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

But long before biologists perceived that love is the powerful force which protects the species, and explains its survival, religion had pointed to love as the force which preserves life. In order to live, it is not enough to be created; the creature must also be loved. This is the law of nature. "He who loveth not ... abideth in death." When Moses gave the decalogue which was to guide the Hebrews to salvation, he preceded it by the law: "Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and thy neighbor as thyself." When the Pharisees came to Christ, asking Him to declare the Law, He answered: "Do you not know? Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself"; as if to say: the law is evident and unique, it is the law of life, and for this reason must always have existed, from the very beginning of the world. But to St. Peter, who was to be the head of the new religion, love the transition from the old to the new order was more fully explained: "Love," said Christ, "even as I have loved you," that is to say, not as you are capable of loving, but as I am capable of loving. There is a deep gulf between the manner in which men are able to love themselves and that in which Christ can love men. Men often rush headlong to their own perdition; they are capable of confounding good with evil, life with death, food with poison. Little confidence can therefore be felt in the injunction: "Love thy neighbor as thyself." And it was in truth a new commandment that Jesus gave, when He said: "Love even as I have loved you."

Moses, indeed, had been obliged to supplement the law of love by a decalogue of practical injunctions: "Honor thy father and mother, Thou shalt do no murder, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet." Christ, on the other hand taught that it will be enough if we do not demand measure for measure in love, and that there will no longer be any need of the support of rules. We must let the measure overflow; and behold! this in itself opens to man the door of salvation. "If ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them. And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same. And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners to receive as much again. But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again, and ye shall be the children of the Highest" (St. Luke vi, 32-35).

Set yourselves free from all bonds and all measurements and lay hold of the one thing needful: to be alive, to feel; this was the revelation made by Christ when, like Moses, He went up into the mountain, but without hiding Himself from the people, calling the crowd indeed to follow Him, and openly expounding all the secrets of truth: Blessed are those who feel, even if they suffer, for to suffer is to feel, to live. Blessed are those who weep, blessed are those who hunger for righteousness, blessed are the persecuted, blessed are those whose hearts are pure and free from darkness. For he who feels shall be satisfied; but he who cannot feel is lost; woe to those who lie down in comfort, woe to those who are full, woe to those who laugh—they have lost their "sensibility." And then all is vanity. What is the use of knowing all the moral laws, and even practising them, if the heart be dead? It is as if we should whiten the tomb of a corpse. The moral, self-satisfied man, without a heart, is a tomb.

The education of the moral sense.—Thus the conception of moral education, like that of intellectual education, must include a basis of feeling, and be built up thereupon, if we are not to lead the child towards illusion, falsity and darkness. The education of the senses, and liberty to raise the intelligence according to its own laws on the one hand; the education of feeling, and spiritual liberty to raise oneself, on the other—these are two analogous conceptions and two parallel roads.

Consider our position in relation to children. We are their "stimuli," by which their feeling, which is developing so delicately, should be exercised.

For the intellect, we have the various objects, colors, forms, etc.; but for the spirit, the objects are ourselves. The pure souls of children must derive nourishment from us; they should fix themselves on us with their hearts, as their attention is fixed upon some favorite stimulus; and by loving us they should exalt themselves in their intimate spiritual creation.

When interest leads the child to take the box of colors, and keeps him absorbed in them, the objects lend themselves passively to his manipulation, but the colors reflect the luminous rays of the sun, which then strike the virgin retinæ of eyes not as yet completely matured and adapted. So, too, when the child's heart turns to us, and fixes itself, asking nourishment from our souls, we ought to be always ready, like passive objects, inasmuch as we should never, through our egotism, fail to respond to the child's needs; we should respond with all our intimate energies, to reflect upon him the luminous rays required by his pure soul, as yet unadapted to life.

We ought not to call him by name, and offer him our affection, inviting him to accept our help; but, like the material objects which attract him by their smoothness, their luster, and their varied and interesting forms, and by ocular demonstration of the means of lofty intellectual exercise, as in the colored alphabets and the rods which contain the first secrets of numeration—we, too, should wait; not coldly, but rather making the child feel that we contain a rich material which is at his disposal, ready to be taken as soon as he stretches out his hand to grasp it. Our "response" to the child should be as full, as prompt and as complete as that of the objects which he may manipulate, but which at every touch give an upward impetus to the intellectual life of the child.

How many persons must have noted that on some occasion when they have caressed children, the little ones have retreated, as if repelled and offended; and many must also have remarked that when the affectionate impulse of a child has been checked, he shrinks into himself, humiliated, like the mimosa when touched. Now the respect we owe to the spiritual liberty of the child should manifest itself as follows: we must never force our caresses on him, greatly as we may be attracted by his fascinating graces; nor must we ever repel his outbursts of affection, even when we are not disposed to receive them, but must respond with sincere and delicate devotion. We are the "objects" of his love, the objects by means of which he is organizing his life. The most perfect teachers and mothers will be those who will take the didactic material for their model, and imitate this by filling themselves in every sense with moral riches and being full of response in every detail; passive in abnegation, yet active as wellsprings of affection. And if all the sensorial objects combine all possible vibrations accessible to man—the vibrations of light and color, as also those of sound and heat, so too should they combine in themselves all the vibrations of internal sensibility, waiting for the thirsty soul to choose among them.

It may be asked: And how shall we make the child love us; how shall we make the child "feel"?

If a child could not see colors he would be blind; and no one could give him sight. And so if the child could not feel, no one could give him sensibility; but since Nature has united mother and child not only by the flesh, but even more closely by love, it is indubitable that at birth the child brings with him not only flesh but love. Now he who loves, even though it be only a single object, has in himself a sense which is capable of receiving impressions ad infinitum; he who sees an object possesses sight, therefore he who sees an object will see. He who loves a mother or a son, "loves"; that internal sense vibrates, and certainly not only to the object present to it at the moment.

Even that poor spider, artificially deposited in the bag of another mother, adopted and defended the alien eggs, because the spider is capable of maternal love.

Therefore the child whom his mother has loved and who was helped by that love, has that "internal sense" by means of which he is capable of love. The "human objects" which present themselves to that sense have reflections from it.

We should "wait to be seen" by him; the day will come when, among all the intellectual objects, the child will perceive our spirit, and will come to us to take his ease within us. It will be to him a new birth, akin to that other awakening, when some one of the objects first attracted him and held him. It is impossible that that day, that moment, should not arrive. We have performed a delicate work of love towards the child, presenting to him the means which satisfy his intellectual needs, without making ourselves felt, keeping ourselves in the background, but always present and ready to help. We have given great satisfaction to the child by succoring him; when he needed to clarify the order of his mind still further by language, we offered him the names of things, but only these, retiring at once without asking anything from him, without putting forward anything from ourselves. We have revealed to him the sounds of the alphabet, the secret of numbers, we have put him into relation with things but restricting ourselves to what was useful to him, almost concealing our body, our breathing, our person.

When he felt a desire to choose, he never found an obstacle in us; when he occupied himself for a long time with an exercise, we were careful to protect the tranquillity of his work, as a mother protects the refreshing sleep of her babe.

When he made his first plunge into abstraction, he felt nothing in us but the echo of his joy.

The child found us always indefatigable when he called upon us, almost as if our mission to him were to offer him what he requires, just as it is the mission of the flower to give perfume without limit or intermission.

He found with us a new life, no less sweet