as quickly as it arose, and no notice was taken of
the episode by any one. On the whole, the chil-
dren worked as busily as ants about a hill. At
times the noise would prove a little trying to one
brought up in the belief that children should be
seen and not heard. Probably, however, any
protest against the noise would be rather conven-
tional than just. To the writer the suggestion of
great individual liberty proves very attractive.
What is the desirable and feasible thing to do
in this matter of liberty in school activities? It
will perhaps suffice for our purpose to consider
briefly four questions suggested by experience
with the kindergarten: (i) Why allow the child
to exercise his choice? (2) With free choice
granted, how is cooperation in group activity to
be secured? (3) How is the child to secure the
requisite knowledge and skill? (4) How shall we
secure conduct that conforms to social stand-
ards? In strictness these questions seem hope-
lessly to overlap; it is hoped, however, that this
difficulty may be avoided in the discussion.
Why allow the child to exercise free choice? It
17
THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM
might be replied that the presumption of liberty
lies with the individual; that any infringement
must be justified. The writer would be willing
to accept this reasoning, even in the case of the
child. We need not, however, base our argument
on this point of view. Other, and to some more
convincing, considerations may be urged. In a
democracy, self-direction must be the goal of
education. How shall the child become self-
directing? Can one learn to swim out of water?
To become self-directing one must enter life
itself, where decision and choice and responsibil-
ity hold sway. This seems undoubted in the
realm of conduct as an exercise of "will"; it is
equally true of the more intellectualistic aspect
of thinking. Under Professor Dewey's influence
it has become a commonplace that no thinking
worthy the name goes on apart from a felt
problem, a thwarted impulse. The problems set
by the teacher are too often not so felt by the
children. A reported or artificial problem has
little gripping effect. The real problem arises
when the current of real life is for the time
dammed. Under such conditions, the child puts
heart and soul into the situation in a genuine
effort to straighten things out. It is then, if ever,
that there is training of "mind" or "will." But
18
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY
evidently the current of real life — in the sense
here used — can flow only when the child has
freedom to choose, to express himself. And life
does not flow in twenty-minute periods. Let the
child get genuinely interested, and the short
period proves all too short. 1 If school life is to
repeat and make possible actual life, the tyranny
and artificiality of the short period and of over-
much direction by the teacher must go. Real
thinking and real conduct demand freer rein.
Postponing for the time the discussion of Madam
Montessori's curriculum, it appears that she and
our more liberal American kindergartens are
here well in advance of Froebel and the tradi-
tional kindergarten. The absence of a detailed
program and of excessive direction from above
afford — in this respect, at least — a fuller oppor-
tunity for genuine self-expression.
The discussion so far given prepares for our
second question: How shall we secure coopera-
tion if the children be allowed freedom of choice?
We now feel like turning the question about:
How can cooperation be secured except by the
spontaneous impulse of the children themselves?
1 The objection here urged against the short period is based,
of course, on an assumed regime of relative freedom. If tasks,
however, are to be set, as is common in our schools, the short
period may be a psychologic necessity.
19
THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM
If cooperation be forced from without, is it not
largely a sham and a counterfeit? The desirable
group work is that joint activity which springs
from the felt necessity of joint action. We are
here but repeating the discussion of the preced-
ing paragraph. What we wish, then, is to put the
children into such socially conditioned environ-
ment that they will of themselves spontaneously
unite into larger or smaller groups to work out
their life-impulses as these exist on the childish
plane. From these considerations we criticize
both Montessori and Froebel, the one that she
does not provide situations for more adequate
social cooperation, the other that the coopera-
tion comes too largely from outside suggestion
and from adult considerations.
If our discussion of freedom has so far led us
to emphasize the advantage of free choice, the
two remaining of the four questions imply limita-
tions in the exercise of such freedom. It has
always been known that following one's own
sweet will does not of necessity bring either the
most of knowledge or the best of conduct. It
is, indeed, the insistent obtrusion of this easily
observed fact that has led parents and teachers
in all times to set such severe limitations upon
the free expression of the child's spontaneous
20
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY
impulses. If we were here concerned with the
education of children of all ages, our task would
be more difficult. As, however, we are more
interested in the kindergarten age, the problem
may not prove insoluble.
Before asking how the child shall secure the
requisite knowledge and skill, let us ask how
much of these he should possess at the end of the
sixth year? Is this so great in amount, or so
difficult of acquisition, that only formal teaching,
enforced by external compulsion, will suffice to
give it? A child entering the primary school
should — by common consent, at least — not be
required to present very specific entrance prepa-
ration. It is still true that he should have organ-
ized and hold available a general range of experi-
ence. We need not ask precise agreement, but
in general he should have a certain use of the
mother tongue. He should know the names and
uses of many common things of ordinary life about
him. He should know certain of the commonest
physical properties of things. In certain ordinary
manual activities it were well for him to have
reasonable skill, using scissors, paste, a pencil or
crayon, and colors. If he is able to stand in line,
march in step, and skip, so much the better. He
should know some enjoyable games and songs,,
21
THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM
and some of the popular stories, suited to his age.
He should be able, within reason, to wait on
himself in the matter of bathing, dressing, etc.
Propriety of conduct of an elementary sort is
expected.
Does any one question that knowledge and
skill such as this can be gained incidentally in
play by any healthy child? Indeed, so satisfied
have many parents been of this point that they
believe a kindergarten course unnecessary, feel-
ing that home life suffices. Without accepting
such a position, we may ask whether a group of
normal children playing freely with a few well-
chosen toys under the watchful eye of a wise and
sympathetic young woman would not only ac-
quire all this knowledge and skill and more,
but at the same time be enjoying themselves
hugely? Surely, to ask the question is to answer
it. In this instance the doctrine of freedom is
practically the doctrine of interest. As difficult
as the problem of interest for the upper grades
seems to be, here in the kindergarten age there is
little difficulty apart from our lack of faith to try,
or of skill to execute. We can leave a great deal
more to the natural working-out of the child's
spontaneous interest than many of us have dared
to believe. And curiously enough, the kinder-
22
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY
gartner, in spite of FroebePs faith in childhood,
is too often the opponent of real freedom. It is
here as much as anywhere else that Madam
Montessori, exemplifying Professor Dewey's
teaching, will affect the practice of education in
America.
There yet remains the fourth question, the re-
lation of free choice to right conduct. That the
demands of propriety limit the natural freedom
of conduct need not be questioned. The real
question is, How can we so condition the child
that he shall best be brought to observe the
obligations that devolve upon him? In particu-
lar, what is the relation of this proposed manage-
ment to the child's spontaneity? The preceding
considerations have disposed us to favor a rela-
tively free expression of the childish nature. Is it
different here? Shall we agree with the Director,
Signor Stratico of Rome, in opposing the Mon-
tessori system " because it makes little anarch-
ists"? Perhaps democratic America had already,
before the advent of Madam Montessori, arrived
at a more approving attitude.
We may as well admit at the outset that cer-
tain of the child's natural impulses, probably
acquired by the race under widely differing con-
ditions of survival, cannot now be expressed in
23
fac
idtp
THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM
the manner and at the time in which they nor-
mally present themselves. Such manifestations
we must either starve off, for the time suppress,
or greatly redirect. Certain other impulses will
need less of redirection; still others, only oppor-
tunity for expression. Probably in the effort to
suppress or redirect impulses a certain amount
of positive pain association (" punishment") will
prove necessary, particularly during the pre-
kindergarten age; but, on the whole, the most
effective plan of managing the recalcitrant im-
pulses will be to encourage and feed those others
which are naturally leading in the proper direc-
tions. Thus again we find approval for positive
self-expression. It is this principle that Madam
Montessori has in mind when she speaks of
" active discipline." Our fathers expressed the
same in more theological guise when, speaking
through Dr. Watts, they said, —
"Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do."
There is yet another and perhaps more impor-
tant respect in which the principle of free expres-
sion leads to proper habits of conduct. Ethics,
propriety of conduct in general, is perhaps best
conceived as the proper way of " getting along "
with others, of adjusting one's self satisfactorily
24
THE DOCTRINE OF LIBERTY
— to all concerned — to a social situation. If this
be so, we could say almost a priori that only by
mingling with people under normal conditions
can one learn to "get on " with them. The stimuli
of social approval and disapproval are, after all,
about the strongest spurs for directing conduct
aright that we know. Child and adult, alike,
yield to the demand of their fellows. What we
wish, then, is to put children of the kindergarten
age under such conditions of companionship that
they will learn gradually the fine art of living with
their fellows. To this end adult supervision, true
enough, will be necessary. It is just here that
the kindergarten finds its chief raison d'etre. The
teacher must at times intervene to draw dis-
tinctions and direct wisely the course of ap-
proval. The real agency, however, is the child's
own comrades.
It is difficult, then, to escape the conclusion,
from whatever standpoint we view the situation,
that the relatively free expression of the child's
natural impulses — safeguarded, as discussed —
is the efficient plan for his proper rearing. Such
freedom is necessary if the child is to enter with
full zest into actual cooperation, and into the
acquisition of those habits of knowledge and
skill which are properly to be expected. The same
25
THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM
freedom is necessary if he is to grow into ade-
quate self-reliance, and, at the same time, into the
adequate control of self in the appreciation of the
rights of others. From such considerations we
highly approve Madam Montessori's reemphasis
of the doctrine of liberty. In the practical out-
working of her idea she has set an example to
home, to kindergarten, and to primary school.
There must be less of doing for the child where he
can do for himself; less of the short-period pro-
gram, where interest is too highly excited only
to be too soon dissipated; less of minute direc-
tion by mother, kindergartner, or teacher; — in
short, more of opportunity for the child to lead a
simple, healthy, normal life.
IV
ADEQUACY OF SELF-EXPRESSION IN THE
MONTESSORI SYSTEM
Freedom apart from self-expression is a contra-
diction of terms. The discussion of Madam
Montessori's doctrine of freedom given in the
preceding chapter is, therefore, incomplete with-
out a consideration of the adequacy of self-
expression allowed by her system. The didactic
apparatus which forms the principal means of
activity in the Montessori school affords singu-
larly little variety. Without discussing here the
grounds for this restriction, it suffices to say that
this apparatus by its very theory presents a
limited series of exactly distinct and very precise
activities, formal in character and very remote
from social interests and connections. So narrow
and limited a range of activity cannot go far in
satisfying the normal child. It is, of course, true
that a child finds pleasurable content in an activ-
ity which to the adult would seem hopelessly
formal, even to the point of drudgery. The small
child who took off the box- top and put it back on
27
THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM
for seventy-nine times in succession furnishes a
good illustration. In the same way, we must not
hastily conclude that no child could enjoy the rel-
atively formal exercises of the didactic apparatus.
Mechanical manipulation has strong attractions
for childhood. But after all is said, the Mon-
tessori school apparatus affords but meager diet
for normally active children. Further, while
happy childhood knows no stronger or more
fruitful impulse than imaginative and construc-
tive play, still, in these schools playing with the
didactic apparatus is strictly forbidden, and usu-
ally no other play-material is furnished. Madam
Montessori has, in fact, been publicly quoted as
saying, "If I were persuaded that children needed
to play, I would provide the proper apparatus;
but I am not so persuaded." The best current
thought and practice in America would make
constructive and imitative play, socially condi-
tioned, the foundation and principal constituent
of the program for children of the kindergarten
age, but Madam Montessori rejects it. Closely
allied with play is the use of games. One finds
more attention paid to this, but the games seen
in the Montessori schools of Rome are far inferior
in every respect to those found in the better
American kindergartens. Madam Montessori
28
ADEQUACY OF SELF-EXPRESSION
herself seems, from her use of the very word
"game," to have a most narrow and restricted
conception of what games are, and of what they
can do. Those more advanced forms of self-
expression, drawing and modeling, are, on the
whole, inferior to what we have in this country.
Modeling is, in fact, hardly at all in evidence.
Drawing and painting are occasionally good, but
frequently amount to nothing but the coloring
of conventionalized drawings furnished by the
teacher. Stories have little or no place — a most
serious oversight. There is very little of dramati-
zationAOn the whole, the imagination, whether
of constructive play or of the more aesthetic sort,
is but little utilized. It is thus a long list of most
serious omissions that we have to note.
A partial offset to these deficiencies is found in
the "practical life" activities. These undoubt-
edly offer expression to a side of child nature too
often left unsatisfied. To do something that
counts in real life, not simply in the play world,
is frequently one of the keenest pleasures to a
child. It should be remarked, too, that the defi-
ciencies noted are not inherent in the use of the
more admirable features of the Montessori sys-
tem; that is to say, we can borrow the good from
this source without giving up the good we already
29
THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM
have. Doubtless if Madam Montessori had her-
self known more of better educational practice
elsewhere, she would have incorporated some,
perhaps all, of the features the absence of which
we here regret.
It is evident from the foregoing that, after all
has been said, the Montessori curriculum affords
very inadequate expression to a large portion of
child nature | Such a limitation of opportunity is,
in effect, nothing less than repression, a repres-
sion destructive alike of happiness and mental
growth. Moreover, since expression is the means
to the acquisition of the culture of the race, the
deficiency in expression is serious, whether it be
looked at from the point of view of the child and
his present happiness and growth, or from the
point of view of culture and of the child's prepara-
tion for participation therein. From every con-
sideration, the proposed curriculum proves inad-
equate and unduly restrictive.
V
AUTO-EDUCATION
Auto - education as conceived by Madam
Montessori is the necessary correlative of a r6-
gime of freedom. From directed activity alone
can training come, but for her direction must not
contravene the child's freedom. With the teacher
thus ruled out, and the child's self - direction
inadequate, resort is had to the apparatus. In
place of the old-time teacher, says Madam
Montessori, "we have substituted the didactic
material, which contains within itself the control
of error, and which makes auto-education possi-
ble to each child." 1 Does the reader ask how
this is done? Let the cylinder box answer. This
is a wooden block, in which are holes of varying
depths. To each hole belongs a cylinder which
exactly fills it. All the cylinders are removed,
and the child proceeds to replace them. "If he
mistakes, placing one of the objects in an opening
that is too small for it, he takes it away, and pro-
ceeds to make trial, seeking the proper opening.
1 The Montessori Method, p. 371.
31
THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM
If he makes a contrary error, letting the cylinder
fall into an opening that is a little too large for it,
and then collects all the successive cylinders in
openings just a little too large, he will find him-
self at the last with the big cylinder in his hand,
while only the smallest opening is empty. The
didactic material controls every error. The child
proceeds to correct himself."
The auto-education is for Madam Montessori
the only true education. "This self-correction
leads the child to concentrate his attention upon
the differences of dimensions, and to compare the
various pieces. It is in just this comparison that
the psycho-sensory exercise lies." " It is the work
of the child, the auto-correction, the auto-educa-
tion which acts."
It is impossible not to sympathize with Madam
Montessori's intention in emphasizing this
notion of auto-education. The more fully the
child can learn from his own experience without
any telling from the teacher, the more fully is
his knowledge his own. If he can feel for himself
the problem, if he can work out for himself a
plan of solution, and if finally he can ascertain
by tests of his own that his solution is correct —
if these results can be attained from any plan,
then surely that plan is a good one.
32
AUTO-EDUCATION
When, however, we turn from the general con-
ception to the specific working of Madam Mon-
tessori's auto - education, we find that what
should be the counterpart of generous liberty,
amid many and varied opportunities, has in
effect shrunk to a relatively mechanical manipu-
lation of very formal apparatus. The didactic
apparatus is in intention so devised that with
each piece one, and only one, line of activity is
feasible. Thus to the properly initiated child the
sight of the cylinder box described above sug-
gests only the taking-out of the cylinders and
putting them back (any side suggestion, as
improvising a wagon, is effectually suppressed).
And the box is further so contrived that there is
only one order in which the cylinders will fit.
"The didactic material," in this case, at least,
"controls every error." \It is in this limited
fashion that Madam Montessori provides self-
education. It is under such conditions that the
directress keeps herself in the background and
relies upon the cylinder box to set the problem
and test the solution. Surely it is a naive trust in
a very generous transfer of training which can
see appreciable profit in so formal and restricted
a scheme of auto - education. As applied by
Madam Montessori, we must conclude, then,
33
THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM
that auto-education is more of a wish than a fact.
In her scheme it is too intimately bound up with
the manipulation of the didactic apparatus to
afford outside thereof the fruitful suggestion of
wise procedure.
If, on the other hand, we consider life itself
and the situations that arise therefrom, we find
abundant instances of evident self-education. A
boy trying to drive a nail soon learns whether
he is hitting it on the head. A pair of roller
skates suggest their own problem with a mini-
mum of explanation; they also test admirably
the solution proffered. The sight of possible
playmates suggests socially conditioned activity;
the same children pass upon the newcomer's
ability to participate successfully. We may
generalize by saying that self-education is the
concomitant of attempted purpose: whenever one
can see the connection between effort and success
he is on the road to the perfected activity. We
are then led again to practically the same con-
clusion as previously reached elsewhere: The
nearer to the conditions of normal life that the
school life can be brought, the more will real
problems present themselves naturally (and not
artificially at the say-so of the teacher). At the
same time, the practical situation which sets the
34
AUTO-EDUCATION
problem will test the child's proposed solution.
This is life's auto-education and a right good
pedagogic scheme it is. If Madam Montessori's
term and general discussion can help us attain
in practice what we have for years admitted in
theory, she will have an honorable part in the
reorganization now under way of our kinder-
garten and early primary education; but the
formal auto-education based on the didactic
apparatus is at present more of a danger than
a help.
VI
EXERCISES OF PRACTICAL LIFE
The Montessori schools were first devised in con-
nection with an unusually intelligent effort at
improving certain tenement houses in Rome.
The families being poor, it was an assistance to
them for the school to take care of the children
during as much of the day as possible. Accord-
ingly, the length of the school day advocated
by Madam Montessori extended to eight or ten
hours according to season. There was thus a
concentration of authority and responsibility in
the school, which was the more fortunate, since
many of the parents had low standards of living.
In this way, the " Children's Houses" pay much
attention to cleanliness of person and dress. The
children are taught to wash their hands, brush
their hair, brush their teeth, rinse their mouths,
and otherwise care for their bodily and personal
needs. The schoolroom is largely kept in order
by the children themselves. Since school is
held during practically the whole day, a school
36
EXERCISES OF PRACTICAL LIFE
lunch is necessary, the serving of which is
largely the work of the children.
No feature of the Montessori schools has been
more commented upon than the skill and deft-
ness with which the children serve these lunch-
eons. Every one who has been present at one
of these luncheons will recall with pleasure the
eager yet serious interest exhibited by the chil-
dren, and the success with which tiny tots did
what we usually associate solely with older
hands. It seems to the writer that we have here
once more an instance of putting the school
exercises on the plane of normal child-life. Not a
few kindergartners — perhaps most of them —
know from their own experience how much
pleasure children take in such real life matters.
The interest is just what we have a right to
expect. But what about the skill? It has been
said that "not a mistake is made, not a glass is
broken, not a drop of soup is spilled." And many
friends of the system have asserted that this suc-
cess is due to the muscular control gained from
the use of the didactic apparatus. To these
assertions, two remarks may be made. First,