Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 84.djvu/614

610 adhered to the "physiological" method of Seguin, the first great trainer of defectives, and she frankly acknowledges this indebtedness. The scientific foundation of her practise is further shown in the conduct of her schools. Careful records are kept concerning the heredity, parental occupation, feeding and infantile sicknesses of the Montessori pupils, and anthropometric measurements are taken at regular intervals. Moreover, an expert inspection is periodically made of the sanitation and economic conditions in the home of each child.

The Montessori spirit is again revealed in her attitude of allowing the pupil as complete freedom as possible and of holding that the chief function of the teacher should be to study the activities of the child. "The transformation of the school," says she, "must be contemporaneous with the preparation of the teacher. For if we make of the teacher an observer, familiar with the experimental methods, then we must make it possible for her to observe and experiment in the school. The fundamental attitude of scientific pedagogy must be, indeed, the liberty of the pupil." In practise, Montessori carries out this fundamental belief more fully than most Froebelians, who also profess it. Instead of holding the children to a fixed and complete order of exercises imposed by the teacher, she maintains that all education worth having is "autoeducation." The children should select their own occupations and solve their own difficulties, and should be allowed to develop themselves both mentally and morally. Only when their activities interfere with the general interest or are useless or dangerous, must they be suppressed. However, while in this latitude toward individual expression Montessori carries out the "following, not prescriptive" education of Froebel more logically than that reformer himself, she does not develop participation in group activities to the same extent as he. Nor is the material used as rich and varied. There is little opportunity afforded for the Froebelian construction and invention, and the development of imagination is ruthlessly nipped in the bud. The interesting plays, songs and stories of the kindergarten find little parallel in the Montessori practise, although at present the founder of the system seems to be expanding these elements. The conception of "autoeducation "is admirable, but it is difficult to see how genuine activities are to be carried on, except within a very narrow scope, unless the material of the Montessorian schools be expanded considerably beyond the confines of the "didactic apparatus."

The most discussed features of the Montessori method fall naturally into three groups. It should be noticed that none of these exercises are absolutely original, but they are sufficiently peculiar to demand consideration in any description of Montessorianism. They are connected with (1) activities of practical life, (2) sense training and (3) the formal studies of the elementary curriculum. (1) When the child first enters