The Montessori Method Part 6

We are all familiar with the ordinary advantages of the communistic transformation of the general environment. For example, the collective use of railway carriages, of street lights, of the telephone, all these are great advantages. The enormous production of useful articles, brought about by industrial progress, makes possible to all, clean clothes, carpets, curtains, table-delicacies, better tableware, etc. The making of such benefits generally tends to level social caste. All this we have seen in its reality. But the communising of _persons_ is new.

That the collectivity shall benefit from the services of the servant, the nurse, the teacher--this is a modern ideal.

We have in the "Children's Houses" a demonstration of this ideal which is unique in Italy or elsewhere. Its significance is most profound, for it corresponds to a need of the times. We can no longer say that the convenience of leaving their children takes away from the mother a natural social duty of first importance; namely, that of caring for and educating her tender offspring. No, for to-day the social and economic evolution calls the working-woman to take her place among wage-earners, and takes away from her by force those duties which would be most dear to her! The mother must, in any event, leave her child, and often with the pain of knowing him to be abandoned. The advantages furnished by such inst.i.tutions are not limited to the labouring cla.s.ses, but extend also to the general middle-cla.s.s, many of whom work with the brain.

Teachers, professors, often obliged to give private lessons after school hours, frequently leave their children to the care, of some rough and ignorant maid-of-all-work. Indeed, the first announcement of the "Children's House" was followed by a deluge of letters from persons of the better cla.s.s demanding that these helpful reforms be extended to their dwellings.

We are, then, communising a "maternal function," a feminine duty, within the house. We may see here in this practical act the solving of many of woman's problems which have seemed to many impossible of solution. What then will become of the home, one asks, if the woman goes away from it?

The home will be transformed and will a.s.sume the functions of the woman.

I believe that in the future of society other forms of communistic life will come.

Take, for example, the infirmary; woman is the natural nurse for the dear ones of her household. But who does not know how often in these days she is obliged to tear herself unwillingly from the bedside of her sick to go to her work? Compet.i.tion is great, and her absence from her post threatens the tenure of the position from which she draws the means of support. To be able to leave the sick one in a "house-infirmary," to which she may have access any free moments she may have, and where she is at liberty to watch during the night, would be an evident advantage to such a woman.

And how great would be the progress made in the matter of family hygiene, in all that relates to isolation and disinfection! Who does not know the difficulties of a poor family when one child is ill of some contagions disease, and should be isolated from the others? Often such a family may have no kindred or friends in the city to whom the other children may be sent.

Much more distant, but not impossible, is the communal kitchen, where the dinner ordered in the morning is sent at the proper time, by means of a dumb-waiter, to the family dining-room. Indeed, this has been successfully tried in America. Such a reform would be of the greatest advantage to those families of the middle-cla.s.s who must confide their health and the pleasures of the table to the hands of an ignorant servant who ruins the food. At present, the only alternative in such cases is to go outside the home to some cafe where a cheap table d'hote may be had.

Indeed, the transformation of the house must compensate for the loss in the family of the presence of the woman who has become a social wage-earner.

In this way the house will become a centre, drawing into itself all those good things which have hitherto been lacking: schools, public baths, hospitals, etc.

Thus the tendency will be to change the tenement houses, which have been places of vice and peril, into centres of education, of refinement, of comfort. This will be helped if, besides the schools for the children, there may grow up also _clubs_ and reading-rooms for the inhabitants, especially for the men, who will find there a way to pa.s.s the evening pleasantly and decently. The tenement-club, as possible and as useful in all social cla.s.ses as is the "Children's House," will do much toward closing the gambling-houses and saloons to the great moral advantage of the people. And I believe that the a.s.sociation of Good Building will before long establish such clubs in its reformed tenements here in the Quarter of San Lorenzo; clubs where the tenants may find newspapers and books, and where they may hear simple and helpful lectures.

We are, then, very far from the dreaded dissolution of the home and of the family, through the fact that woman has been forced by changed social and economic conditions to give her time and strength to remunerative work. The home itself a.s.sumes the gentle feminine attributes of the domestic housewife. The day may come when the tenant, having given to the proprietor of the house a certain sum, shall receive in exchange whatever is necessary to the _comfort_ of life; in other words, the administration shall become the _steward_ of the family.

The house, thus considered, tends to a.s.sume in its evolution a significance more exalted than even the English word "home" expresses.

It does not consist of walls alone, though these walls be the pure and shining guardians of that intimacy which is the sacred symbol of the family. The home shall become more than this. It lives! It has a soul.

It may be said to embrace its inmates with the tender, consoling arms of woman. It is the giver of moral life, of blessings; it cares for, it educates and feeds the little ones. Within it, the tired workman shall find rest and newness of life. He shall find there the intimate life of the family, and its happiness.

The new woman, like the b.u.t.terfly come forth from the chrysalis, shall be liberated from all those attributes which once made her desirable to man only as the source of the material blessings of existence. She shall be, like man, an individual, a free human being, a social worker; and, like man, she shall seek blessing and repose within the house, the house which has been reformed and communised.

She shall wish to be loved for herself and not as a giver of comfort and repose. She shall wish a love free from every form of servile labour.

The goal of human love is not the egotistical end of a.s.suring its own satisfaction--it is the sublime goal of multiplying the forces of the free spirit, making it almost Divine, and, within such beauty and light, perpetuating the species.

This ideal love is made incarnate by Frederick Nietzsche, in the woman of Zarathustra, who conscientiously wished her son to be better than she. "Why do you desire me?" she asks the man. "Perhaps because of the perils of a solitary life?

"In that case go far from me. I wish the man who has conquered himself, who has made his soul great. I wish the man who has conserved a clean and robust body. I wish the man who desires to unite with me, body and soul, to create a son! A son better, more perfect, stronger, than any created heretofore!"

To better the species consciously, cultivating his own health, his own virtue, this should be the goal of man's married life. It is a sublime concept of which, as yet, few think. And the socialised home of the future, living, provident, kindly; educator and comforter; is the true and worthy home of those human mates who wish to better the species, and to send the race forward triumphant into the eternity of life!

RULES AND REGULATIONS OF THE "CHILDREN'S HOUSES"

The Roman a.s.sociation of Good Building hereby establishes within its tenement house number, a "Children's House," in which may be gathered together all children under common school age, belonging to the families of the tenants.

The chief aim of the "Children's House" is to offer, free of charge, to the children of those parents who are obliged to absent themselves for their work, the personal care which the parents are not able to give.

In the "Children's House" attention is given to the education, the health, the physical and moral development of the children. This work is carried on in a way suited to the age of the children.

There shall be connected with the "Children's House" a Directress, a Physician, and a Caretaker.

The programme and hours of the "Children's House" shall be fixed by the Directress.

There may be admitted to the "Children's House" all the children in the tenement between the ages of three and seven.

The parents who wish to avail themselves of the advantages of the "Children's House" pay nothing. They must, however, a.s.sume these binding obligations:

(a) To send their children to the "Children's House" at the appointed time, clean in body and clothing, and provided with a suitable ap.r.o.n.

(b) To show the greatest respect and deference toward the Directress and toward all persons connected with the "Children's House," and to co-operate with the Directress herself in the education of the children. Once a week, at least, the mothers may talk with the Directress, giving her information concerning the home life of the child, and receiving helpful advice from her.

There shall be expelled from the "Children's House":

(a) Those children who present themselves unwashed, or in soiled clothing.

(b) Those who show themselves to be incorrigible.

(c) Those whose parents fail in respect to the persons connected with the "Children's House," or who destroy through bad conduct the educational work of the inst.i.tution.

CHAPTER IV

PEDAGOGICAL METHODS USED IN THE "CHILDREN'S HOUSES"

As soon as I knew that I had at my disposal a cla.s.s of little children, it was my wish to make of this school a field for scientific experimental pedagogy and child psychology. I started with a view in which Wundt concurs; namely, that child psychology does not exist.

Indeed, experimental researches in regard to childhood, as, for example, those of Preyer and Baldwin, have been made upon not more than two or three subjects, children of the investigators. Moreover, the instruments of psychometry must be greatly modified and simplified before they can be used with children, who do not lend themselves pa.s.sively as subjects for experimentation. Child psychology can be established only through the method of external observation. We must renounce all idea of making any record of internal states, which can be revealed only by the introspection of the subject himself. The instruments of psychometric research, as applied to pedagogy, have up to the present time been limited to the esthesiometric phase of the study.

My intention was to keep in touch with the researches of others, but to make myself independent of them, proceeding to my work without preconceptions of any kind. I retained as the only essential, the affirmation, or, rather, the definition of Wundt, that "all methods of experimental psychology may be reduced to one; namely, carefully recorded observation of the subject."

Treating of children, another factor must necessarily intervene: the study of the development. Here too, I retained the same general criterion, but without clinging to any dogma about the activity of the child according to age.

ANTHROPOLOGICAL CONSIDERATION

In regard to physical development, my first thought was given to the regulating of anthropometric observations, and to the selection of the most important observations to be made.

I designed an anthropometer provided with the metric scale, varying between .50 metre and 1.50 metres. A small stool, 30 centimetres high, could be placed upon the floor of the anthropometer for measurements taken in a sitting position. I now advise making the anthropometer with a platform on either side of the pole bearing the scale, so that on one side the total stature can be measured, and on the other the height of the body when seated. In the second case, the zero is indicated at 30 centimetres; that is, it corresponds to the seat of the stool, which is fixed. The indicators on the vertical post are independent one of the other and this makes it possible to measure two children at the same time. In this way the inconvenience and waste of time caused by having to move the seat about, is obviated, and also the trouble of having to calculate the difference in the metric scale.

Having thus facilitated the technique of the researches, I decided to take the measurements of the children's stature, seated and standing, every month, and in order to have these regulated as exactly as possible in their relation to development, and also to give greater regularity to the research work of the teacher, I made a rule that the measurements should be taken on the day on which the child completed each month of his age. For this purpose I designed a register arranged on the following plan:--

========================================================== SEPTEMBER OCTOBER ---------++--------------------+-------------------------- Day of Stature Stature Etc.

month +----------+---------+----------+--------------- Standing Sitting Standing Sitting ---------++----------+---------+----------+--------------- 1 +----------+---------+----------+--------------- 2 +----------+---------+----------+--------------- 3 +----------+---------+----------+--------------- 4 +----------+---------+----------+--------------- Etc. ---------++----------+---------+----------+---------------

The s.p.a.ces opposite each number are used to register the name of the child born on that day of the month. Thus the teacher knows which scholars she must measure on the days which are marked on the calendar, and she fills in his measurements to correspond with the month in which he was born. In this way a most exact registration can be arrived at without having the teacher feel that she is overburdened, or fatigued.

With regard to the weight of the child, I have arranged that it shall be taken every week on a pair of scales which I have placed in the dressing-room where the children are given their bath. According to the day on which the child is born, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, etc., we have him weighed when he is ready to take a bath. Thus the children's baths (no small matter when we consider a cla.s.s of fifty) are sub-divided into seven days, and from three to five children go to the bath every day. Certainly, theoretically, a daily bath would be desirable, but in order to manage this a large bath or a number of small ones would be necessary, so that a good many children could be bathed at once. Even a weekly bath entails many difficulties, and sometimes has to be given up. In any case, I have distributed the taking of the weight in the order stated with the intention of thus arranging for and making sure of periodical baths.[7]