Pedagogical Anthropology by Maria Montessori (best novels of all time TXT) 📕

the school.

Lino Ferriani is the first jurist to investigate the antecedents of juvenile delinquents, by gathering notes not only regarding their parents, but also in regard to their own school standing (by consulting the teachers in the schools where these juvenile criminals received their education!). I have extracted from his volume on "Precocious and senile delinquency" the following statistics of the physico-moral condition of the parents:

Convicted of crimes against property 1,237 Convicted of crimes against the person 543 Addicted to wine 2,006 Women leading meretricious lives 581 Doubtful reputation 1,500 Very bad reputation 670 Good reputation 210 Industrious 1,888 Semi-idle 4,000 Idle 2,000 Sentenced for drunkenness 1,590 Sentenced for offences against public morals 240 Alcoholics 1,001 Confined in lunatic asylums 48 Mothers deflowered before the age of 15 1,560 Couples separated through fault of the husband 59 Couples separated through fault of the wife 69 Couples separated through fault of both parties 135

Among these notes there is a numerical preponderance of idlers (the idle and semi-idle: degenerates are weaklings who cannot work and who shun work; their only form of work is crime, which is an attempt to reap the fruit of other people's industry) and alcoholism (addicted to wine, alcoholics, and those sentenced for drunkenness; this also is a stigma of degeneration: weaklings have recourse to alcohol, because it gives them an illusion of strength). Furthermore, the majority show, through crime and prostitution, that they belong to the class of social parasites.

In regard to the psycho-physical characteristics of juvenile offenders, Ferriani gives these principal notes:

Nervous 1,250 Habitual liars 3,000 Fond of wine and gluttonous 2,501 Proud of delinquency 2,700 Blasphemers 3,900 Cruel to animals 2,100 Excessive emaciation 1,648 Long hands 1,650 Unreliable workers 2,195 Without interest in life 1,347 Desirous of authority 1,000 Scrofulous 700 Rachitic and syphilitic 500 Vindictive 842 Timid and cowardly 900 Obscene 900 Cruel to parents 700 Cruel to companions 700

And now we come to the most interesting part of all, namely, the notes taken by teachers where these children went to school.

Boys.—Age from ten to twelve years. Characteristic notes on 100 children in regard to bad conduct:

Humiliating poorer companions 2 Absolute refusal to obey 4 Corrupting companions 4 Mutilating books of poor companions 2 Spirit of rebellion 1 Malicious and headstrong 1 Resentful of routine 1 Stealing food at expense of companions 6 Abnormally spiteful 4 Impertinent answers 7 Proud of inventing misdeeds 2 Stealing from companions and teacher (school stationary, etc.) 10 Calumniating companions 6 Desire to play the spy 8 Obscene writings in toilet room 2 Obscene writings in copy-books 6 Obscene actions in the school-room 9 Obscene writings on the benches 3 Violence with a weapon (pen-knife) 2 Bullying smaller boys 12 Feigning loss of speech for a month, to avoid reciting lessons 1 Blaspheming 1 Afraid of everything and savagely vindictive 1 Frequently absent from school, to play games of chance 3 Spirit of destruction 1 Spirit of contradiction 1

Girls.—Age from ten to twelve years. Characteristic notes on 50 children in regard to bad conduct:

Soiling the clothing of their companions 3 Abnormally spiteful 2 Intense envy 4 Frequent absence from school, to play games of chance 4 Tyranny 3 Immoderate vanity 2 Spirit of rebellion 1 Insolent answers 1 Absolute intolerance of supervision 1 Damaging the school furniture 2 Slandering the teacher 4 Slandering school-mates 6 Theft, limited to pens 1 Lascivious love-letters 4 Constantly speaking ill of her mother 1 Attempts to make school-mates unhappy 1 Unkindness toward animals 1 Unkindness toward old persons 1 Unkindness toward small children 1 Obscene writings in the toilet room 1 Harmful anonymous letters 1 Hatred of beautiful things 1 Spirit of contradiction 1 Corrupting companions 1 Thefts in school 1 Mutilating the clothing of companions 1

The prevailing faults among the boys are: theft, obscene actions, tyranny over the weak; and among the girls: slander, extreme envy and lascivious love-letters.

If we compare the notes regarding the parents with those relating to the children, we find a connection amounting to that of cause and effect. We might almost say that the phenomenon revealed to us in school through the teachers' notes concerns not so much the pupil himself as his past history. To keep this sort of record of misconduct, so damnatory to the pupils in question, would be worse than useless, if we were unable to trace back their source to the presumable causes which determined them. There is an intimate relation between the environment and the products of that environment. If we should read the notes relating to the children who receive prizes for good conduct, and who are held up as moral examples, we could trace back and find the cause of these notes in a favourable family environment; hence, the qualities which we praise in the child are not a merit peculiar to the child, but are due to causes, of which the pupil himself is merely the fortunate epilogue.

And passing from studies taken from works of criminal anthropology to examples contained in works of pedagogic anthropology (these works all being based upon the same scientific standards), I am happy to cite a work which has even earned the praise of Lombroso: Notes on Infantile Psycho-physiology, written by Professor Calcagni.

Notwithstanding that this book of Menotti Calcagni's is inspired by the most advanced pedagogic conceptions, so that it well deserves to be cited in its entirety with much profit, I shall avail myself only of the part which particularly interests me at the present moment. It is the part containing the data collected and arranged by the author in a series of tables, in the form of a brief clinical history, of each pupil in the class studied by the author.

I shall pass over the statistical tables concerning the personal examination of the pupils (anthropological, physiological, etc.), and confine myself to just two tables: one in regard to the examination into the pupil's antecedents (name and surname; day of birth; place of birth; age of father; age of mother; vocation of father; vocation of mother; conditions of home environment, hygienic, economic and moral; conditions of other members of the family; maladies and casualties incurred by the parents before and after the procreation of the child; defects and vices of parents, and details regarding their psychic constitutions; conditions and accidents during pregnancy, birth and puerperal period; illnesses incurred by the child); the other in regard to the pupil's previous school record (name and surname; pupils enrolled at beginning of the year; those transferred to other classes; those promoted without examination; those promoted after examination; those permitted a second trial; those not admitted to examination; those dropped from their class, and for how many different years). I select from these the notes referring to the children promoted without examination and those not admitted to examination; i.e., the privileged ones before whom an obstacle has been withdrawn which the majority must surmount before continuing on their path in life: go forward in peace, you favoured ones! and those who are not even allowed a chance to overcome the obstacle: turn back, you to whom the path of other men is closed!

And I read these notes relative to those promoted without examination: "Father shoemaker, Mother dress-maker, home orderly, frugal and clean; brothers labourers;"—"F. professor of chemistry, M. housekeeping, condition of environment excellent, brothers studious;"—"F. assistant engineer, M. keeps house, conditions of environment good, deaths in family from acute diseases;"—"F. country tradesman, M. keeps house, conditions of environment excellent, very religious family;"—"F. man of means, M. housekeeping, conditions of environment excellent, brothers studious;"—"F. machinist, M. keeps the house, home somewhat damp because of adjoining garden; much anxiety on the part of the mother regarding the children, because her first husband was a consumptive, and the seven children she had by him all died. Children of second marriage all healthy; but the pupil in question frequently had attacks of fever;"—"F. cab-driver, M. keeps house, economic and moral conditions satisfactory;"—"F. antiquarian, M. keeps house, condition good;"—"F. manager of a lottery office, M. keeps house, economic conditions of the very best, moral conditions good," etc.

And here are a few notes on the pupils not admitted to the examinations: "Father itinerant vendor, Mother keeps house, home exceedingly dirty, utmost indifference regarding the children and their education. Insufficient nutriment for the mother both before and after the child's birth;"—"F. cobbler, M. wash-woman, poverty, squalor, and indifference, dwelling gloomy and cramped;"—"F. mason, M. dead, dwelling gloomy and unhealthy, through lack of supervision, Giacinto often runs away from home and goes to play on the banks of the Tiber; the mother died of tuberculosis; the father is an alcoholic; the child was brought up by a wet-nurse, etc."

To recapitulate: in the case of children promoted without examination there is an absolute prevalence of the most favourable social and biologico-moral conditions, while the opposite holds true of the children excluded from examinations.

Finally, in my own modest work on children adjudged to be the highest and the lowest in their classes, I arrived at some very eloquent conclusions.

In the case of children who stand at the foot of their class, the prevailing conditions are not only an unhealthy home but an over-crowded one, with ten or twelve persons sleeping in a single room. On the contrary, in the case of the children standing at the head of their class, the homes are for the most part roomy, comfortable, well-aired and hygienic.

In regard to nutrition, the children who have the lowest standing are those who go to school without their breakfast and who go from the school to the street without having had their luncheon. Those who stand first, on the contrary, bring with them a luncheon that is sufficient and sometimes over-lavish; and after school, they return home, with the assurance that food, care and comfort await them.

The parents of these leaders of their class belong nearly all of them to the liberal professions or the more favoured crafts and trades; consequently the pupils enjoy a more comfortable and respectable environment, a higher standard of culture, a mother who can aid them in their lessons, and who, equally with the father, watches with solicitous care over her children's education.

The others, the dullest pupils, go at the close of school into the street, or else—although fortunately very few of them do so—return directly to the wretchedly cramped quarters that they call home.

Consequently it is not enough to recognise the fact that in school we have to deal with the more intelligent pupil and the less intelligent, with the moral and the immoral, the highest and the lowest; these are effects, the causes of which it is our duty to discover; and that is what the study of antecedents does for us.

Here begins the far-sighted task of the teacher, who no longer praises the pupil who is a product of fortunate causes, nor blames the unfortunate one heavily handicapped by a destiny which is in no way his fault; but he gives to all an affectionate and enlightened care, designed to correct and reform the reprobates and raise them to the level of the chosen few, thus working for the brotherhood and the amelioration of all mankind, and devoting special attention to those that need it most.

The study of antecedents is what contributes most to the interpretation of personality. It is needful, however, that it should be sufficiently thorough; and to this end a certain order of interrogation should be followed. Physicians are well acquainted with this order, from the habit they have acquired of taking the antecedents of the patient in their clinical practice; but for making biographic charts for schools, a guide is needed for the use of whoever puts the questions. Besides, the biographical history is based on different principles from those of the clinical history (e.g., the moral status of the parents, their degree of culture, etc., which are not taken into consideration, in treating a patient). Consequently, the blank forms of biographic charts contain suggestions that are likely to prove helpful in conducting an inquiry into antecedents. Among such models, I have selected that of Pastorello, because it is one of the most complete,