with the didactic
+material. The experience will give them some idea of what the children
+must feel, of the difficulties which they must overcome, etc., and, up
+to a certain point, it will give them some conception of the interest
+which these exercises can arouse in them. Whoever makes such
+experiments himself will be most struck by the fact that, when
+blindfolded, he finds that all the sensations of touch and hearing
+really appear more acute and more easily recognized. On account of
+this alone no small interest will be aroused in the experimenter.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+For the beginning of the education of the musical sense, we use in
+Rome a material which does not form part of the didactic apparatus as
+it is sold at present. It consists of a double series of bells forming
+an octave with tones and semitones. These metal bells, which stand
+upon a wooden rectangular base, are all alike in appearance, but, when
+struck with a little wooden hammer, give out sounds corresponding to
+the notes doh, re, mi, fah, soh, lah, ti, doh, doh [sharp], re
+[sharp], fah [sharp], soh [sharp], lah [sharp].
+
+[Illustration: Musical Scale (Chromatic)]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 27.--MUSICAL BELLS.]
+
+One series of bells is arranged in chromatic order upon a long board,
+upon which are painted rectangular spaces which are black and white
+and of the same size as the bases which support the bells. As on a
+pianoforte keyboard, the white spaces correspond to the tones, and the
+black to the semitones. (Fig. 27.)
+
+At first the only bells to be arranged upon the board are those which
+correspond to the tones; these are set upon the white spaces in the
+order of the musical notes, doh, re, mi, fah, soh, lah, ti, doh.
+
+To perform the first exercise the child strikes with a small hammer
+the first note of the series already arranged (doh). Then among a
+second series of corresponding bells which, arranged without the
+semitones, are mixed together upon the table, he tries, by striking
+the bells one after the other, to find the sound which is the same as
+the first one he has struck (doh). When he has succeeded in finding
+the corresponding sound, he puts the bell thus chosen opposite the
+first one (doh) upon the board. Then he strikes the second bell, _re_,
+once or twice; then from among the mixed group of bells he makes
+experiments until he recognizes _re_, which he places opposite the
+second bell of the series already arranged. He continues in the same
+way right to the end, looking for the identity of the sounds and
+performing an exercise of _pairing_ similar to that already done in
+the case of the sound-boxes, the colors, etc.
+
+Later, he learns in order the sounds of the musical scale, striking in
+rapid succession the bells arranged in order, and also accompanying
+his action with his voice--doh, re, mi, fah, soh, lah, ti, doh. When
+he is able to recognize and _remember_ the series of sounds, the child
+takes the eight bells and, after mixing them up, he tries by striking
+them with the hammer, to find _doh_, then _re_, etc. Every time that
+he takes a new note, he strikes from the beginning all the bells
+already recognized and arranged in order--doh, _re_, doh, re, _mi_;
+doh, re, mi, _fah_; doh, re, mi, fah, _soh_, etc. In this way he
+succeeds in arranging all the bells in the order of the scale, guided
+only by his ear, and having succeeded, he strikes all the notes one
+after the other up and down the scale. This exercise fascinates
+children from five years old upwards.
+
+If the objects which have been described constitute the didactic
+material for the beginnings of a methodical education of the auditory
+sense, I have no desire to limit to them an educational process which
+is so important and already so complex in its practise, whether in the
+long established methods of treatment for the deaf, or in modern
+physiological musical education. In fact, I also use resonant metal
+tubes, small bars of wood which emit musical notes, and strings
+(little harps), upon which the children seek to recognize the tones
+they have already learned with the exercise of the bells. The
+pianoforte may also be used for the same purpose. In this way the
+difference in _timbre_ comes to be perceived together with the
+differences in tone. At the same time various exercises, already
+mentioned, such as the marches played on the piano for rhythmic
+exercises, and the simple songs sung by the children themselves, offer
+extensive means for the development of the musical sense.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+To quicken the child's attention in special relation to sounds there
+is a most important exercise which, contrary to all attempts made up
+to this time in the practise of education, consists not in producing
+but in eliminating, as far as possible, all sounds from the
+environment. My "lesson of silence" has been very widely applied, even
+in schools where the rest of my method has not found its way, for the
+sake of its practical effect upon the discipline of the children.
+
+The children are taught "not to move"; to inhibit all those motor
+impulses which may arise from any cause whatsoever, and in order to
+induce in them real "immobility," it is necessary to initiate them in
+the _control_ of all their movements. The teacher, then, does not
+limit herself to saying, "Sit still," but she gives them the example
+herself, showing them how to sit absolutely still; that is, with feet
+still, body still, arms still, head still. The respiratory movements
+should also be performed in such a way as to produce no sound.
+
+The children must be taught how to succeed in this exercise. The
+fundamental condition is that of finding a comfortable position,
+_i.e._, a position of equilibrium. As they are seated for this
+exercise, they must therefore make themselves comfortable either in
+their little chairs or on the ground. When immobility is obtained, the
+room is half-darkened, or else the children close their eyes, or cover
+them with their hands.
+
+It is quite plain to see that the children take a great interest in
+the "Silence"; they seem to give themselves up to a kind of spell:
+they might be said to be wrapped in meditation. Little by little, as
+each child, watching himself, becomes more and more still, the silence
+deepens till it becomes absolute and can be felt, just as the
+twilight gradually deepens whilst the sun is setting.
+
+Then it is that slight sounds, unnoticed before, are heard; the
+ticking of the clock, the chirp of a sparrow in the garden, the flight
+of a butterfly. The world becomes full of imperceptible sounds which
+invade that deep silence without disturbing it, just as the stars
+shine out in the dark sky without banishing the darkness of the night.
+It is almost the discovery of a new world where there is rest. It is,
+as it were, the twilight of the world of loud noises and of the uproar
+that oppresses the spirit. At such a time the spirit is set free and
+opens out like the corolla of the convolvulus.
+
+And leaving metaphor for the reality of facts, can we not all recall
+feelings that have possessed us at sunset, when all the vivid
+impressions of the day, the brightness and clamor, are silenced? It is
+not that we miss the day, but that our spirit expands. It becomes more
+sensitive to the inner play of emotions, strong and persistent, or
+changeful and serene.
+
+    "It was that hour when mariners feel longing,
+     And hearts grow tender."
+
+              (Dante, trans. Longfellow.)
+
+The lesson of silence ends with a general calling of the children's
+names. The teacher, or one of the children, takes her place behind the
+class or in an adjoining room, and "calls" the motionless children,
+one by one, by name; the call is made in a whisper, that is, without
+vocal sound. This demands a close attention on the part of the child,
+if he is to hear his name. When his name is called he must rise and
+find his way to the voice which called him; his movements must be
+light and vigilant, and so controlled _as to make no noise_.
+
+When the children have become acquainted with _silence_, their hearing
+is in a manner refined for the perception of sounds. Those sounds
+which are too loud become gradually displeasing to the ear of one who
+has known the pleasure of silence, and has discovered the world of
+delicate sounds. From this point the children gradually go on to
+perfect themselves; they walk lightly, take care not to knock against
+the furniture, move their chairs without noise, and place things upon
+the table with great care. The result of this is seen in the grace of
+carriage and of movement, which is especially delightful on account of
+the way in which it has been brought about. It is not a grace taught
+externally for the sake of beauty or regard for the world, but one
+which is born of the pleasure felt by the spirit in immobility and
+silence. The soul of the child wishes to free itself from the
+irksomeness of sounds that are too loud, from obstacles to its peace
+during work. These children, with the grace of pages to a noble lord,
+are serving their spirits.
+
+This exercise develops very definitely the social spirit. No other
+lesson, no other "situation," could do the same. A profound silence
+can be obtained even when more than fifty children are crowded
+together in a small space, provided that _all_ the children know how
+to keep still and want to do it; but one disturber is enough to take
+away the charm.
+
+Here is demonstration of the cooperation of all the members of a
+community to achieve a common end. The children gradually show
+increased power of _inhibition_; many of them, rather than disturb the
+silence, refrain from brushing a fly off the nose, or suppress a cough
+or sneeze. The same exhibition of collective action is seen in the
+care with which the children move to avoid making a noise during their
+work. The lightness with which they run on tiptoe, the grace with
+which they shut a cupboard, or lay an object on the table, these are
+qualities that must be _acquired by all_, if the environment is to
+become tranquil and free from disturbance. One rebel is sufficient to
+mar this achievement; one noisy child, walking on his heels or banging
+the door, can disturb the peaceful atmosphere of the small community.
+
+
+
+
+LANGUAGE AND KNOWLEDGE OF THE WORLD
+
+
+The special importance of the sense of hearing comes from the fact
+that it is the sense organ connected with speech. Therefore, to train
+the child's attention to follow sounds and noises which are produced
+in the environment, to recognize them and to discriminate between
+them, is to prepare his attention to follow more accurately the sounds
+of articulate language. The teacher must be careful to pronounce
+clearly and completely the sounds of the word when she speaks to a
+child, even though she may be speaking in a low voice, almost as if
+telling him a secret. The children's songs are also a good means for
+obtaining exact pronunciation. The teacher, when she teaches them,
+pronounces slowly, separating the component sounds of the word
+pronounced.
+
+But a special opportunity for training in clear and exact speech
+occurs when the lessons are given in the nomenclature relating to the
+sensory exercises. In every exercise, when the child has _recognized_
+the differences between the qualities of the objects, the teacher
+fixes the idea of this quality with a word. Thus, when the child has
+many times built and rebuilt the tower of the pink cubes, at an
+opportune moment the teacher draws near him, and taking the two
+extreme cubes, the largest and the smallest, and showing them to him,
+says, "This is large"; "This is small." The two words only, _large_
+and _small_, are pronounced several times in succession with strong
+emphasis and with a very clear pronunciation, "This is _large_, large,
+large"; after which there is a moment's pause. Then the teacher, to
+see if the child has understood, verifies with the following tests:
+"Give me the large one. Give me the _small_ one." Again, "The large
+one." "Now the small one." "Give me the large one." Then there is
+another pause. Finally, the teacher, pointing to the objects in turn
+asks, "What is this?" The child, if he has learned, replies rightly,
+"Large," "Small." The teacher then urges the child to repeat the words
+always more clearly and as accurately as possible. "What is it?"
+"Large." "What?" "Large." "Tell me nicely, what is it?" "Large."
+
+_Large_ and _small_ objects are those which differ only in size and
+not in form; that is, all three dimensions change more or less
+proportionally. We should say that a house is "large" and a hut is
+"small." When two pictures represent the same objects in different
+dimensions one can be said to be an enlargement of the other.
+
+When, however, only the dimensions referring to the section of the
+object change, while the length remains the same, the objects are
+respectively "thick" and "thin." We should say of two posts of equal
+height, but different cross-section, that one is "thick" and the other
+is "thin." The teacher, therefore, gives a lesson on the brown prisms
+similar to that with the cubes in the three "periods" which I have
+described:
+
+_Period 1. Naming._ "This is thick. This is thin."
+
+_Period 2. Recognition._ "Give me the _thick_. Give me the _thin_."
+
+_Period 3. The Pronunciation of the Word._ "What is this?"
+
+There is a way of helping the child to recognize differences in
+dimension and to place the objects in correct gradation. After the
+lesson which I have described, the teacher scatters the brown prisms,
+for instance, on a carpet, says to the child, "Give me the thickest of
+all," and lays the object on a table. Then, again, she invites the
+child to look for _the thickest_ piece among those scattered on the
+floor, and every time the piece chosen is laid in its order on the
+table next to the piece previously chosen. In this way the child
+accustoms himself always to look either for the _thickest_ or the
+_thinnest_ among the rest, and so has a guide to help him to lay the
+pieces in gradation.
+
+When there is one dimension only which varies, as in the case of the
+rods, the objects are said to be "long" and "short," the varying
+dimension being length. When the varying dimension is height, the
+objects are said to be "tall" and "short"; when the breadth varies,
+they are "broad" and "narrow."
+
+Of these three varieties we offer the child as a fundamental lesson
+only that in which the _length_ varies, and we teach the differences
+by means of the usual "three periods," and by asking him to select
+from the pile at one time always the "longest," at another always the
+"shortest."
+
+The child in this way acquires great accuracy in the use of words. One
+day the teacher had ruled the blackboard with very fine lines. A child
+said, "What small lines!" "They are not small," corrected another;
+"they are _thin_."
+
+When the names to be taught are those of colors or of forms, so that
+it is not necessary to emphasize contrast between extremes, the
+teacher can give more than two names at the same time, as, for
+instance, "This is red." "This is blue." "This is yellow." Or, again,
+"This is a square." "This is a triangle." "This is a circle." In the
+case of a _gradation_, however, the teacher will select (if she is
+teaching the colors) the two extremes "dark" and "light," then making
+choice always of the "darkest" and the "lightest."
+
+Many of the lessons here described can be seen in the cinematograph
+pictures; lessons on touching the plane insets and the surfaces, in
+walking on the line, in color memory, in the nomenclature relating to
+the cubes and the long rods, in the composition of words, reading,
+writing, etc.
+
+By means of these lessons the child comes to know many words very
+thoroughly--large, small; thick, thin; long, short; dark, light;
+rough, smooth; heavy, light; hot, cold; and the names of many colors
+and geometrical forms. Such words do not relate to any particular
+_object_, but to a psychic acquisition on the part of the child. In
+fact, the name is given _after a long exercise_, in which the child,
+concentrating his attention on different qualities of objects, has
+made comparisons, reasoned, and formed judgments, until he has
+acquired a power of discrimination which he did not possess before. In
+a word, he has _refined his senses_; his observation of things has
+been thorough and fundamental; he has _changed himself_.
+
+He finds himself, therefore, facing the world with _psychic_ qualities
+refined and quickened. His powers of observation and of recognition
+have greatly increased. Further, the mental images which he has
+succeeded in establishing are not a confused medley; they are all
+classified--forms are distinct from dimensions, and dimensions are
+classed according to the qualities which result from the combinations
+of varying dimensions.
+
+All these are quite distinct from _gradations_. Colors are divided
+according to tint and to richness of tone, silence is distinct from
+non-silence, noises from sounds, and everything has its own exact and
+appropriate name. The child then has not only developed in himself
+special qualities of observation and of judgment, but the objects
+which he observes may be said to go into their place, according to the
+order established in his mind, and they are placed under their
+appropriate name in an exact classification.
+
+Does not the student of the experimental sciences prepare himself in
+the same way to observe the outside world? He may find himself like
+the uneducated man in the midst of the most diverse natural objects,
+but he differs from the uneducated man in that he has _special
+qualities_ for observation. If he is a worker with the microscope, his
+eyes are trained to see in the range of the microscope certain minute
+details which the ordinary man cannot distinguish. If he is an
+astronomer, he will look through the same telescope as the curious
+visitor or _dilettante_, but he will see much more clearly. The same
+plants surround the botanist and the ordinary wayfarer, but the
+botanist sees in every plant those qualities which are classified in
+his mind, and assigns to each plant its own place in the natural
+orders, giving it its exact name. It is this capacity for recognizing
+a plant in a complex order of classification which distinguishes the
+botanist from the ordinary gardener, and it is _exact_ and scientific
+language which characterizes the trained observer.
+
+Now, the scientist who has developed special qualities of observation
+and who "possesses" an order in which to classify external objects
+will be the man to make scientific _discoveries_. It will never be he
+who, without preparation and order, wanders dreaming among plants or
+beneath the starlit sky.
+
+In fact, our little ones have the impression of continually "making
+discoveries" in the world about them; and in this they find the
+greatest joy. They take from the world a knowledge which is ordered
+and inspires them with enthusiasm. Into their minds there enters "the
+Creation" instead of "the Chaos"; and it seems that their souls find
+therein a divine exultation.
+
+
+
+
+FREEDOM
+
+
+The success of these results is closely connected with the delicate
+intervention of the one who guides the children in their development.
+It is necessary for the teacher to _guide_ the child without letting
+him feel her presence too much, so that she may be always ready to
+supply the desired help, but may never be the obstacle between the
+child and his experience.
+
+A lesson in the ordinary use of the word cools the child's enthusiasm
+for the knowledge of things, just as it would cool the enthusiasm of
+adults. To keep alive that enthusiasm is the secret of real
+guidance, and it will not prove a difficult task, provided that
+the attitude towards the child's acts be that of respect, calm and
+waiting, and provided that he be left free in his movements and in
+his experiences.
+
+Then we shall notice that the child has a personality which he is
+seeking to expand; he has initiative, he chooses his own work,
+persists in it, changes it according to his inner needs; he does not
+shirk effort, he rather goes in search of it, and with great joy
+overcomes obstacles within his capacity. He is sociable to the extent
+of wanting to share with every one his successes, his discoveries, and
+his little triumphs. There is therefore no need of intervention. "Wait
+while observing." That is the motto for the educator.
+
+Let us wait, and be always ready to share in both the joys and the
+difficulties which the child experiences. He himself invites our
+sympathy, and we should respond fully and gladly. Let us have endless
+patience with his slow progress, and show enthusiasm and gladness at
+his successes. If we could say: "We are respectful and courteous in
+our dealings with children, we treat them as we should like to be
+treated ourselves," we should certainly have mastered a great
+educational principle and undoubtedly be setting an _example of good
+education_.
+
+What we all desire for ourselves, namely, not to be disturbed in our
+work, not to find hindrances to our efforts, to have good friends
+ready to help us in times of need, to see them rejoice with us, to be
+on terms of equality with them, to be able to confide and trust in
+them--this is what we need for happy companionship. In the same way
+children are human beings to whom respect is due, superior to us by
+reason of their "innocence" and of the greater possibilities of their
+future. What we desire they desire also.
+
+As a rule, however, we do not respect our children. We try to force
+them to follow us without regard to their special needs. We are
+overbearing with them, and above all, rude; and then we expect them to
+be submissive and well-behaved, knowing all the time how strong is
+their instinct of imitation and how touching their faith in and
+admiration of us. They will imitate us in any case. Let us treat them,
+therefore, with all the kindness which we would wish to help to
+develop in them. And by kindness is not meant caresses. Should we not
+call anyone who embraced us at the first time of meeting rude, vulgar
+and ill-bred? Kindness consists in interpreting the wishes of others,
+in conforming one's self to them, and sacrificing, if need be, one's
+own desire. This is the kindness which we must show towards children.
+
+To find the interpretation of children's desires we must study them
+scientifically, for their desires are often unconscious. They are the
+inner cry of life, which wishes to unfold according to mysterious
+laws. We know very little of the way in which it unfolds. Certainly
+the child is growing into a man by force of a divine action similar to
+that by which from nothing he became a child.
+
+Our intervention in this marvelous process is _indirect_; we are here
+to offer to this life, which came into the world by itself, the
+_means_ necessary for its development, and having done that we must
+await this development with respect.
+
+Let us leave the life _free_ to develop within the limits of the good,
+and let us observe this inner life developing. This is the whole of
+our mission. Perhaps as we watch we shall be reminded of the words of
+Him who was absolutely good, "Suffer the little children to come unto
+Me." That is to say, "Do not hinder them from coming, since, if they
+are left free and unhampered, they will come."
+
+
+
+
+WRITING
+
+
+The child who has completed all the exercises above described, and is
+thus _prepared_ for an advance towards unexpected conquests, is about
+four years old.
+
+He is not an unknown quantity, as are children who have been left to
+gain varied and casual experiences by themselves, and who therefore
+differ in type and intellectual standard, not only according to their
+"natures," but especially according to the chances and opportunities
+they have found for their spontaneous inner formation.
+
+Education has _determined an environment_ for the children. Individual
+differences to be found in them can, therefore, be put down almost
+exclusively to each one's individual "nature." Owing to their
+environment which offers _means_ adapted and measured to meet the
+needs of their psychical development, our children have acquired a
+fundamental type which is common to all. They have _coordinated_ their
+movements in various kinds of manual work about the house, and so have
+acquired a characteristic independence of action, and initiative in
+the adaptation of their actions to their environment. Out of all this
+emerges a _personality_, for the children have become little men, who
+are self-reliant.
+
+The special attention necessary to handle small fragile objects
+without breaking them, and to move heavy articles without making a
+noise, has endowed the movements of the whole body with a lightness
+and grace which are characteristic of our children. It is a deep
+feeling of responsibility which has brought them to such a pitch of
+perfection. For instance, when they carry three or four tumblers at a
+time, or a tureen of hot soup, they know that they are responsible not
+only for the objects, but also for the success of the meal which at
+that moment they are directing. In the same way each child feels the
+responsibility of the "silence," of the prevention of harsh sounds,
+and he knows how to cooperate for the general good in keeping the
+environment, not only orderly, but quiet and calm. Indeed, our
+children have taken the road which leads them to mastery of
+themselves.
+
+But their formation is due to a deeper psychological work still,
+arising from the education of the senses. In addition to ordering their
+environment and ordering themselves in their outward personalities,
+they have also ordered the inner world of their minds.
+
+The didactic material, in fact, does not offer to the child the
+"content" of the mind, but the _order_ for that "content." It causes
+him to distinguish identities from differences, extreme differences
+from fine gradations, and to classify, under conceptions of quality
+and of quantity, the most varying sensations appertaining to surfaces,
+colors, dimensions, forms and sounds. The mind has formed itself by a
+special exercise of attention, observing, comparing, and classifying.
+
+The mental attitude acquired by such an exercise leads the child to
+make ordered observations in his environment, observations which prove
+as interesting to him as discoveries, and so stimulate him to multiply
+them indefinitely and to form in his mind a rich "content" of clear
+ideas.
+
+Language now comes to _fix_ by means of _exact words_ the ideas which
+the mind has acquired. These words are few in number and have
+reference, not to separate objects, but rather to the _order of the
+ideas_ which have been formed in the mind. In this way the children
+are able to "find themselves," alike in the world of natural things
+and in the world of objects and of words which surround them, for they
+have an inner guide which leads them to become _active and
+intelligent explorers_ instead of wandering wayfarers in an unknown
+land.
+
+These are the children who, in a short space of time, sometimes in a
+few days, learn to write and to perform the first operations of
+arithmetic. It is not a fact that children in general can do it, as
+many have believed. It is not a case of giving my material for writing
+to unprepared children and of awaiting the "miracle."
+
+The fact is that the minds and hands of our children are already
+_prepared_ for writing, and ideas of quantity, of identity, of
+differences, and of gradation, which form the bases of all calculation,
+have been maturing for a long time in them.
+
+One might say that all their previous education is a preparation for
+the first stages of essential culture--_writing_, _reading_, _and
+number_, and that knowledge comes as an easy, spontaneous, and logical
+consequence of the preparation--that it is in fact its natural
+_conclusion_.
+
+We have already seen that the purpose of the _word_ is to fix
+ideas and to facilitate the elementary comprehension of _things_.
+In the same way writing and arithmetic now fix the complex inner
+acquisitions of the mind, which proceeds henceforward continually
+to enrich itself by fresh observations.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+Our children have long been preparing the hand for writing.
+Throughout all the sensory exercises the hand, whilst cooperating
+with the mind in its attainments and in its work of formation, was
+preparing its own future. When the hand learned to hold itself
+lightly suspended over a horizontal surface in order to touch rough
+and smooth, when it took the cylinders of the solid insets and
+placed them in their apertures, when with two fingers it touched the
+outlines of the geometrical forms, it was coordinating movements,
+and the child is now ready--almost impatient to use them in the
+fascinating "synthesis" of writing.
+
+The _direct_ preparation for writing also consists in exercises of the
+movements of the hand. There are two series of exercises, very
+different from one another. I have analyzed the movements which are
+connected with writing, and I prepare them separately one from the
+other. When we write, we perform a movement for the _management_ of
+the instrument of writing, a movement which generally acquires an
+individual character, so that a person's handwriting can be
+recognized, and, in certain medical cases, changes in the nervous
+system can be traced by the corresponding alterations in the
+handwriting. In fact, it is from the handwriting that specialists in
+that subject would interpret the _moral character_ of individuals.
+
+Writing has, besides this, a general character, which has reference to
+the form of the alphabetical signs.
+
+When a man writes he combines these two parts, but they actually exist
+as the _component parts of a single product_ and can be prepared
+apart.
+
+
+_Exercises for the Management of the Instrument of Writing_
+
+(THE INDIVIDUAL PART)
+
+In the didactic material there are two sloping wooden boards, on each
+of which stand five square metal frames, colored pink. In each of
+these is inserted a blue geometrical figure similar to the geometrical
+insets and provided with a small button for a handle. With this
+material we use a box of ten colored pencils and a little book of
+designs which I have prepared after five years' experience of
+observing the children. I have chosen and graduated the designs
+according to the use which the children made of them.
+
+The two sloping boards are set side by side, and on them are placed
+ten complete "insets," that is to say, the frames with the geometrical
+figures. (Fig. 28.) The child is given a sheet of white paper and the
+box of ten colored pencils. He will then choose one of the ten metal
+insets, which are arranged in an attractive line at a certain distance
+from him. The child is taught the following process:
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 28.--SLOPING BOARDS TO DISPLAY SET OF METAL INSETS.]
+
+He lays the frame of the iron inset on the sheet of paper, and,
+holding it down firmly with one hand, he follows with a colored pencil
+the interior outline which describes a geometrical figure. Then he
+lifts the square frame, and finds drawn upon the paper an enclosed
+geometrical form, a triangle, a circle, a hexagon, etc. The child has
+not actually performed a new exercise, because he had already
+performed all these movements when he _touched_ the wooden plane
+insets. The only new feature of the exercise is that he follows the
+outlines no longer directly with his finger, but through the medium
+of a pencil. That is, he _draws, he leaves a trace_ of his movement.
+
+The child finds this exercise easy and most interesting, and, as soon
+as he has succeeded in making the first outline, he places above it
+the piece of blue metal corresponding to it. This is an exercise
+exactly similar to that which he performed when he placed the wooden
+geometrical figures upon the cards of the third series, where the
+figures are only contained by a simple line.
+
+This time, however, when the action of placing the form upon the
+outline is performed, the child takes _another colored pencil_ and
+draws the outline of the blue metal figure.
+
+When he raises it, if the drawing is well done, he finds upon the
+paper a geometrical figure contained by two outlines in colors, and,
+if the colors have been well chosen, the result is very attractive,
+and the child, who has already had a considerable education of the
+chromatic sense is keenly interested in it.
+
+These may seem unnecessary details, but, as a matter of fact, they are
+all-important. For instance, if, instead of arranging the ten metal
+insets in a row, the teacher distributes them among the children
+without thus exhibiting them, the child's exercises are much limited.
+When, on the other hand, the insets are exhibited before his eyes, he
+feels the desire to draw them _all_ one after the other, and the
+number of exercises is increased.
+
+The two _colored outlines_ rouse the desire of the child to see
+another combination of colors and then to repeat the experience. The
+variety of the objects and the colors are therefore an _inducement_ to
+work and hence to final success.
+
+Here the actual preparatory movement for writing begins. When the
+child has drawn the figure in double outline, he takes hold of a
+pencil "like a pen for writing," and draws marks up and down until he
+has completely filled the figure. In this way a definite filled-in
+figure remains on the paper, similar to the figures on the cards of
+the first series. This figure can be in any of the ten colors. At
+first the children fill in the figures very clumsily without regard
+for the outlines, making very heavy lines and not keeping them
+parallel. Little by little, however, the drawings improve, in that
+they keep within the outlines, and the lines increase in number, grow
+finer, and are parallel to one another.
+
+When the child has begun these exercises, he is seized with a desire
+to continue them, and he never tires of drawing the outlines of the
+figures and then filling them in. Each child suddenly becomes the
+possessor of a considerable number of drawings, and he treasures them
+up in his own little drawer. In this way he _organizes_ the movement
+of writing, which brings him _to the management of the pen_. This
+movement in ordinary methods is represented by the wearisome pothook
+connected with the first laborious and tedious attempts at writing.
+
+The organization of this movement, which began from the guidance of a
+piece of metal, is as yet rough and imperfect, and the child now
+passes on to the _filling in of the prepared designs_ in the little
+album. The leaves are taken from the book one by one in the order of
+progression in which they are arranged, and the child fills in the
+prepared designs with colored pencils in the same way as before. Here
+the choice of the colors is another intelligent occupation which
+encourages the child to multiply the tasks. He chooses the colors by
+himself and with much taste. The delicacy of the shades which he
+chooses and the harmony with which he arranges them in these designs
+show us that the common belief, that children love _bright and
+glaring_ colors, has been the result of observation of _children
+without education_, who have been abandoned to the rough and harsh
+experiences of an environment unfitted for them.
+
+The education of the chromatic sense becomes at this point of a
+child's development the _lever_ which enables him to become possessed
+of a firm, bold and beautiful handwriting.
+
+The drawings lend themselves to _limiting_, in very many ways, _the
+length of the strokes with which they are filled in_. The child will
+have to fill in geometrical figures, both large and small, of a
+pavement design, or flowers and leaves, or the various details of an
+animal or of a landscape. In this way the hand accustoms itself, not
+only to perform the general action, but also to confine the movement
+within all kinds of limits.
+
+Hence the child is preparing himself to write in a handwriting
+_either_ large or small. Indeed, later on he will write as well
+between the wide lines on a blackboard as between the narrow, closely
+ruled lines of an exercise book, generally used by much older
+children.
+
+The number of exercises which the child performs with the drawings is
+practically unlimited. He will often take another colored pencil and
+draw over again the outlines of the figure already filled in with
+color. A help to the _continuation_ of the exercise is to be found in
+the further education of the chromatic sense, which the child acquires
+by painting the same designs in water-colors. Later he mixes colors
+for himself until he can imitate the colors of nature, or create the
+delicate tints which his own imagination desires. It is not possible,
+however, to speak of all this in detail within the limits of this
+small work.
+
+
+_Exercises for the Writing of Alphabetical Signs_
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 29.--SINGLE SANDPAPER LETTER.]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 30.--GROUPS OF SANDPAPER LETTERS.]
+
+In the didactic material there are series of boxes which contain the
+alphabetical signs. At this point we take those cards which are
+covered with very smooth paper, to which is gummed a letter of the
+alphabet cut out in sandpaper. (Fig. 29.) There are also large cards
+on which are gummed several letters, grouped together according to
+analogy of form. (Fig. 30.)
+
+The children "have to _touch_ over the alphabetical signs as though
+they were writing." They touch them with the tips of the index and
+middle fingers in the same way as when they touched the wooden insets,
+and with the hand raised as when they lightly touched the rough and
+smooth surfaces. The teacher herself touches the letters to show the
+child how the movement should be performed, and the child, if he has
+had much practise in touching the wooden insets, _imitates_ her with
+_ease_ and pleasure. Without the previous practise, however, the
+child's hand does not follow the letter with accuracy, and it is most
+interesting to make close observations of the children in order to
+understand the importance of a _remote motor preparation_ for writing,
+and also to realize the _immense_ strain which we impose upon the
+children when we set them to write directly without a previous motor
+education of the hand.
+
+The child finds great pleasure in touching the sandpaper letters. It
+is an exercise by which he applies to a new attainment the power he
+has already acquired through exercising the sense of touch. Whilst
+the child touches a letter, the teacher pronounces its sound, and she
+uses for the lesson the usual three periods. Thus, for example,
+presenting the two vowels _i_, _o_, she will have the child touch them
+slowly and accurately, and repeat their relative sounds one after
+the other as the child touches them, "i, i, i! o, o, o!" Then she
+will say to the child: "Give me i!" "Give me o!" Finally, she will ask
+the question: "What is this?" To which the child replies, "i, o."
+She proceeds in the same way through all the other letters, giving,
+in the case of the consonants, not the name, but only the sound. The
+child then touches the letters by himself over and over again,
+either on the separate cards or on the large cards on which several
+letters are gummed, and in this way he establishes the movements
+necessary for tracing the alphabetical signs. At the same time he
+retains the _visual_ image of the letter. This process forms the first
+preparation, not only for writing, but also for reading, because it
+is evident that when the child _touches_ the letters he performs the
+movement corresponding to the writing of them, and, at the same
+time, when he recognizes them by sight he is reading the alphabet.
+
+The child has thus prepared, in effect, all the necessary movements
+for writing; therefore he _can write_. This important conquest is the
+result of a long period of inner formation of which the child is not
+clearly aware. But a day will come--very soon--when he _will write_,
+and that will be a day of great surprise for him--the wonderful
+harvest of an unknown sowing.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 31.--BOX OF MOVABLE LETTERS.]
+
+The alphabet of movable letters cut out in pink and blue cardboard,
+and kept in a special box with compartments, serves "for the
+composition of words." (Fig. 31.)
+
+In a phonetic language, like Italian, it is enough to pronounce
+clearly the different component sounds of a word (as, for example,
+m-a-n-o), so that the child whose ear is _already educated_ may
+recognize one by one the component sounds. Then he looks in the
+movable alphabet for the _signs_ corresponding to each separate sound,
+and lays them one beside the other, thus composing the word (for
+instance, mano). Gradually he will become able to do the same thing
+with words of which he thinks himself; he succeeds in breaking them up
+into their component sounds, and in translating them into a row of
+signs.
+
+When the child has composed the words in this way, he knows how to
+read them. In this method, therefore, all the processes leading to
+writing include reading as well.
+
+If the language is not phonetic, the teacher can compose separate
+words with the movable alphabet, and then pronounce them, letting the
+child repeat by himself the exercise of arranging and rereading them.
+
+In the material there are two movable alphabets. One of them consists
+of larger letters, and is divided into two boxes, each of which
+contains the vowels. This is used for the first exercises, in which
+the child needs very large objects in order to recognize the letters.
+When he is acquainted with one half of the consonants he can begin to
+compose words, even though he is dealing with one part only of the
+alphabet.
+
+The other movable alphabet has smaller letters and is contained in a
+single box. It is given to children who have made their first attempts
+at composition with words, and already know the complete alphabet.
+
+It is after these exercises with the movable alphabet that the child
+_is able to write entire words_. This phenomenon generally occurs
+unexpectedly, and then a child who has never yet traced a stroke or a
+letter on paper _writes several words in succession_. From that moment
+he continues to write, always gradually perfecting himself. This
+spontaneous writing takes on the characteristics of a _natural_
+phenomenon, and the child who has begun to write the "first word" will
+continue to write in the same way as he spoke after pronouncing the
+first word, and as he walked after having taken the first step. The
+same course of inner formation through which the phenomenon of writing
+appeared is the course of his future progress, of his growth to
+perfection. The child prepared in this way has entered upon a course
+of development through which he will pass as surely as the growth of
+the body and the development of the natural functions have passed
+through their course of development when life has once been
+established.
+
+For the interesting and very complex phenomena relating to the
+development of writing and then of reading, see my larger works.
+
+
+
+
+THE READING OF MUSIC
+
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 32.--THE MUSICAL STAFF.[A]]
+
+-----
+
+  [A] The single staff is used in the Conservatoire of Milan and
+      utilized in the Perlasca method.
+
+-----
+
+When the child knows how to read, he can make a first application of
+this knowledge to the reading of the names of musical notes.
+
+In connection with the material for sensory education, consisting of
+the series of bells, we use a didactic material, which serves as an
+introduction to musical reading. For this purpose we have, in the
+first place, a wooden board, not very long, and painted pale green. On
+this board the staff is cut out in black, and in every line and space
+are cut round holes, inside each of which is written the name of the
+note in its reference to the treble clef.
+
+There is also a series of little white discs which can be fitted into
+the holes. On one side of each disc is written the name of the note
+(doh, re, mi, fah, soh, lah, ti, doh).
+
+The child, guided by the name written on the discs, puts them, with
+the name uppermost, in their right places on the board and then reads
+the names of the notes. This exercise he can do by himself, and he
+learns the position of each note on the staff. Another exercise which
+the child can do at the same time is to place the disc bearing the
+name of the note on the rectangular base of the corresponding bell,
+whose sound he has already learned to recognize by ear in the
+sensorial exercise described above.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 39.--DUMB KEYBOARD.]
+
+Following this exercise there is another staff made on a board of
+green wood, which is longer than the other and has neither indentures
+nor signs. A considerable number of discs, on one side of which are
+written the names of the notes, is at the disposal of the child. He
+takes up a disc at random, reads its name and places it on the staff,
+with the name underneath, so that the white face of the disc shows on
+the top. By the repetition of this exercise the child is enabled to
+arrange many discs on the same line or in the same space. When he has
+finished, he turns them all over so that the names are outside, and so
+finds out if he has made mistakes. After learning the treble clef the
+child passes on to learn the bass with great ease.
+
+To the staff described above can be added another similar to it,
+arranged as is shown in the figure. (Fig. 32.) The child beginning
+with doh, lays the discs on the board in ascending order in their
+right position until the octave is reached: doh, re, mi, fah, soh,
+lah, ti, doh. Then he descends the scale in the same way, returning to
+_doh_, but continuing to place the discs always to the right: soh,
+fah, mi, re, doh. In this way he forms an angle. At this point he
+descends again to the lower staff, ti, lah, soh, fah, mi, re, doh,
+then he ascends again on the other side: re, mi, fah, soh, lah, ti,
+and by forming with his two lines of discs another angle in the bass,
+he has completed a rhombus, "the rhombus of the notes."
+
+After the discs have been arranged in this way, the upper staff is
+separated from the lower. In the lower the notes are arranged
+according to the bass clef. In this way the first elements of musical
+reading are presented to the child, reading which corresponds to
+_sounds_ with which the child's ear is already acquainted.
+
+For a first practical application of this knowledge we have used in
+our schools a miniature pianoforte keyboard, which reproduces the
+essentials of this instrument, although in a simplified form, and so
+that they are visible. Two octaves only are reproduced, and the keys,
+which are small, are proportioned to the hand of a little child of
+four or five years, as the keys of the common piano are proportioned
+to those of the adult. All the mechanism of the key is visible. (Fig.
+39.) On striking a key one sees the hammer rise, on which is written
+the name of the note. The hammers are black and white, like the
+notes.
+
+With this instrument it is very easy for the child to practise alone,
+finding the notes on the keyboard corresponding to some bar of written
+music, and following the movements of the fingers made in playing the
+piano.
+
+The keyboard in itself is mute, but a series of resonant tubes,
+resembling a set of organ-pipes, can be applied to the upper surface,
+so that the hammers striking these produce musical notes corresponding
+to the keys struck. The child can then pursue his exercises with the
+control of the musical sounds.
+
+
+DIDACTIC MATERIAL FOR MUSICAL READING.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 33.
+
+On the wooden board, round spaces are cut out
+corresponding to the notes. Inside each of the spaces there is a figure.
+On one side of each of the discs is written a number and on the other the
+name of the note. They are fitted by the child into the corresponding
+places.]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 34.
+
+The child next arranged the discs in the notes cut out on
+the staff, but there are no longer numbers written to help him find the
+places. Instead, he must try to remember the place of the note on the
+staff. If he is not sure he consults the numbered board (Fig. 33).]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 35.
+
+The child arranged on the staff the semitones in the
+spaces which remain where the discs are far apart: do-re, re-mi, fah-soh,
+soh-la, la-ti. The discs for the semitones have the sharp on one side and
+the flat on the other, e.g., re[sharp]-mi[flat] are written on the
+opposite sides of the same disc.]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 36.
+
+The children take a large number of discs and arrange them
+on the staff, leaving uppermost the side which is blank, i.e., the side
+on which the name of the note is not written. Then they verify their work
+by turning the discs over and reading the name.]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 37.
+
+The double staff is formed by putting the two staves
+together. The children arrange the notes in the form of a rhombus.]
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 38.
+
+The two boards are then separated and the notes remain
+arranged according to the treble and bass clefs. The corresponding key
+signatures are then placed upon the two different staves.]
+
+
+
+
+ARITHMETIC
+
+
+The children possess all the instinctive knowledge necessary as a
+preparation for clear ideas on numeration. The idea of quantity was
+inherent in all the material for the education of the senses: longer,
+shorter, darker, lighter. The conception of identity and of difference
+formed part of the actual technique of the education of the senses,
+which began with the recognition of identical objects, and continued
+with the arrangement in gradation of similar objects. I will make a
+special illustration of the first exercise with the solid insets,
+which can be done even by a child of two and a half. When he makes a
+mistake by putting a cylinder in a hole too large for it, and so
+leaves _one_ cylinder without a place, he instinctively absorbs the
+idea of the absence of _one_ from a continuous series. The child's
+mind is not prepared for number "by certain preliminary ideas," given
+in haste by the teacher, but has been prepared for it by a process of
+formation, by a slow building up of itself.
+
+To enter directly upon the teaching of arithmetic, we must turn to the
+same didactic material used for the education of the senses.
+
+Let us look at the three sets of material which are presented after
+the exercises with the solid insets, _i.e._, the material for teaching
+_size_ (the pink cubes), _thickness_ (the brown prisms), and _length_
+(the green rods). There is a definite relation between the ten pieces
+of each series. In the material for length the shortest piece is a
+_unit of measurement_ for all the rest; the second piece is double the
+first, the third is three times the first, etc., and, whilst the scale
+of length increases by ten centimeters for each piece, the other
+dimensions remain constant (_i.e._, the rods all have the same
+section).
+
+The pieces then stand in the same relation to one another as the
+natural series of the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10.
+
+In the second series, namely, that which shows _thickness_, whilst the
+length remains constant, the square section of the prisms varies. The
+result is that the sides of the square sections vary according to the
+series of natural numbers, _i.e._, in the first prism, the square of
+the section has sides of one centimeter, in the second of two
+centimeters, in the third of three centimeters, etc., and so on until
+the tenth, in which the square of the section has sides of ten
+centimeters. The prisms therefore are in the same proportion to one
+another as the numbers of the series of squares (1, 4, 9, etc.), for
+it would take four prisms of the first size to make the second, nine
+to make the third, etc. The pieces which make up the series for
+teaching thickness are therefore in the following proportion: 1 : 4 :
+9 : 16 : 25 : 36 : 49 : 64 : 81 : 100.
+
+In the case of the pink cubes the edge increases according to the
+numerical series, _i.e._, the first cube has an edge of one
+centimeter, the second of two centimeters, the third of three
+centimeters, and so on, to the tenth cube, which has an edge of ten
+centimeters. Hence the relation in volume between them is that of the
+cubes of the series of numbers from one to ten, _i.e._, 1 : 8: 27 :
+64: 125 : 216 : 343 : 512 : 729 : 1000. In fact, to make up the
+volume of the second pink cube, eight of the first little cubes would
+be required; to make up the volume of the third, twenty-seven would be
+required, and so on.
+
+[Illustration:
+
+   =====
+   =====-----
+   =====-----=====
+ A =====-----=====-----  B
+   =====-----=====-----=====
+   =====-----=====-----=====-----
+   =====-----=====-----=====-----=====
+   =====-----=====-----=====-----=====-----
+   =====-----=====-----=====-----=====-----=====
+   =====-----=====-----=====-----=====-----=====-----
+     1
+     1    2
+     1    2    3
+     1    2    3    4
+     1    2    3    4    5
+     1    2    3    4    5    6
+     1    2    3    4    5    6    7
+     1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8
+     1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9
+     1    2    3    4    5    6    7    8    9    10
+
+  FIG. 40.--DIAGRAM ILLUSTRATING USE OF NUMERICAL RODS.]
+
+The children have an intuitive knowledge of this difference, for they
+realize that the exercise with the pink cubes is the _easiest_ of all
+three and that with the rods the most difficult. When we begin the
+direct teaching of number, we choose the long rods, modifying them,
+however, by dividing them into ten spaces, each ten centimeters in
+length, colored alternately red and blue. For example, the rod which
+is four times as long as the first is clearly seen to be composed of
+four equal lengths, red and blue; and similarly with all the rest.
+
+When the rods have been placed in order of gradation, we teach the
+child the numbers: one, two, three, etc., by touching the rods in
+succession, from the first up to ten. Then, to help him to gain a
+clear idea of number, we proceed to the recognition of separate rods
+by means of the customary lesson in three periods.
+
+We lay the three first rods in front of the child, and pointing to
+them or taking them in the hand in turn, in order to show them to him
+we say: "This is _one_." "This is _two_." "This is _three_." We point
+out with the finger the divisions in each rod, counting them so as to
+make sure, "One, two: this is _two_." "One, two, three: this is
+_three_." Then we say to the child: "Give me _two_." "Give me _one_."
+"Give me _three_." Finally, pointing to a rod, we say, "What is this?"
+The child answers, "Three," and we count together: "One, two, three."
+
+In the same way we teach all the other rods in their order, adding
+always one or two more according to the responsiveness of the child.
+
+The importance of this didactic material is that it gives a clear idea
+of _number_. For when a number is named it exists as an object, a
+unity in itself. When we say that a man possesses a million, we mean
+that he has a _fortune_ which is worth so many units of measure of
+values, and these units all belong to one person.
+
+So, if we add 7 to 8 (7 + 8), we add a _number to a number_, and these
+numbers for a _definite_ reason represent in themselves groups of
+homogeneous units.
+
+Again, when the child shows us the 9, he is handling a rod which is
+inflexible--an object complete in itself, yet composed of _nine equal
+parts_ which can be counted. And when he comes to add 8 to 2, he will
+place next to one another, two rods, two objects, one of which has
+eight equal lengths and the other two. When, on the other hand, in
+ordinary schools, to make the calculation easier, they present the
+child with different objects to count, such as beans, marbles, etc.,
+and when, to take the case I have quoted (8 + 2), he takes a group of
+eight marbles and adds two more marbles to it, the natural impression
+in his mind is not that he has added 8 to 2, but that he has added 1
++ 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 to 1 + 1. The result is not so clear, and
+the child is required to make the effort of holding in his mind the
+idea of a group of eight objects as _one united whole_, corresponding
+to a single number, 8.
+
+This effort often puts the child back, and delays his understanding of
+number by months or even years.
+
+The addition and subtraction of numbers under ten are made very much
+simpler by the use of the didactic material for teaching lengths. Let
+the child be presented with the attractive problem of arranging the
+pieces in such a way as to have a set of rods, all as long as the
+longest. He first arranges the rods in their right order (the long
+stair); he then takes the last rod (1) and lays it next to the 9.
+Similarly, he takes the last rod but one (2) and lays it next to the
+8, and so on up to the 5.
+
+This very simple game represents the addition of numbers within the
+ten: 9 + 1, 8 + 2, 7 + 3, 6 + 4. Then, when he puts the rods back in
+their places, he must first take away the 4 and put it back under the
+5, and then take away in their turn the 3, the 2, the 1. By this
+action he has put the rods back again in their right gradation, but
+he has also performed a series of arithmetical subtractions, 10 - 4,
+10 - 3, 10 - 2, 10 - 1.
+
+The teaching of the actual figures marks an advance from the rods to
+the process of counting with separate units. When the figures are
+known, they will serve the very purpose in the abstract which the rods
+serve in the concrete; that is, they will stand for the _uniting into
+one whole_ of a certain number of separate units.
+
+The _synthetic_ function of language and the wide field of work which
+it opens out for the intelligence is _demonstrated_, we might say, by
+the function of the _figure_, which now can be substituted for the
+concrete rods.
+
+The use of the actual rods only would limit arithmetic to the small
+operations within the ten or numbers a little higher, and, in the
+construction of the mind, these operations would advance very little
+farther than the limits of the first simple and elementary education
+of the senses.
+
+The figure, which is a word, a graphic sign, will permit of that
+unlimited progress which the mathematical mind of man has been able to
+make in the course of its evolution.
+
+In the material there is a box containing smooth cards, on which are
+gummed the figures from one to nine, cut out in sandpaper. These are
+analogous to the cards on which are gummed the sandpaper letters of
+the alphabet. The method of teaching is always the same. The child is
+_made to touch_ the figures in the direction in which they are
+written, and to name them at the same time.
+
+In this case he does more than when he learned the letters; he is
+shown how to place each figure upon the corresponding rod. When all
+the figures have been learned in this way, one of the first exercises
+will be to place the number cards upon the rods arranged in gradation.
+So arranged, they form a succession of steps on which it is a pleasure
+to place the cards, and the children remain for a long time repeating
+this intelligent game.
+
+After this exercise comes what we may call the "emancipation" of the
+child. He carried his own figures with him, and now _using them_ he
+will know how to group units together.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 41.--COUNTING BOXES.]
+
+For this purpose we have in the didactic material a series of wooden
+pegs, but in addition to these we give the children all sorts of small
+objects--sticks, tiny cubes, counters, etc.
+
+The exercise will consist in placing opposite a figure the number of
+objects that it indicates. The child for this purpose can use the box
+which is included in the material. (Fig. 41.) This box is divided into
+compartments, above each of which is printed a figure and the child
+places in the compartment the corresponding number of pegs.
+
+Another exercise is to lay all the figures on the table and place
+below them the corresponding number of cubes, counters, etc.
+
+This is only the first step, and it would be impossible here to speak
+of the succeeding lessons in zero, in tens and in other arithmetical
+processes--for the development of which my larger works must be
+consulted. The didactic material itself, however, can give some idea.
+In the box containing the pegs there is one compartment over which the
+0 is printed. Inside this compartment "nothing must be put," and then
+we begin with _one_.
+
+Zero is nothing, but it is placed next to one to enable us to count
+when we pass beyond 9--thus, 10.
+
+[Illustration: FIG. 42.--ARITHMETIC FRAME.]
+
+If, instead of the piece 1, we were to take pieces as long as the rod
+10, we could count 10, 20, 30, 40, 50, 60, 70, 80, 90. In the didactic
+material there are frames containing cards on which are printed such
+numbers from 10 to 90. These numbers are fixed into a frame in such a
+way that the figures 1 to 9 can be slipped in covering the zero. If
+the zero of 10 is covered by 1 the result is 11, if with 2 it becomes
+12, and so on, until the last 9. Then we pass to the twenties (the
+second ten), and so on, from ten to ten. (Fig. 42.)
+
+For the beginning of this exercise with the cards marking the tens we
+can use the rods. As we begin with the first ten (10) in the frame, we
+take the rod 10. We then place the small rod 1 next to rod 10, and at
+the same time slip in the number 1, covering the zero of the 10. Then
+we take rod 1 and figure 1 away from the frame, and put in their place
+rod 2 next to rod 10, and figure 2 over the zero in the frame, and so
+on, up to 9. To advance farther we should need to use two rods of 10
+to make 20.
+
+The children show much enthusiasm when learning these exercises, which
+demand from them two sets of activities, and give them in their work
+clearness of idea.
+
+                  *       *       *       *       *
+
+In writing and arithmetic we have gathered the fruits of a laborious
+education which consisted in coordinating the movements and gaining a
+first knowledge of the world. This culture comes as a natural
+consequence of man's first efforts to put himself into intelligent
+communication with the world.
+
+All those early acquisitions which have brought order into the child's
+mind, would be wasted were they not firmly established by means of
+written language and of figures. Thus established, however, these
+experiences open up an unlimited field for future education. What we
+have done, therefore, is to introduce the child to a higher level--the
+level of culture--and he will now be able to pass on to a _school_,
+but not the school we know to-day, where, irrationally, we try to give
+culture to minds not yet prepared or _educated to receive it_.
+
+To preserve the health of their minds, which have been _exercised_ and
+not _fatigued_ by the order of the work, our children must have a new
+kind of school for the acquisition of culture. My experiments in the
+continuation of this method for older children are already far
+advanced.
+
+
+
+
+MORAL FACTORS
+
+
+A brief description such as this, of the _means_ which are used in the
+"Children's House," may perhaps give the reader the impression of a
+logical and convincing system of education. But the importance of my
+method does not lie in the organization itself, but _in the effects
+which it produces on the child_. It is the _child_ who proves the
+value of this method by his spontaneous manifestations, which seem to
+reveal the laws of man's inner development.[B] Psychology will perhaps
+find in the "Children's Houses" a laboratory which will bring more
+truths to light than thus hitherto recognized; for the essential
+factor in psychological research, especially in the field of
+psychogenesis, the origin and development of the mind, must be the
+establishment of normal conditions for the free development of
+thought.
+
+-----
+
+  [B] See the chapters on Discipline in my larger works.
+
+-----
+
+As is well known, we leave the children _free_ in their work, and in
+all actions which are not of a disturbing kind. That is, we
+_eliminate_ disorder, which is "bad," but allow to that which is
+orderly and "good" the most complete liberty of manifestation.
+
+The results obtained are surprising, for the children have shown a
+love of work which no one suspected to be in them, and a calm and an
+orderliness in their movements which, surpassing the limits of
+correctness have entered into those of "grace." The spontaneous
+discipline, and the obedience which is seen in the whole class,
+constitute the most striking result of our method.
+
+The ancient philosophical discussion as to whether man is born good or
+evil is often brought forward in connection with my method, and many
+who have supported it have done so on the ground that it provides a
+demonstration of man's natural goodness. Very many others, on the
+contrary, have opposed it, considering that to leave children free is
+a dangerous mistake, since they have in them innate tendencies to
+evil.
+
+I should like to put the question upon a more positive plane.
+
+In the words "good" and "evil" we include the most varying ideas, and
+we confuse them especially _in our practical dealings with little
+children_.
+
+The tendencies which we stigmatize as _evil_ in little children of
+three to six years of age are often merely those which cause
+_annoyance_ to us adults when, not understanding their needs, we try
+to prevent their _every movement_, their every _attempt to gain
+experience for themselves in the world_ (by touching everything,
+etc.). The child, however, through this _natural tendency_, is led to
+_coordinate his movements_ and to collect impressions, especially
+sensations of touch, so that when prevented he _rebels_, and this
+rebellion forms almost the whole of his "naughtiness."
+
+What wonder is it that the evil disappears when, if we give the right
+_means_ for development and leave full liberty to use them, rebellion
+has no more reason for existence?
+
+Further, by the substitution of a series of outbursts of _joy_ for the
+old series of outbursts of _rage_, the moral physiognomy of the child
+comes to assume a calm and gentleness which make him appear a
+different being.
+
+It is we who provoked the children to the violent manifestations of a
+real _struggle for existence_. In order to exist _according to the
+needs of their psychic development_ they were often obliged to snatch
+from us the things which seemed necessary to them for the purpose.
+They had to move contrary to our laws, or sometimes to struggle with
+other children to wrest from them the objects of their desire.
+
+On the other hand, if we give children the _means of existence_, the
+struggle for it disappears, and a vigorous expansion of life takes its
+place. This question involves a hygienic principle connected with the
+nervous system during the difficult period when the brain is still
+rapidly growing, and should be of great interest to specialists in
+children's diseases and nervous derangements. The inner life of man
+and the beginnings of his intellect are controlled by special laws and
+vital necessities which cannot be forgotten if we are aiming at health
+for mankind.
+
+For this reason, an educational method, which cultivates and protects
+the inner activities of the child, is not a question which concerns
+merely the school or the teachers; it is a universal question which
+concerns the family, and is of vital interest to mothers.
+
+To go more deeply into a question is often the only means of answering
+it rightly. If, for instance, we were to see men fighting over a piece
+of bread, we might say: "How bad men are!" If, on the other hand, we
+entered a well-warmed eating-house, and saw them quietly finding a
+place and choosing their meal without any envy of one another, we
+might say: "How good men are!" Evidently, the question of absolute
+good and evil, intuitive ideas of which guide us in our superficial
+judgment, goes beyond such limitations as these. We can, for instance,
+provide excellent eating-houses for an entire people without directly
+affecting the question of their morals. One might say, indeed, that to
+judge by appearances, a well-fed people are _better, quieter, and
+commit less crime_ than a nation that is ill-nourished; but whoever
+draws from that the conclusion that to make men good it is _enough_ to
+feed them, will be making an obvious mistake.
+
+It cannot be denied, however, that _nourishment_ will be an essential
+factor in obtaining goodness, in the sense that it will _eliminate_
+all the _evil acts, and the bitterness_ caused by lack of bread.
+
+Now, in our case, we are dealing with a far deeper need--the
+nourishment of man's inner life, and of his higher functions. The
+bread that we are dealing with is the bread of the spirit, and we are
+entering into the difficult subject of the satisfaction of man's
+psychic needs.
+
+We have already obtained a most interesting result, in that we have
+found it possible to present _new means_ of enabling children to reach
+a higher level of calm and goodness, and we have been able to
+establish these means by experience. The whole foundation of our
+results rests upon these means which we have discovered, and which may
+be divided under two heads--the _organization of work_, and liberty.
+
+It is the perfect organization of work, permitting the possibility of
+self-development and giving outlet for the energies, which procures
+for each child the beneficial and calming _satisfaction_. And it is
+under such conditions of work that liberty leads to a perfecting of
+the activities, and to the attainment of a fine discipline which is in
+itself the result of that new quality of _calmness_ that has been
+developed in the child.
+
+Freedom without organization of work would be useless. The child left
+_free_ without means of work would go to waste, just as a new-born
+baby, if _left free_ without nourishment, would die of starvation.
+_The organization of the work_, therefore, is the corner-stone of this
+new structure of goodness; but even that organization would be in vain
+without the _liberty_ to make use of it, and without freedom for the
+expansion of all those energies which spring from the satisfaction of
+the child's highest activities.
+
+Has not a similar phenomenon occurred also in the history of man? The
+history of civilization is a history of successful attempts to
+organize work and to obtain liberty. On the whole, man's goodness has
+also increased, as is shown by his progress from barbarism to
+civilization, and it may be said that crime, the various forms of
+wickedness, cruelty and violence have been gradually decreasing during
+this passage of time.
+
+The _criminality_ of our times, as a matter of fact, has been compared
+to a form of _barbarism_ surviving in the midst of civilized peoples.
+It is, therefore, through the better organization of work that society
+will probably attain to a further purification, and in the meanwhile
+it seems unconsciously to be seeking the overthrow of the last
+barriers between itself and liberty.
+
+If this is what we learn from society, how great should be the results
+among little children from three to six years of age if the
+organization of their work is complete, and their freedom absolute? It
+is for this reason that to us they seem so good, like heralds of hope
+and of redemption.
+
+If men, walking as yet so painfully and imperfectly along the road of
+work and of freedom, have become better, why should we fear that the
+same road will prove disastrous to the children?
+
+Yet, on the other hand, I would not say that the goodness of our
+little ones in their freedom will solve the problem of the absolute
+goodness or wickedness of man. We can only say that we have made a
+contribution to the cause of goodness by removing obstacles which were
+the cause of violence and of rebellion.
+
+Let us "render, therefore, unto Cæsar the things that are Cæsar's, and
+unto God the things that are God's."
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber's Note:
+
+  Illustrations have been moved closer to their relevant paragraphs.
+
+  The page numbers in the List of Illustrations do not reflect the new
+  placement of the illustrations, but are as in the original.
+
+  The list of "didactic material for the _education of the senses_" on
+  pages 18-19 is missing item (j) as in the original.
+
+  Author's archaic and variable spelling is preserved.
+
+  Author's punctuation style is preserved.
+
+  Passages in italics indicated by _underscores_.
+
+  Passages in bold indicated by =equal signs=.
+
+  Typographical problems have been changed and are listed below.
+
+
+Transcriber's Changes:
+
+  Page vii: Was 'marvellous' [In fact, Helen Keller is a =marvelous=
+           example of the phenomenon common to all human beings]
+
+  Page 46: Was 'anvles' [which vary either according to their sides or
+           according to their =angles= (the equilateral, isosceles,
+           scalene, right angled, obtuse angled, and acute)]
+
+  Page 63: Added commas [recognized and arranged in order--doh, _re_,
+           =doh,= re, _mi_; doh, =re,= mi, _fah_; doh, =re,= mi, fah,
+           _soh_, etc. In this way he succeeds in arranging all the]
+
+  Fig. 35 caption: Was 'si' [the spaces which remain where the discs
+           are far apart: do-re, re-mi, fah-soh, soh-la, la-=ti=. The
+           discs for the semitones]
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook, by Maria Montessori
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK DR. MONTESSORI'S OWN HANDBOOK ***
+
+***** This file should be named 29635-8.txt or 29635-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        http://www.gutenberg.org/2/9/6/3/29635/
+
+Produced by Alicia Williams, Dan Horwood and the Online
+Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
+book was produced from scanned images of public domain
+material from the Google Print project.)
+
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
+
+Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no
+one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation
+(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without
+permission and without paying copyright royalties.  Special rules,
+set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to
+copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to
+protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark.  Project
+Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you
+charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission.  If you
+do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the
+rules is very easy.  You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose
+such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and
+research.  They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do
+practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks.  Redistribution is
+subject to the trademark license, especially commercial
+redistribution.
+
+
+
+*** START: FULL LICENSE ***
+
+THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE
+PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK
+
+To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free
+distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work
+(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at
+http://gutenberg.org/license).
+
+
+Section 1.  General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic works
+
+1.A.  By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to
+and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property
+(trademark/copyright) agreement.  If you do not agree to abide by all
+the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy
+all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession.
+If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the
+terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or
+entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8.
+
+1.B.  "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark.  It may only be
+used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who
+agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.  There are a few
+things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works
+even without complying with the full terms of this agreement.  See
+paragraph 1.C below.  There are a lot of things you can do with Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement
+and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.  See paragraph 1.E below.
+
+1.C.  The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation"
+or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic works.  Nearly all the individual works in the
+collection are in the public domain in the United States.  If an
+individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are
+located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from
+copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative
+works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg
+are removed.  Of course, we hope that you will support the Project
+Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by
+freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of
+this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with
+the work.  You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by
+keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project
+Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others.
+
+1.D.  The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern
+what you can do with this work.  Copyright laws in most countries are in
+a constant state of change.  If you are outside the United States, check
+the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement
+before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or
+creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project
+Gutenberg-tm work.  The Foundation makes no representations concerning
+the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United
+States.
+
+1.E.  Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg:
+
+1.E.1.  The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate
+access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently
+whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the
+phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project
+Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed,
+copied or distributed:
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+1.E.2.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived
+from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is
+posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied
+and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees
+or charges.  If you are redistributing or providing access to a work
+with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the
+work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1
+through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the
+Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or
+1.E.9.
+
+1.E.3.  If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted
+with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution
+must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional
+terms imposed by the copyright holder.  Additional terms will be linked
+to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the
+permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work.
+
+1.E.4.  Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this
+work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm.
+
+1.E.5.  Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this
+electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without
+prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with
+active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm License.
+
+1.E.6.  You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary,
+compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any
+word processing or hypertext form.  However, if you provide access to or
+distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than
+"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version
+posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org),
+you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a
+copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon
+request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other
+form.  Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1.
+
+1.E.7.  Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying,
+performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works
+unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9.
+
+1.E.8.  You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing
+access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided
+that
+
+- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from
+     the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method
+     you already use to calculate your applicable taxes.  The fee is
+     owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he
+     has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the
+     Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation.  Royalty payments
+     must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you
+     prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax
+     returns.  Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and
+     sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the
+     address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to
+     the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation."
+
+- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies
+     you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he
+     does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm
+     License.  You must require such a user to return or
+     destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium
+     and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of
+     Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any
+     money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the
+     electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days
+     of receipt of the work.
+
+- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free
+     distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works.
+
+1.E.9.  If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm
+electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set
+forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from
+both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael
+Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark.  Contact the
+Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below.
+
+1.F.
+
+1.F.1.  Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable
+effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread
+public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm
+collection.  Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain
+"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or
+corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual
+property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a
+computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by
+your equipment.
+
+1.F.2.  LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right
+of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project
+Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project
+Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all
+liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal
+fees.  YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT
+LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE
+PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3.  YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE
+TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE
+LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR
+INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH
+DAMAGE.
+
+1.F.3.  LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a
+defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can
+receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a
+written explanation to the person you received the work from.  If you
+received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with
+your written explanation.  The person or entity that provided you with
+the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a
+refund.  If you received the work electronically, the person or entity
+providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to
+receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund.  If the second copy
+is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further
+opportunities to fix the problem.
+
+1.F.4.  Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth
+in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS' WITH NO OTHER
+WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO
+WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE.
+
+1.F.5.  Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied
+warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages.
+If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the
+law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be
+interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by
+the applicable state law.  The invalidity or unenforceability of any
+provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions.
+
+1.F.6.  INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the
+trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone
+providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance
+with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production,
+promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works,
+harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees,
+that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do
+or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm
+work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any
+Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause.
+
+
+Section  2.  Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of
+electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers
+including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers.  It exists
+because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from
+people in all walks of life.
+
+Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the
+assistance they need, are critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's
+goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will
+remain freely available for generations to come.  In 2001, the Project
+Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure
+and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations.
+To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation
+and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4
+and the Foundation web page at http://www.pglaf.org.
+
+
+Section 3.  Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive
+Foundation
+
+The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit
+501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the
+state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal
+Revenue Service.  The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification
+number is 64-6221541.  Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at
+http://pglaf.org/fundraising.  Contributions to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent
+permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws.
+
+The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S.
+Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered
+throughout numerous locations.  Its business office is located at
+809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email
+business@pglaf.org.  Email contact links and up to date contact
+information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official
+page at http://pglaf.org
+
+For additional contact information:
+     Dr. Gregory B. Newby
+     Chief Executive and Director
+     gbnewby@pglaf.org
+
+
+Section 4.  Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg
+Literary Archive Foundation
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide
+spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of
+increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be
+freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest
+array of equipment including outdated equipment.  Many small donations
+($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt
+status with the IRS.
+
+The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating
+charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United
+States.  Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a
+considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up
+with these requirements.  We do not solicit donations in locations
+where we have not received written confirmation of compliance.  To
+SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any
+particular state visit http://pglaf.org
+
+While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we
+have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition
+against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who
+approach us with offers to donate.
+
+International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make
+any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from
+outside the United States.  U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff.
+
+Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation
+methods and addresses.  Donations are accepted in a number of other
+ways including checks, online payments and credit card donations.
+To donate, please visit: http://pglaf.org/donate
+
+
+Section 5.  General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic
+works.
+
+Professor Michael S. Hart is the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm
+concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared
+with anyone.  For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project
+Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support.
+
+
+Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed
+editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S.
+unless a copyright notice is included.  Thus, we do not necessarily
+keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition.
+
+
+Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility:
+
+     http://www.gutenberg.org
+
+This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm,
+including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary
+Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to
+subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks.