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

It is certain that if a Tages had cleansed our whole race of its deformities, and if an analogous morality had rendered us indifferent to the illnesses, weaknesses, and sufferings of humanity, regenerative science would not have been able to arise. It is only by recognizing the effects that we can go back to the unhealthy causes, and save humanity from danger. The causes of death are as invisible and intangible as microbes; man may drink poison when he thinks he is drinking nectar. Woe to us if the diseased and degenerate did not exhibit themselves to us as an advance guard, to testify to the unconscious errors which threaten us with perdition. Science does not exactly limit itself to tending the sick, like the personnel of a hospital, but it penetrated by that goodly door, and made its way in a contrary direction towards a normal humanity, unconscious of its danger. The ultimate result of science is not the care of the sick but universal health. We owe the hygienic "comfort" which ensures our health, and diminishes general mortality to so great an extent, to the fact that sick people were collected together and tended.

The promise of regeneration given us by eugenics, which offers us the universal hope of a more flourishing and happier generation than that of the past has been made possible because we mercifully collect all the feeble-minded, the epileptics and the unhealthy. It was to this we had to look in order to find the roads which lead to health, and arrive at the gates of a better world.

When Christ showed the way of salvation to men He pointed to those who were rejected by society, in whom the obvious effects of evil could be seen, because the causes of evil are too subtle, and are not always directly visible: "You hear with your ears and do not understand; you behold with your eyes and do not see."

But, on the other hand, the extreme consequences are obvious, and it is enough that the "will" of man should agree to gather them in charitably and without repugnance in order to obtain salvation. St. Matthew says that at the Last Judgment those who are lost will be separated from those who are saved, and that the King will call the latter to his right hand, saying, "Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. For I was an-hungered, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty and ye gave me drink ... I was naked and ye clothed me.... I was in prison, and ye came unto me." "And when," replied the just, "saw we thee, O Lord, an-hungered or thirsty or naked? When saw we thee sick or in prison and came unto thee?" and the King shall answer and say unto them, "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me." Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, "Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire ... for I was an-hungered, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink ... sick and in prison and ye visited me not." Then shall they answer him, saying, "When saw we thee an-hungered, or a-thirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?" Then shall he answer them, saying, "Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me."

This is the fundamental difference between heathen and Christian morality; between intellectual Greek philosophy and practical modern science; between the æsthetic ideal and the ideal of "life."

Positive science, therefore, has made us realize a part of Christianity. We might almost say that the monastic orders practically represented, throughout the centuries and the different civilizations, the only form of life which is really life—that which science has revealed to-day.

They alone, at a period of disorderly excess, had a dietary which begins to be generally recognized as hygienic; they ate coarse bread, fresh fruit, milk fresh from the cow, many vegetables, little meat, at frugal but regular repasts. Withdrawing from the polluted air of crowded cities, they chose large, spacious houses in the open country or, at any rate, rather isolated—if possible, standing on a height. Their luxury was not heavy, padded furniture but large grounds where it was possible to live in the open air. Loose clothing, comfortable sandals, or bare feet, woolen gowns, physical exercise, agricultural work, traveling, made them almost the precursors of the modern life of sport. Every convent spread benefactions all around—received the poor, tended the sick, as if to show that this freer and more privileged life was but a phase, which must necessarily be accompanied by help to humanity. They represented the social and intellectual élite; it was the Benedictines who preserved manuscripts and treasured the arts; it was the followers of Saint Bernard who practised agriculture, and it was the sons of Saint Francis who preached peace.

Or it might be said that modern society, guided by positive study of the laws of life and of the means of saving it, has encountered the religious laws which reveal the paths of life; and realizes a form of civilization which recalls and, in some ways, reproduces the ancient oases of the spirit.

If, however, we were to risk a parallel between modern society and a convent, what kind of convent would the former be?

Here is a monastery where the brethren eat according to rule, wear hygienic clothing, are correct in their language, never indulge in noisy quarrels, have all their interests in life in common, and dispense their charities coldly, as if they were a custom or an obligation of their order; they meditate on eternal life, on salvation, and rewards and punishments in a future life, but without being touched by these thoughts. The real truth is that they have lost their faith, and that they do not love one another; ambition, anger, envy and even hatred, drive away internal peace; and corruption begins to filter in under these other sins; a sign of a deeper decadence now begins to show itself, for chastity has been lost. That which is, par excellence, the standard of Christianity, the sign of respect for life, the consecration of the purity which leads to eternal life, has been overthrown together with faith. The love of man is not compatible with the excesses of the beast. It is through purity that an ardent love to all mankind, and comprehension of others, and intuition of truth, arise like a perfume. It is that ardent fire called charity or love, which keeps life kindled, and gives value to all things. "Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned," says St Paul, "and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and have not charity, I am nothing. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I am became as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal" (1 Cor. xiii.).

In "degenerate" convents the greatest and most elevated acquirements, and the highest level of perfection reached, are lost; just as a person punished by degradation first loses the last and highest acquisitions, and only keeps the lower.

In social convents, on the other hand, the ultimate attainment has not yet been reached; that is the difference and the contrast. The social elevation towards Christianity is only on its first steps. Love is lacking, and thence chastity; and all this is absent owing to the arid void left by the absence of faith, and the oppression of spiritual life. Positive science has not yet touched the inner man, and the social environment does not therefore realize, in its "force of universal civilization," the loftier human acquisitions.

When we occupy ourselves with the "moral education" of our children, we ought to ask ourselves if we really love them and if we are sincere in our wishes for their "morality."

Let us be practical. Fathers and mothers, what can you hope for from your children? The European war is far less dangerous to their bodies than the spiritual risks which they run. We must imagine a much greater war, a universal one, to which all young men are called, and where the survivors are pointed out as absolutely exceptional. Therefore you are educating your sons for death. What, then, is the use of troubling so much about them? Is it not useless to take care of their soft hair, and their rosy nails, and the fresh and bewitching beauty of their vigorous little bodies, if they are to die before long?

Ah! all those who love children must fight in this deadly war, and struggle for peace:

The creed which Mme. de Héricourt sets forth in her book, "La Femme Affranchie," about the time of the French Revolution, is very eloquent.