Spontaneous Activity in Education by Maria Montessori (best historical biographies txt) 📕

Her sphere is to be vaster and more splendid; she is about to observe "the inner life of man." The arid field which is limited to the marvels of organic matter will not suffice for her; all the spiritual fruits of the history of humanity and of religion will be necessary for her nourishment. The lofty manifestations of art, of love, of holiness, are the characteristic manifestations of that life which she is not only about to observe but to serve, and which is her "own life"; not a thing strange to her, and therefore cold and arid; but the intimate life she has in common with all men, the true and only real life of Man.

The scientific laboratory, the field of Nature where the teacher will be initiated into "the observation of the phenomena of the inner life" should be the school in which free children develop with the help of material designed to bring about development. When she feels herself, aflame with interest, "seeing" the spiritual phenomena of the child, and experiences a serene joy and an insatiable eagerness in observing them, then she will know that she is "initiated."

Then she will begin to become a "teacher."

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Not only must the teacher be transformed, but the school environment must be changed. The introduction of the "material of development" into an ordinary school cannot constitute the entire external renovation. The school should become the place where the child may live in freedom, and this freedom must not be solely the intimate, spiritual liberty of internal growth. The entire organism of the child, from his physiological, vegetative part to his motor activity, ought to find in school "the best conditions for development." This includes all that physical hygiene has already put forward as aids to the life of the child. No place would be better adapted than these schools to establish and popularize reform in the clothing of children, which should meet the requirements of cleanliness and of a simplicity facilitating freedom of movement, while it should be so made as to enable children to dress themselves. No better place could be found to carry out and popularize infant hygiene in its relation to nutrition. It would be a work of social regeneration to convince the public of the economy they might effect by such practises, to show them that elegance and propriety in themselves cost nothing—nay, more, that they demand simplicity and moderation, and therefore exclude all that superfluity which is so expensive.

The above applies more especially to schools which, like the original "Children's Houses," might be instituted in the very buildings inhabited by the parents of the pupils.

Certain special requirements must be recognized in the rooms of a free school: psychical hygiene must play its part here as physical hygiene has already done. The great increase in the dimensions of modern class-rooms was dictated by physical hygiene; the ambient air space is measured by "cubature" in relation to the physical needs of respiration; and for the same reason, lavatories were multiplied, and bathrooms were installed; physical hygiene further decreed the introduction of concrete floors and washable dadoes, of central heating, and in many cases of meals, while gardens or broad terraces are already looked upon as essentials for the physical well-being of the child. Wide windows already admit the light freely, and gymnasia with spacious halls and a variety of complex and costly apparatus were established. Finally, the most complicated desks, sometimes veritable machines of wood and iron, with foot-rests, seats, and desks revolving automatically, in order to preclude alike the movements of the child and the distortions arising from immobility, are the economically disastrous contribution of a false principle of "school-hygiene." In the modern school, the uniform whiteness and the washable quality of every object denote the triumph of an epoch in which the campaign against microbes would seem to be the sole key to human life.

Psychical hygiene now presents itself on the threshold of the school with its new precepts, precepts which economically are certainly no more onerous than those entailed by the first triumphant entry of physical hygiene.

They require, however, that schoolrooms be enlarged, not in deference to the laws of respiration, for central heating, which makes it possible to keep windows open, renders calculations based on cubic measure negligible; but because space is necessary for the liberty of movement which should be allowed to the child. However, as the child's walking exercise will not be taken indoors, this increase of space will be sufficient if it permits free movement among the furniture. Still, if an ideal perfection is to be achieved, we may say that the "psychical" class-room should be twice as large as the "physical" class-room. We all know the sense of comfort of which we are conscious when a good half of the floor space in a room is unencumbered; this seems to offer us the agreeable possibility of moving about freely. This sensation of well-being is more intimate than the possibility of breathing offered to us in a room of medium size crowded with furniture.

Scantiness of furniture is certainly a powerful factor in hygiene; here physical and psychical hygiene are at one. In our schools we recommend the use of "light" furniture, which is correspondingly simple, and economical in the extreme. If it be washable, so much the better, especially as the children will then "learn to wash it," thus performing a pleasing and very instructive exercise. But what is above all essential is, that it should be "artistically beautiful." In this case beauty is not produced by superfluity or luxury, but by grace and harmony of line and color, combined with that absolute simplicity necessitated by the lightness of the furniture. Just as the modern dress of children is more elegant than that of the past, and at the same time infinitely simpler and more economical, so is this furniture.

In a "Children's House" in the country, at Palidano, built to commemorate the Marchese Carlo Guerrieri Gonzaga, we initiated the study of "artistic" furnishing. It is well known that every little corner of Italy is a storehouse of local art, and there is no province which in bygone times did not contain graceful and convenient objects, due to a combination of practical sense and artistic instinct. Nearly all these treasures are now being dispersed, and the very memory of them is dying out, under the tyranny of the stupid and uniform "hygienic" fashions of our day. It was therefore a delightful undertaking on the part of Maria Maraini to make careful inquiries into the rustic local art of the past, and to give it new life by reproducing, in the furniture of the "Children's Houses," the forms and colors of tables, chairs, sideboards, and pottery, the designs of textiles and the characteristic decorative motives to be met with in old country-houses. This revival of rustic art will bring back into use objects used by the poor in ages less wealthy than ours, and meanwhile may be a revelation in "economy." If, instead of school benches, such simple and graceful objects were manufactured, even this school furniture would show how beauty may be evolved from ugliness by eliminating superfluous material; for beauty is a question, not of material, but of inspiration. Hence we must not look to richness of material, but to refinement of spirit for these practical reforms.

If similar studies should be made some day upon the rustic art of all the Italian provinces, each of which has its special artistic traditions, "types of furniture" might arise which would in themselves do much to elevate the taste and refine the habits. They would bring to the enlightenment of the world an "educational mode," because the time-honored artistic feeling of a people with a very ancient civilization would breathe new life into those moderns who seemed to be suffocating under the obsession of physical hygiene, and to be actuated solely by a despairing effort to combat disease.

We should witness the humanization of art, rising amidst the ugliness and darkness of those who have accustomed themselves to think only of death. Indeed, the "hygienic houses" of to-day, with their bare walls, and white washable furniture, look like hospitals; while the schools seem veritable tombs, with their desks ranged in rows like black catafalques—black, merely because they have to be of the same color as ink to hide the stains which are looked upon as a necessity, just as certain sins and certain crimes are still considered to be inevitable in the world; the alternative of avoiding them has never occurred to any one. Class-rooms have black desks, and bare, gray walls, more devoid of ornament than those of a mortuary chamber; this is to the end that the starved and famishing spirit of the child may "accept" the indigestible intellectual food which the teacher bestows upon it. In other words, every distracting element has to be removed from the environment, so that the teacher, by his oratorical art, and with the help of his laborious expedients, may succeed in fixing the rebellious attention of his pupils on himself. On the other hand, the spiritual school puts no limits to the beauty of its environment, save economical limits. No ornament can distract a child really absorbed in his task; on the contrary, beauty both promotes concentration of thought and offers refreshment to the tired spirit. Indeed, the churches, which are par excellence places of meditation and of repose for the life of the soul, have called upon the highest inspirations of genius to gather every beauty within their precincts.

Such words may seem strange; but if we wish to keep in touch with the principles of science, we may say that the place best adapted to the life of man is an artistic environment; and that, therefore, if we want the school to become "a laboratory for the observation of human life," we must gather within it things of beauty, just as the laboratory of the bacteriologist must be furnished with stoves and soils for the culture of bacilli.

Furniture for children, their tables and chairs, should be light, not only that they may be easily carried about by childish arms, but because their very fragility is of educational value. The same consideration leads us to give children china plates and glass drinking-vessels, for these objects become the denouncers of rough, disorderly, and undisciplined movements. Thus the child is led to correct himself, and he accordingly trains himself not to knock against, overturn, and break things; softening his movements more and more, he gradually becomes their perfectly free and self-possessed director. In the same way the child will accustom himself to do his utmost not to soil the gay and pretty things which enliven his surroundings. Thus he makes progress in his own perfection, or, in other words, it is thus he achieves the perfect coordination of his voluntary movements. It is the same process by which, having enjoyed silence and music, he will do all in his power to avoid discordant noises, which have become unpleasant to his educated ear.

On the other hand, when a child comes into collision a hundred times with an enormously heavy iron-bound desk, which a porter