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SH0.IFCTT0RF
FORM NO. DD10
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY
BERKELEY, CA 94720
1&ibzv$inz educational jttottoarap^
EDITED BY HENRY SUZZALLO
PRESIDENT OF THE UNIVERSITY. OF WASHINGTON
SEATTLE? W^tfHtNJCiTQJ* ! ; * *«
THE
MONTESSORI SYSTEM
EXAMINED
BY
WILLIAM HEARD KILPATRICK, Ph.D.
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF THE PHILOSOPHY OF EDUCATION
TEACHERS COLLEGE, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
BOSTON, NEW YORK AND CHICAGO
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COPYRIGHT, I9I4, BY WILLIAM HEARD KILPATRICK
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
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CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS
U . S . A
PREFACE
The aim of this monograph is probably suffi-
ciently indicated by the title. The purpose is
to examine generally the educational doctrines
promulgated by Dr. Maria Montessori, so as,
first, to bring out their relation to one another
and to other similar doctrines elsewhere held;
and, second, to ascertain, as far as the author
may, the contribution which Dr. Montessori has
to offer to American education.
My indebtedness, especially in proportion to
the volume of matter, is great. To my colleagues
on an investigating trip to Rome, Miss Annie E.
Moore and Professor M. B. Hillegas, I am in-
debted for very considerable assistance in the
ordering of ideas and in reaching definite conclu-
sions. My best thanks are due to the same two
colleagues and to Professors John Dewey and
Naomi Norsworthy for reading the manuscript
and for making valuable suggestions. It would be
unfair, however, to hold any one save the author
responsible for the opinions herein expressed.
W. H. K.
544ti
CONTENTS
Editor's Introduction . vii
I. Introduction i
II. Education as Development .... 7^
III. The Doctrine of Liberty .... 12
IV. Adequacy of Self-Expression in the
Montessori System 27
V. Auto-Education 31
VI. Exercises of Practical Life ... 36
VII. Sense-Training by Means of the Di-
dactic Apparatus 42
VIII. The School Arts: Reading, Writing,
and Arithmetic 53
IX. Conclusions 61
Outline 68
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
The labors of Madam Montessori have aroused
an unusual interest among Americans. Already
her theories and practices are a frequent subject
for investigation and discussion in meetings of
teachers and parents.
Among a considerable number of laymen and a
smaller number of teachers, the interest amounts
to enthusiasm. The doctrines of the Italian edu-
cator are so warmly espoused by some that
schools modeled on the plan of the Casa dei
Bambini have been established in various parts
of the country, where they rival and challenge
the existing kindergartens and primary schools.
To many of its adherents this movement consti-
tutes an educational revolution which in time
will completely change the education of children.
The interest of the teaching profession as a
whole is not marked by any such self-committal.
The teachers are concerned to know the meaning
of this agitation and are professionally curious
to ascertain its worth for them. They are critical,
if not skeptical; and they ask that the signifi-
cance of this new expression of educational the-
vii
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
ory be presented in terms of its practical bearing
upon the teaching procedure commonly em-
ployed with young children. They are tolerant
enough of new dogma and experiment; but they
possess a common-sense caution against a too-
ready acceptance of them. They prefer to exam-
ine a new program element by element, reserving
the privilege of selecting and rejecting as their
judgment decides. They would weigh every item
of t the idealistic projects of radicals and even
of the practical successes of experiments born
among the differing conditions of foreign soil.
Willing enough to admit that any new move-
ment may contain factors that will aid in educa-
tional evolution, they are not of the type com-
pletely to let go of one institution in order to
seize another. They prefer the safer position of
being reconstructors of the old.
While admitting the value of both types of
thinkers and workers in the whole method of
educational advance, it is to the relatively large
group of public-school teachers and superintend-
ents that this volume is addressed.
The smaller class of heroic enthusiasts that
become the more or less partisan leaders and fol-
lowers of a new propaganda are not likely to be
interested in a critical analysis of the particular
viii
EDITOR'S INTRODUCTION
theories and practices that constitute their faith.
With them the new institutional spirit is the
thing! Details may be left to the rectification
of time!
Not so with the leaders and teachers of the
rank and file! To them the detail is the thing!
Upon the soundness of special theories and the
effectiveness of particular practices, the strength
of an institutional scheme depends. They want
to know how far the theory of Madam Montessori
departs from the best philosophy of education
that the American profession knows. And when
it does, they ask if experience, of both scientific
and empirical sort, gives warrant to the varying
belief. More than this, they would ascertain if
claims made for practical success are proved;
and, again, if such achievements may be repro-
duced under the conditions of American life.
These pertinent inquiries of American teachers
require a judicial answer. It is offered in the
brief accompanying volume, along with such
historical and logical perspective as is necessary
to clear understanding.
THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM
EXAMINED
I
INTRODUCTION
The genesis of Madam Montessori's educational
ideas is laid before the reader in simple but
attractive manner in her principal work, The
Montessori Method, as the English translation is
called. But slight reference to the now well-
known story is needed. Madam Montessori, as
assistant physician at the Psychiatric Clinic of
the University of Rome, became some fifteen
years ago interested in defectives. She thus
learned of the work done by Edward Seguin for
the education of idiots. From this and from per-
sonal experimentation in the education of feeble-
minded^ there came the suggestion of using
Seguin's method with the normal child. In this is
found one important factor in the making of the
Montessori method. While this study of defec-
tives was going on, there had been organized in
Milan a School of Scientific Pedagogy. The
I
THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM
anthropologist Sergi appears to have been the
leading spirit in the enterprise. The emphasis in
this school was upon anthropometry and measure-
ments in experimental psychology, particularly
of the sensations. Whether from a more wide-
spread interest or from the influence of this par-
ticular school does not certainly appear, but the
field of scientific measurement constitutes an-
other factor in the formation of the Montessori
method. A third element was the general back-
ground of prevalent educational theory which
one absorbs more or less unconsciously as one
does his uncriticized religion or politics. This we
may surmise was largely Pestalozzian in its ulti-
mate origin. A fourth factor was the invitation
extended to Madam Montessori by a building
corporation in Rome to organize the infant
schools in its model tenements. The effort to
meet this demand created in large measure the
Children's House, especially in its institutional
aspect. In these four elements we seem to have
the origin of the Montessori schools.
It is not necessary to the purpose at hand to
show just how far Madam Montessori is in-
debted to Seguin for her didactic apparatus. No
acknowledgment could be more open or generous
than is hers; and every one acquainted with
2
INTRODUCTION
Seguin's work will be struck with the similarity.
There is, however, one important difference:
Seguin was interested mainly in leading the
defective to make those acquisitions of knowl-
edge and skill which would with relative direct-
ness prove useful in the ordinary affairs of his
life; Madam Montessori, on the other hand, is
more interested — as we shall later discover —
in the disciplinary aspect of the exercises.
The study of science has had far-reaching effect
upon Madam Montessori and upon her educa-
tional theory. In the general wish to apply
scientific conceptions to education, few surpass
her. Those who feel the urgent need for a more
scientific study of education and for the bringing
of the scientific spirit into our attitude toward
educational practice, can but applaud the insist-
ence with which Madam Montessori returns
again and again to this point of view. In addition
to the general demand for a scientific attitude on
the part of teachers, we find specific elements of
her procedure based on her scientific experience.
For example, the teacher must keep records, both
anthropometric and psychologic, of each child.
The books in which these are kept are often
shown to the visitor. The remark may be inter-
jected that the data so recorded, unfortunately,
3
THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM
hardly function otherwise than in keeping alive
in the teacher a general spirit of child observa-
tion. Another application of the scientific atti-
tude is found in the insistence upon the liberty
of the child as a prerequisite of the scientific study
of educational data. "If a new and scientific
pedagogy," says Madam Montessori, "is to
arise from the study of the individual, such study
must occupy itself with the observation of free
children." Further, the adaptation of Seguin's
material to a disciplinary end would seem to have
had its origin in the wish on the part of Madam
Montessori to utilize her scientific study of sense-
experience. It must be said, however, that while
Madam Montessori's interest in the scientific
attitude is entirely praiseworthy, her actual
science cannot be so highly commended. Her
biology is not always above reproach, as, for
example, the alleged disinfecting influence of
garlic upon the intestines and lungs. She general-
izes unscientifically as to the condition of con-
temporary educational thought and practice
from observation limited, it would seem, to the
Italian schools. If she had known more of what
was being thought and done elsewhere, her dis-
cussions would have been saved some blemishes
and her system some serious omissions. Her
4
INTRODUCTION
psychology in particular would have been im-
proved, had she known better what Wundt was
doing in Germany, to mention no other names.
While these shortcomings are mentioned, we
should not fail to call attention to an evidence of
scientific attitude and faith too seldom found in
the teaching world — be it said to our shame.
Few in the history of education have been capable
of breaking so completely with the surrounding
school tradition as has this Italian physician. To
set aside tradition for science is no common
achievement. That the innovator is a woman
will seem to some all the more remarkable. With
the true scientific spirit of experimentation
Madam Montessori has devised a practice and
an institution. Such a consciously scientific crea-
tion stands in marked contrast with the conserva-
tism and mystical obscurantism which but too
widely characterize kindergarten education in
America and elsewhere. Whatever opinion be
held as to the success of the effort, no one can
fail to approve Madam Montessori's thorough-
going attempt to found a complete school
procedure upon her highest scientific concep-
tions.
In the discussion which follows it will be as-
sumed that the reader is acquainted with Madam
5.
THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM
Montessori's chief work, The Montessori Method, 1
and also with the didactic apparatus itself. The
effort will be to examine the Montessori system
and to appraise its worth to American education.
Especial attention will be given to the merits of
the Casa dei Bambini as a rival to the kinder-
garten. Owing to limitations of space, only the
most characteristic elements of the system will
be considered.
1 Frederick Stokes Company, New York, 191 2.
II
EDUCATION AS DEVELOPMENT
That education should be considered as a devel-
opment from within is a principal doctrine with
Madam Montessori. The idea, of course, is an
old one. Rousseau, Pestalozzi, and Froebel are
among its most conspicuous exponents. The
value of this point of view in the formation of our
present educational practice is undoubted. The
limitations of the doctrine, however, have not al-
ways been clearly seen. Education as development
has been likened to the care given to some rare
and unknown plant. The gardener seeks to dis-
cover and supply the conditions under which the
plant can show its character or nature most com-
pletely. But the analogy is clearly deficient, else
anger and other ugly or erratic impulses should
be expressed as completely and directly as those
we prize more highly. The ill odor attaching to
the word " whim" illustrates the point and shows
the way. Life, indeed, consists in the expression
of what we are, but under such conditions that
the net result shall, in the long run, bring the
7
THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM
fullest expression to all concerned. The condi-
tions under which this proper expression may
take place — so far as these have originated with
man — make up the content of the cultural
environment. Man has learned certain ways of
doing things that he might the better express
himself. This is as true of clothing, shelter,
methods of procuring and preparing food, of art
and literature, as it is of ethical concepts and
legal procedure. The " funded capital of civiliza-
tion' ' consists exactly of all the devices thus far
contrived for the fullest expression of what we
are, for our fullest possible development.
Education is thus, in truth, the completest
possible development of the individual; but the
task of securing such a development is as great
as is the complex of civilization. Expression
involves as truly the mastering of this complex
as it does the living-out of the impulsive life.
More exactly, the two elements of mastering the
environment and expressing one's self are but
outer and inner aspects of one and the same proc-
ess; each either meaningless or impossible apart
from the other. Only in this larger sense can it
be said that education is the development of the
individual.
Some, on the contrary, have taken the position,
8
EDUCATION AS DEVELOPMENT
previously suggested, that in the child's nature
as given at birth there is contained — in some
unique sense — all that the child is to become,
and this in such fashion that we should tend the
child as the gardener does the plant, assured that
the natural endowment would properly guide
its own process of unfolding. Such is Madam
Montessori's view. "The child is a body which
grows and a soul which develops; ... we must
neither mar nor stifle the mysterious powers which
lie within these two forms of growth, but must
await from them the manifestations which we
know will succeed one another." "The educa-
tional conception of this age must be solely that
of aiding the psycho-physical development of the
individual." "If any educational act is to be
efficacious, it will be only that which tends to help
toward the complete unfolding" of the child's
individuality.
Such a doctrine of education has borne good
fruit; but there is danger in it. It has led in the
past to unwise emphasis and to wrong practice.
We have already seen that it carries with it a
depreciation of the value rightly belonging to the
solutions that man has devised for his ever-
recurring problems. In fact, such a theory leads
easily, if not inevitably, to Rousseau's opposition
9
THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM
to man's whole institutional life. It further fail?
to provide adequately for the most useful of mod
ern conceptions, that of intelligent, self-directing
adaptation to a novel environment. If develop-
ment be but the unfolding of what was from the
first enfolded, then the adaptation is made in
advance of the situation, and consequently with-
out reference to its novel aspects. Such a form
of predetermined adaptation proves successful
in the case of certain insects, as the wasp; for
there the environment is relatively fixed. With
man, however, each generation finds — and
makes — a new situation. If education is to pre-
pare for such a changing environment, its funda-
mental concept must take essential cognizance
of that fact. Still further, this erroneous notion
of education gives to the doctrine of child liberty
a wrong and misleading foundation. If the child
already uniquely contains that which he is prop-
erly destined to manifest, then the duty of the
educator is to allow the fullest expression of
what is implicitly given. But such a doctrine of
liberty is notoriously disastrous. The result has,
therefore, been that many have opposed every
scheme of liberty in the schoolroom. By putting
the demand for liberty on a false basis, its friends
have too often proved its worst foes. It would not
10
\
EDUCATION AS DEVELOPMENT
be fair to Madam Montessori to say that she
herself draws all of these objectionable conclu-
sions from her doctrine of the nature of education.
She does not. She has not thought consecutively
enough. But the conclusions are there to be
drawn. They have been drawn from logically
similar doctrines at other times. (We must,
therefore, reject Madam Montessori's interpre-
tation of the doctrine of development as inade-
quate and misleading. The useful elements of this
doctrine are covered up in error whenever devel-
opment is identified with the mere unfolding of
latency.
Ill
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY
The question here raised is that of the degree to
which the child shall by his own choice determine
his own activities at school. It was Rousseau
who first brought this problem prominently for-
ward. His advocacy of the educational utiliza-
tion of liberty has profoundly influenced all sub-
sequent thought. Froebel emphasized the same
doctrine, but placed it rather on the false basis
discussed in the preceding chapter. In contem-
porary education, Professor Dewey is the most
prominent exponent of the general point of view.
In the preceding chapter we saw that some
writers, including Madam Montessori, are in-
clined to limit the concept of development to the
mere unfolding of what has from the first been
implicitly present. Such writers are further in-
clined to consider the doctrine of liberty as
simply a corollary to this conception of develop-
ment. That is to say, if the child's whole future
life is in fact already uniquely present in his
nature at birth, then manifestly, that nature
12
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY
must be allowed to unfold. This is the point of
departure for Madam Montessori's doctrine of
liberty. "We cannot know," she says, "the
consequences of suffocating a spontaneous action
at the time when the child is just beginning to be
active: perhaps we suffocate life itself. Humanity
shows itself in all its intellectual splendor during
this tender age . . . and we must respect reli-
giously, reverently, these first indications of
individuality. If any educational act is to be
efficacious, it will be only that which tends to
help toward the complete unfolding of this life.
To be thus helpful it is necessary rigorously to
avoid the arrest of spontaneous movements."
But nearer, apparently, to Madam Montes-
sori's heart is the liberty to be accorded the child
as an object of scientific study. " The school
must permit the free, natural manifestations of
the child if in the school scientific pedagogy is
to be born." The aim is to accord to the child
" complete liberty." " This we must do if we are
to draw from the observation of his spontaneous
manifestations conclusions which shall lead to
the establishment of a truly scientific child-
study." A further reason for the use of liberty is
found in Madam Montessori's belief that "disci-
pline must come through liberty." By discipline
13
THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM
she means self-control. "We call an individual
disciplined when he is master of himself.' ' To
this fruitful suggestion we shall later return.
From these various considerations a system
has been devised which accords a remarkable
degree of freedom to the individual children of
the Montessori schools. J A contrast between the
Montessori school and the kindergarten of the
more formal and traditional type may serve to
give a clearer picture of the Montessori proced-
ure, and consequently of the Montessori concep-
tion of liberty as it appears in practice. The
most evident difference is seen in the function
of the teacher. The kindergartner is clearly the
center and arbiter of the activity in the room.
The Montessori directress seems, on the contrary,
to be at one side. The kindergartner contem-
plates at each moment the whole of her group;
the directress is talking usually to one alone —
possibly to two or three. The kindergarten chil-
dren are engaged in some sort of directed group
activity; each Montessori child is an isolated
worker, though one or more comrades may look
on and suggest. The arrangement of the room
shows the same contrast. The kindergarten has
a circle about which all may gather, and tables
for group activity. The Montessori room is
14
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY
fitted, preferably, with individual tables, ar-
ranged as the children will. (In the writer's
observation, there has been little deviation, how-
ever, from arrangement in formal rows.) Mon-
tessori provides long periods, say of two or more
hours, while the kindergarten period rarely goes
beyond a half-hour. During the period assigned
for that purpose practically all of the Montessori
apparatus is available for any child (except for
the very youngest or the newest comers), and the
child makes his choice freely. The kindergartner,
on the other hand, decides very nicely what
specific apparatus shall be used during any one
period. The Montessori child abides by his
choice as long as he wishes, and changes as often
as he likes; he may even do nothing if he prefers.
The child in the traditional kindergarten uses the
same apparatus throughout the period, and is
frequently led or directed by the teacher as to
what he shall do. At other times he may be at
liberty to build or represent at will whatever may
be suggested by the "gift" set for the period.
The Montessori child, each at his own chosen
task, works, as stated, in relative isolation, his
nearest neighbors possibly looking on. The
directress, perchance, will not interpose in the
slightest throughout a whole period. In the kin-
15
THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM
dergarten all the children at the table, for exam-
ple, are directed — in the large, at least — by the
teacher, and all keep more or less together in
what they are doing. .The Montessori child learns
self-reliance by free choice in relative isolation
from the directress.'} He learns in an individual-
istic fashion to respect the rights of his neighbors.
The kindergarten child learns conformity to
social standards mainly through social pressure
focused and brought to bear in a kindly spirit by
the kindergartner. His self-reliance tends to be
the ease of mind resulting from conscious mas-
tery of customs, adult-made and adult-directed.
Consciousness of superiority, too, has at times its
part in his self-reliance. It is thus clearly evident
that in the Montessori school the individual child
has unusually free rein.
With so much liberty in the Montessori school
it would be easy to suppose that anarchy must
ensue. Such has not proved the case. In the
first place, the directress is not to allow " useless
or dangerous acts, for these must be suppressed,
destroyed ." " The liberty of the child should have
as its limit the collective interest." "Absolute
rigor" is in extreme cases permitted. While
these statements might be so interpreted as to
imply coercion and suppression, there is in prac-
16
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY
tice little need of positive restraint, much less
than one would have supposed. On a certain
visit the writer saw one boy in a sudden temper
pull another's hair, but the encounter subsided