Spontaneous Activity in Education Part 1

Spontaneous Activity in Education.

by Maria Montessori.

I

A SURVEY OF THE CHILD'S LIFE

=The general laws which govern the child's psychical health have their parallel in those of its physical health=.--Many persons who have asked me to continue my methods of education for very young children on lines that would make them suitable for those over seven years of age, have expressed a doubt whether this would be possible.

The difficulties they put forward are mainly of a moral order.

Should not the child now begin to respect the will of others rather than his own? Should he not some day brace himself to a real effort, compelling him to carry out a necessary, rather than a chosen, task?

Finally, should he not learn self-sacrifice, since man's life is not a life of ease and enjoyment?

Some, taking certain practical items of elementary education, which present themselves even at the age of six, and must be seriously envisaged at seven, urge their objection in this form: Now we are face to face with the ugly specter of arithmetical tables, the arid mental gymnastics exacted by grammar. What do you propose? Would you abolish all this, or do you admit that the child must inevitably bow to these necessities?

It is obvious that the whole of the argument revolves round the interpretation of that "liberty" which is the avowed basis of the system of education advocated by me.

Perhaps in a short time all these objections will provoke a smile, and I shall be asked to suppress them, together with my commentary on them, in future editions of this work. But at the present time they have a right to exist, and to be dealt with, although indeed it is not very easy to give a direct, clear and convincing answer to them, because this entails the raising of questions on which everybody has firmly rooted convictions.

A parallel may perhaps serve to save us a good deal of the work.

Indirectly, these questions have been answered already by the progress made in the treatment of infants under the guidance of hygiene. How were they treated formerly? Many, no doubt, can still remember certain practises that were regarded as indispensable by the ma.s.ses. An infant had to be strapped and swaddled, or its legs would grow crooked; the ligament under its tongue had to be slit, to ensure its speaking eventually; it was important that it should always wear a cap to keep its ears from protruding; the position of a rec.u.mbent baby was so arranged as not to cause permanent deformity of the tender skull; and good mothers stroked and pinched the little noses of their nurslings to make them grow long and sharp instead of round and snub, and put little gold earrings through the lobes of their ears very soon after birth "to improve their eyesight." Such practises may be already forgotten in some countries; but in others they obtain to this day.

Who does not remember the various devices for helping a baby to walk?

Even in the first months after birth, at a period of life when the nervous system is not completely developed, and it is impossible for the infant to coordinate its movements, mothers wasted several half-hours of the day "teaching baby to walk." Holding the little creature by the body, they watched the aimless movements of the tiny feet, and deluded themselves with the belief that the child was already making an effort to walk; and because it does actually by degrees begin to arch its feet and move its legs more boldly, the mother attributed its progress to her instruction. When finally the movement had been almost established--though not the equilibrium, and the resulting power to stand on the feet--mothers made use of certain straps with which they held up the baby's body, and thus made it walk on the ground with themselves; or, when they had no time to spare, they put the baby into a kind of bell-shaped basket, the broad base of which prevented it from turning over; they tied the infant into this, hanging its arms outside, its body being supported by the upper edge of the basket; thus the child, though it could not rise on its feet, _advanced_, moving its legs, and was said to be _walking_.

Other relics of a very recent past are a species of convex crowns which were put round the heads of babies when they were considered capable of rising to their feet, and were accordingly emanc.i.p.ated from the basket. The child, suddenly left to himself after being accustomed hitherto to supports comparable to the crutches of the cripple, fell perpetually, and the crown was a protection to the head, which would otherwise have been injured.

What were the revelations of Science, when it entered upon the scene for the salvation of the child? It certainly offered no perfected methods for straightening the noses and the ears, nor did it enlighten mothers as to methods of teaching babies to walk immediately after birth. No. It proclaimed first of all that Nature itself will determine the shape of heads, noses, and ears; that man will speak without having the membrane of the tongue cut; and further, that legs will grow straight and that the function of walking will come naturally, and requires no intervention.

Hence it follows that we should leave as much as possible to Nature; and the more the babe is left free to develop, the more rapidly and perfectly will he achieve his proper proportions and higher functions.

Thus swaddling bands are abolished, and the "utmost tranquillity in a restful position" is recommended. The infant, with its legs perfectly free, will be left lying full length, and not jogged up and down to "amuse" it, as many persons imagine they are doing by this device. It will not be forced to walk before it is time. When this time comes, it will raise itself and walk spontaneously.

In these days nearly all mothers are convinced of this, and vendors of swaddling-bands, straps, and baskets have practically disappeared.

As a result, babies have straighter legs and walk better and earlier than formerly.

This is an established fact, and a most comforting one; for what a constant anxiety it must have been to believe that the straightness of a child's legs, and the shape of its nose, ears, and head were the direct results of our care! What a responsibility, to which every one must have felt unequal! And what a relief to say: "Nature will think of that. I will leave my baby free, and watch him grow in beauty; I will be a quiescent spectator of the miracle."

Something a.n.a.logous has been happening with regard to the inner life of the child. We are beset by such anxieties as these: it is necessary to form character, to develop the intelligence, to aid the unfolding and ordering of the emotions. And we ask ourselves how we are to do this. Here and there we touch the soul of the child, or we constrain it by special restrictions, much as mothers used to press the noses of their babies or strap down their ears. And we conceal our anxiety beneath a certain mediocre success, for it is a fact that men do grow up possessing character, intelligence and feeling. But when all these things are lacking, we are vanquished. What are we to do then? Who will give character to a degenerate, intelligence to an idiot, human emotions to a moral maniac?

If it were really true that men acquired all such qualities by these fitful manipulations of their souls, it would suffice to apply a little more energy to the process when these souls are evidently feeble. But this is not sufficient.

Then we are no more the creators of spiritual than of physical forms.

It is Nature, "creation," which regulates all these things. If we are convinced of this, we must admit as a principle the necessity of "not introducing obstacles to natural development"; and instead of having to deal with many separate problems--such as, what are the best aids to the development of character, intelligence and feeling?--one single problem will present itself as the basis of all education: How are we to give the child freedom?

In according this freedom we must take account of principles a.n.a.logous to those laid down by science for the forms and functions of the body during its period of growth; it is a freedom in which the head, the nose, and the ears will attain the highest beauty, and the gait the utmost perfection possible to the congenital powers of the individual. Thus here again liberty, the sole means, will lead to the maximum development of character, intelligence and sentiment; and will give to us, the educators, peace, and the possibility of contemplating the miracle of growth.

This liberty will further deliver us from the painful weight of a fict.i.tious responsibility and a dangerous illusion.

Woe to us, when we believe ourselves responsible for matters that do not concern us, and delude ourselves with the idea that we are perfecting things that will perfect themselves quite independently of us! For then we are like lunatics; and the profound question arises: What, then, is our true mission, our true responsibility? If we are deceiving ourselves, what is indeed the truth? And what sins of omission and of commission must be laid to our charge? If, like Chanticleer, we believe that the sun rises in the morning because the c.o.c.k has crowed, what duties shall we find when we come to our senses?

Who has been left dest.i.tute, because we ourselves have forgotten "to eat our true bread"?

The history of the "physical redemption" of the infant has a sequel for us which is highly instructive.

Hygiene has not been confined to the task of anthropological demonstration, such as that which not only made generally known, but convinced every one, that the body develops spontaneously; because, in reality, the question of infant welfare was not concerned with the more or less perfect forms of the body. The real infantile question which called for the intervention of science was the alarming mortality among infants.

It certainly seems strange in these days to consider this fact: that, at the period when infantile diseases made the greatest ravages, people were not nearly so much concerned with infantile mortality as with the shape of the nose or the straightness of the legs, while the real question--literally a question of life and death--pa.s.sed un.o.bserved. There must be many persons who, like myself, have heard such dialogues as this: "I have had great experience in the care of children; I have had nine." "And how many of them are living?" "Two."

And nevertheless this mother was looked upon as an authority!

Statistics of mortality reveal figures so high that the phenomenon may justly be called the "Slaughter of the Innocents." The famous graph of Lexis, which is not confined to one country or another, but deals with the general averages of human mortality, reveals the fact that this terrible death-rate is of universal occurrence among all peoples. This must be attributed to two different factors. One is undoubtedly the characteristic feebleness of infancy; the other the absence of protection for this feebleness, an absence that had become general among all peoples. Good-will was not lacking, nor parental affection; the fault lay hidden in an unknown cause, in a lack of protection against a dire peril of which men were quite unconscious. It is now a matter of common knowledge that infectious diseases, especially those of intestinal origin, are those most destructive to infant life.

Intestinal disorders which impede nutrition, and produce toxins at an age when the delicate tissues are most sensitive to them, were responsible for nearly the entire death-roll. These were aggravated by the errors habitually committed by those in charge of infants. These errors were a lack of cleanliness which would astound us nowadays, and a complete absence of any sort of rule concerning infant diet. The soiled napkins which were wrapped round the baby under its swaddling bands would be dried in the sun again and again, and replaced on the infant without being washed. No care was taken to wash the mother's breast or the baby's mouth, in spite of fermentation so p.r.o.nounced as to cause local disorder. Suckling of infants was carried out quite irregularly; the cries of the child were the sole guide whereby its feeding times, whether by night or day, were determined; and the more it suffered from indigestion and the resulting pains, the more frequently was it fed, to the constant aggravation of its sufferings.

Who in those days might not have seen mothers carrying in their arms babies flushed with fever, perpetually thrusting the nipple into the little howling mouth in the hope of quieting it? And yet those mothers were full of self-sacrifice and of maternal anguis.h.!.+

Science laid down simple rules; it enjoined the utmost possible cleanliness, and formulated a principle so self-evident that it seems astounding people should not have recognized it for themselves: that the smallest infant, like ourselves, should have regular meals, and should only take fresh nourishment when it has digested what has been given before; and hence that it should be suckled only at intervals of so many hours, according to the months of its age and the modifications of physical function in its development. No infant should ever be given crusts of bread to suck, as is often done by mothers, especially among the lower orders, to still its crying, because particles of bread might be swallowed, which the child is yet incapable of digesting.

The mothers' anxiety then was: what are we to do when the baby cries?

They found to their astonishment after a time that their babies cried a great deal less, or indeed not at all; they even saw infants only a week old spending the two hours' intervals between successive meals calm and rosy, with wide-open eyes, so silent that they gave no sign of life, like Nature in her moments of solemn immobility. Why indeed should they cry continually? Those cries were the sign of a state of things which must be translated by these words: suffering and death.

And for these wailing little ones the world did nothing. They were strapped up in swaddling clothes, and very often handed over to a young child incapable of responsibility; they had neither a room nor a bed of their own.

It was Science which came to the rescue and created nurseries, cradles, rooms for babies, suitable clothes for them, alimentary substances specially prepared for them by great industries devoted to the hygienic sustenance of infants after weaning, and medical specialists for their ailments; in short, an entirely new world, clean, intelligent, and full of amenity. The baby has become the new man who has conquered his own right to live, and thus has caused a sphere to be created for him. And in direct proportion to the diffusion of the laws of infantile hygiene, infant mortality has decreased.

So then, when we say that in like manner the baby should be left at liberty spiritually, because creative Nature can also fas.h.i.+on its spirit better than we can, we do not mean that it should be neglected and abandoned.

Perhaps, looking around us, we shall perceive that though we cannot directly mold its individual forms of character, intelligence, and feeling, there is nevertheless a whole category of duties and solicitudes which we have neglected: and that on these _the life or death_ of the spirit depends.

The principle of _liberty_ is not therefore a principle of _abandonment_, but rather one which, by leading us from illusions to reality, will guide us to the most positive and efficacious "care of the child."

=The liberty accorded to the child of to-day is purely physical. Civil rights of the child in the twentieth century=.--Hygiene has brought liberty into the physical life of the infant. Such material facts as the abolition of swaddling bands, open-air life, the prolongation of sleep till the infant wakes of its own accord, etc., are the most evident and tangible proof of this. But these are merely means for the attainment of liberty. A far more important measure of liberation has been the removal of the perils of disease and death which beset the child at the outset of life's journey. Not only did infants survive in very much greater numbers as soon as the obstacles of certain fundamental errors were swept away, but it was at once apparent that there was an improvement in their development. Was it really hygiene which helped them to increase in weight, stature, and beauty, and improved their material development? Hygiene did not accomplish quite all this. Who, as the Gospel says, can by taking thought add one cubit to his stature? Hygiene merely delivered the child from the obstacles that impeded its growth. External restraints checked material development and all the natural evolution of life; hygiene burst these bonds. And every one felt that a liberation had been effected; every one repeated in view of the accomplished fact: children should be free. The direct correspondence between "conditions of physical life fulfilled" and "liberty acquired" is now universally and intuitively recognized. Thus the infant is treated like a young plant. Children to-day enjoy the rights which from time immemorial have been accorded to the vegetables of a well-kept garden. Good food, oxygen, suitable temperature, the careful elimination of parasites that produce disease; yes, henceforth we may say that the son of a prince will be tended with as much care as the finest rose-tree of a villa.

The old comparison of a child to a flower is the reality to which we now aspire; though even this is a privilege reserved for the more fortunate children. But let us beware of so grave an error. The babe is a man. That which suffices for a plant cannot be sufficient for him. Consider the depth of misery into which a paralyzed man has sunk when we say of him: "He merely vegetates; as a man, he is dead," and lament that there is nothing but his body left.

The infant as a _man_--such is the figure we ought to keep in view. We must behold him amidst our tumultuous human society and see how with heroic vigor he aspires to life.

What are the rights of children? Let us consider them for a moment as a social cla.s.s, as a cla.s.s of workers, for as a fact they are laboring to produce men. They are the future generation. They work, undergoing the fatigues of physical and spiritual growth. They continue the work carried on for a few months by their mothers, but their task is a more laborious, complex, and difficult one. When they are born they possess nothing but potentialities; they have to do everything in a world which, as even adults admit, is full of difficulties. What is done to help these frail pilgrims in an unknown world? They are born more fragile and helpless than an animal, and in a few years they have to become men, to be units in a highly complicated organized society, built up by the secular effort of innumerable generations. At a period in which civilization, that is, the possibility of right living, is based upon rights energetically acquired and consecrated by laws, what rights has he who comes among us without strength and without thought? Like the infant Moses lying in the ark of bulrushes on the waters of the Nile he represents the future of the chosen people; but will some princess pa.s.sing by perchance see him?

To chance, to luck, to affection, to all these we entrust the child; and it would seem that the Biblical chastis.e.m.e.nt of the Egyptian oppressor, the death of the first-born, is to be unceasingly renewed.

Let us see how social justice receives the infant when he enters the world. We are living in the twentieth century; in many of the so-called civilized nations orphan asylums and wet nurses are still recognized _inst.i.tutions_. What is an orphan asylum? It is a place of sequestration, a dark and terrible prison, where only too often the prisoner finds death, as in those medieval dungeons whence the victim disappeared, leaving no trace. He never sees any who are dear to him.

His family name is cancelled, his goods are confiscated. The greatest criminal may retain memories of his mother, knows that he has had a name, and may derive some consolation from his recollections, comparable to the soothing reflections of one who having become blind recalls the beauty of colors and the splendor of the sun; but the foundling is as one born blind. Every malefactor has more rights than he; and yet who could be more innocent? Even in the days of the most odious tyranny, the spectacle of oppressed innocence kindled a flame of justice that sooner or later blazed up into revolution. The persons imprisoned by tyrants because they had happened to be witnesses of their crimes, and who were cast into dungeons where darkness and inaudible suffering were henceforth their unhappy portion, at least roused the people to proclaim the principle of equal justice for all. But who will lift up his voice for our foundlings?

Society does not perceive that they too are men; they are indeed only the "flowers" of humanity. And to save honor and good name, what society would not with one accord sacrifice more "flowers"?

The wet nurse is a social custom. A luxurious custom, on the one hand.

Not very long ago, a girl of the middle-and not even the upper middle-cla.s.s, who was about to marry, boasted in the following terms of the domestic comfort promised her by her future husband: "I am to have a cook, a housemaid, and a wet nurse." On the other hand, the robust peasant girl who has given birth to a son, looking complacently at her heavy b.r.e.a.s.t.s, thinks: "I shall be able to get a good place as wet nurse." It is only quite recently that hygiene has cried shame upon those mothers whose laziness makes them refuse to suckle their own children; in our times queens and empresses who suckle their children are still cited admiringly as examples to other mothers. The _maternal duty_ of suckling her own children prescribed to mothers by hygienists is based on a physiological principle: the mother's milk nourishes an infant more perfectly than any other. In spite of this clear indication, the duty is far from being universally accepted.