The Montessori Method Part 23

and this _command of nature_ is represented by the fact that man sees the horizon as a curved line!

The example of Seguin serves to ill.u.s.trate the necessity of a _special education_ which shall fit man for _observation_, and shall direct _logical thought_.

The observation must be absolutely objective, in other words, stripped of preconceptions. Seguin has in this case the preconception that geometric design must prepare for writing, and that hinders him from discovering the truly natural proceeding necessary to such preparation.

He has, besides, the preconception that the deviation of a line, as well as the inexactness with which the child traces it, are due to "_the mind and the eye, not to the hand_," and so he wearies himself _for weeks and months in explaining_ the direction of lines and in guiding _the vision_ of the idiot.

It seems as if Seguin felt that a good method must start from a superior point, geometry; the intelligence of the child is only considered worthy of attention in its relation to abstract things. And is not this a common defect?

Let us observe mediocre men; they pompously a.s.sume erudition and disdain simple things. Let us study the clear thought of those whom we consider men of genius. Newton is seated tranquilly in the open air; an apple falls from the tree, he observes it and asks, "Why?" Phenomena are never insignificant; the fruit which falls and universal gravitation may rest side by side in the mind of a genius.

If Newton had been a teacher of children he would have led the child to look upon the worlds on a starry night, but an erudite person might have felt it necessary first to prepare the child to understand the sublime calculus which is the key to astronomy--Galileo Galilei observed the oscillation of a lamp swung on high, and discovered the laws of the pendulum.

In the intellectual life _simplicity_ consists in divesting one's mind of every preconception, and this leads to the discovery of new things, as, in the moral life, humility and material poverty guide us toward high spiritual conquests.

If we study the history of discoveries, we will find that they have come from _real objective observation_ and _from logical thought_. These are simple things, but rarely found in one man.

Does it not seem strange, for instance, that after the discovery by Laveran of the malarial parasite which invades the red blood-corpuscles, we did not, in spite of the fact that we know the blood system to be a system of closed vessels, even so much as _suspect the possibility_ that a stinging insect might inoculate us with the parasite? Instead, the theory that the evil emanated from low ground, that it was carried by the African winds, or that it was due to dampness, was given credence.

Yet these were vague ideas, while the parasite was a definite biological specimen.

When the discovery of the malarial mosquito came to complete logically the discovery of Laveran, this seemed marvellous, stupefying. Yet we know in biology that the reproduction of molecular vegetable bodies is by scission with alternate sporation, and that of molecular animals is by scission with alternate conjunction. That is, after a certain period in which the primitive cell has divided and sub-divided into fresh cells, equal among themselves, there comes the formation of two diverse cells, one male and one female, which must unite to form a single cell capable of recommencing the cycle of reproduction by division. All this being known at the time of Laveran, and the malarial parasite being known to be a protozoon, it would have seemed logical to consider its segmentation in the stroma of the red corpuscle as the phase of scission and to await until the parasite gave place to the s.e.xual forms, which must necessarily come in the phase succeeding scission. Instead, the division was looked upon as spore-formation, and neither Laveran, nor the numerous scientists who followed the research, knew how to give an explanation of the appearance of the s.e.xual forms. Laveran expressed an idea, which was immediately received, that these two forms were degenerate forms of the malarial parasite, and therefore incapable of producing the changes determining the disease. Indeed, the malaria was apparently cured at the appearance of the two s.e.xual forms of the parasite, the conjunction of the two cells being impossible in the human blood. The theory--then recent--of Morel upon human degeneration accompanied by deformity and weakness, inspired Laveran in his interpretation, and everybody found the idea of the ill.u.s.trious pathologist a fortunate one, because it was inspired by the great concepts of the Morellian theory.

Had anyone, instead, limited himself to reasoning thus: the original form of the malarial insect is a protozoon; it reproduces itself by scission, under our eyes; when the scission is finished, we see two diverse cells, one a half-moon, the other threadlike. These are the feminine and masculine cells which must, by conjunction, alternate the scission,--such a reasoner would have opened the way to the discovery.

But _so simple_ a process of reasoning did not come. We might almost ask ourselves how great would be the world's progress if a special form of education prepared men for pure observation and logical thought.

A great deal of time and intellectual force are lost in the world, because the false seems great and the truth so small and insignificant.

I say all this to defend the necessity, which I feel we face, of preparing the coming generations by means of more rational methods. It is from these generations that the world awaits its progress. We have already learned to make use of our surroundings, but I believe that we have arrived at a time when the necessity presents itself for _utilising_ human force, through a scientific education.

To return to Seguin's method of writing, it ill.u.s.trates another truth, and that is the tortuous path we follow in our teaching. This, too, is allied to an instinct for complicating things, a.n.a.logous to that which makes us so p.r.o.ne to appreciate complicated things. We have Seguin teaching _geometry_ in order to teach a child to write; and making the child's mind exert itself to follow geometrical abstractions only to come down to the simple effort of drawing a printed D. After all, must the child not have to make another effort in order to _forget_ the print, and _learn_ the script!

And even we in these days still believe that in order to learn to write the child must first make vertical strokes. This conviction is very general. Yet it does not seem natural that to write the letters of the alphabet, which are all rounded, it should be necessary to begin with straight lines and acute angles.

In all good faith, we wonder that it should be difficult to do away with the angularity and stiffness with which the beginner traces the beautiful curve of the O.[13] Yet, through what effort on our part, and on his, was he forced to fill pages and pages with rigid lines and acute angles! To whom is due this time-honoured idea that the first sign to be traced must be a straight line? And why do we so avoid preparing for curves as well as angles?

[13] It will, of course, be understood that this is a criticism of the system in use in Italian schools. A. E. G.

Let us, for a moment, divest ourselves of such preconceptions and proceed in a more simple way. We may be able to relieve future generations of _all effort_ in the matter of learning to write.

Is it necessary to begin writing with the making of vertical strokes? A moment of clear and logical thinking is enough to enable us to answer, no. The child makes too painful an effort in following such an exercise.

The first steps should be the easiest, and the up and down stroke, is, on the contrary, one of the most difficult of all the pen movements.

Only a professional penman could fill a whole page and preserve the regularity of such strokes, but a person who writes only moderately well would be able to complete a page of presentable writing. Indeed, the straight line is unique, expressing the shortest distance between two points, while _any deviation_ from that direction signifies a line which is not straight. These infinite deviations are therefore easier than that _one_ trace which is perfection.

If we should give to a number of adults the order to draw a straight line upon the blackboard, each person would draw a long line proceeding in a different direction, some beginning from one side, some from another, and almost all would succeed in making the line straight.

Should we then ask that the line be drawn in a _particular direction_, starting from a determined point, the ability shown at first would greatly diminish, and we would see many more irregularities, or errors.

Almost all the lines would be long--for the individual _must needs gather impetus_ in order to succeed in making his line straight.

Should we ask that the lines be made short, and included within precise limits, the errors would increase, for we would thus impede the impetus which helps to conserve the definite direction. In the methods ordinarily used in teaching writing, we add, to such limitations, the further restriction that the instrument of writing must be held in a certain way, not as instinct prompts each individual.

Thus we approach in the most conscious and restricted way the first act of writing, which should be voluntary. In this first writing we still demand that the single strokes be kept parallel, making the child's task a difficult and barren one, since it has no purpose for the child, who does not understand the meaning of all this detail.

I had noticed in the note-books of the deficient children in France (and Voisin also mentions this phenomenon) that the pages of vertical strokes, although they began as such, ended in lines of C's. This goes to show that the deficient child, whose mind is less resistant than that of the normal child, exhausts, little by little, the initial effort of imitation, and the natural movement gradually comes to take the place of that which was forced or stimulated. So the straight lines are transformed into curves, more and more like the letter C. Such a phenomenon does not appear in the copy-books of normal children, for they resist, through effort, until the end of the page is reached, and, thus, as often happens, conceal the didactic error.

But let us observe the spontaneous drawings of normal children. When, for example, picking up a fallen twig, they trace figures in the sandy garden path, we never see short straight lines, but long and variously interlaced curves.

Seguin saw the same phenomenon when the horizontal lines he made his pupils draw became curves so quickly instead. And he attributed the phenomenon to the imitation of the horizon line!

That vertical strokes should prepare for alphabetical writing, seems incredibly illogical. The alphabet is made up of curves, therefore we must prepare for it by learning to make straight lines.

"But," says someone, "in many letters of the alphabet, the straight line does exist," True, but there is no reason why as a beginning of writing, we should select one of the details of a complete form. We may a.n.a.lyse the alphabetical signs in this way, discovering straight lines and curves, as by a.n.a.lysing discourse, we find grammatical rules. But we all _speak_ independently of such rules, why then should we not write independently of such a.n.a.lysis, and without the separate execution of the parts const.i.tuting the letter?

It would be sad indeed if we could _speak_ only _after_ we had studied grammar! It would be much the same as demanding that before we _looked_ at the stars in the firmament, we must study infinitesimal calculus; it is much the same thing to feel that before teaching an idiot to write, we must make him understand the abstract derivation of lines and the problems of geometry!

No less are we to be pitied if, in order to write, we must follow a.n.a.lytically the parts const.i.tuting the alphabetical signs. In fact the _effort_ which we believe to be a necessary accompaniment to learning to write is a purely artificial effort, allied, not to writing, but to the _methods_ by which it is taught.

Let us for a moment cast aside every dogma in this connection. Let us take no note of culture, or custom. We are not, here, interested in knowing how humanity began to write, nor what may have been the origin of writing itself. Let us put away the conviction, that long usage has given us, of the necessity of beginning writing by making vertical strokes; and let us try to be as clear and unprejudiced in spirit as the truth which, we are seeking.

"_Let us observe an individual who is writing, and let us seek to a.n.a.lyse the acts he performs in writing_," that is, the mechanical operations which enter into the execution of writing. This would be undertaking the _philosophical study of writing_, and it goes without saying that we should examine the individual who writes, not the _writing_; the _subject_, not the _object_. Many have begun with the object, examining the writing, and in this way many methods have been constructed.

But a method starting from the individual would be decidedly original--very different from other methods which preceded it. It would indeed signify a new era in writing, _based upon anthropology_.

In fact, when I undertook my experiments with normal children, if I had thought of giving a name to this new method of writing, I should have called it without knowing what the results would be, the _anthropological method_. Certainly, my studies in anthropology inspired the method, but experience has given me, as a surprise, another t.i.tle which seems to me the natural one, "the method of _spontaneous_ writing."

While teaching deficient children I happened to observe the following fact: An idiot girl of eleven years, who was possessed of normal strength and motor power in her hands, could not learn to sew, or even to take the first step, darning, which consists in pa.s.sing the needle first over, then under the woof, now taking up, now leaving, a number of threads.

I set the child to weaving with the Froebel mats, in which a strip of paper is threaded transversely in and out among vertical strips of paper held fixed at top and bottom. I thus came to think of the a.n.a.logy between the two exercises, and became much interested in my observation of the girl. When she had become skilled in the Froebel weaving, I led her back again to the sewing, and saw with pleasure that she was now able to follow the darning. From that time on, our sewing cla.s.ses began with a regular course in the Froebel weaving.

I saw that the necessary movements of the hand in sewing _had been prepared without having the child sew_, and that we should really find the way to _teach_ the child _how_, before _making him execute_ a task.

I saw especially that preparatory movements could be carried on, and reduced to a mechanism, by means of repeated exercises not in the work itself but in that which prepares for it. Pupils could then come to the real work, able to perform it without ever having directly set their hands to it before.

I thought that I might in this way prepare for writing, and the idea interested me tremendously. I marvelled at its simplicity, and was annoyed that _I had not thought before_ of the method which was suggested to me by my observation of the girl who could not sew.

In fact, seeing that I had already taught the children to touch the contours of the plane geometric insets, I had now only to teach them to touch with their fingers the _forms of the letters of the alphabet_.

I had a beautiful alphabet manufactured, the letters being in flowing script, the low letters 8 centimetres high, and the taller ones in proportion. These letters were in wood, 1/2 centimetre in thickness, and were painted, the consonants in blue enamel, the vowels in red. The under side of these letter-forms, instead of being painted, were covered with bronze that they might be more durable. We had only one copy of this wooden alphabet; but there were a number of cards upon which the letters were painted in the same colours and dimensions as the wooden ones. These painted letters were arranged upon the cards in groups, according to contrast, or a.n.a.logy of form.

Corresponding to each letter of the alphabet, we had a picture representing some object the name of which began, with the letter. Above this, the letter was painted in large script, and near it, the same letter, much smaller and in its printed form. These pictures served to fix the memory of the sound of the letter, and the small printed letter united to the one in script, was to form the pa.s.sage to the reading of books. These pictures do not, indeed, represent a new idea, but they completed an arrangement which did not exist before. Such an alphabet was undoubtedly most expensive and when made by hand the cost was fifty dollars.

The interesting part of my experiment was, that after I had shown the children how to place the movable wooden letters upon those painted in groups upon the cards, I had them _touch them repeatedly in the fas.h.i.+on of flowing writing_.

I multiplied these exercises in various ways, and the children thus learned to make _the movements necessary to reproduce the form of the graphic signs without writing_.

I was struck by an idea which had never before entered my mind--that in writing we make _two diverse_ forms of movement, for, besides the movement by which the form is reproduced, there is also that of _manipulating the instrument of writing_. And, indeed, when the deficient children had become expert in touching all the letters according to form, _they did not yet know how to hold a pencil_. To hold and to manipulate a little stick securely, corresponds to the _acquisition of a special muscular mechanism which is independent of the writing movement_; it must in fact go along with the motions necessary to produce all of the various letter forms. It is, then, _a distinct mechanism_, which must exist together with the motor memory of the single graphic signs. When I provoked in the deficients the movements characteristic of writing by having them touch the letters with their fingers, I exercised mechanically the psycho-motor paths, and fixed the muscular memory of each letter. There remained the preparation of the muscular mechanism necessary in holding and managing the instrument of writing, and this I provoked by adding two periods to the one already described. In the second period, the child touched the letter, not only with the index finger of his right hand, but with two, the index and the middle finger. In the third period, he touched the letters with a little wooden stick, held as a pen in writing. In substance I was making him repeat the same movements, now with, and now without, holding the instrument.

I have said that the child was to follow the _visual_ image of the outlined letter. It is true that his finger had already been trained through touching the contours of the geometric figures, but this was not always a sufficient preparation. Indeed, even we grown people, when we trace a design through gla.s.s or tissue paper, cannot follow perfectly the line which we see and along which we should draw our pencil. The design should furnish some sort of control, some mechanical guide, for the pencil, in order to follow with _exactness_ the trace, _sensible in reality only to the eye_.

The deficients, therefore, did not always follow the design exactly with either the finger or the stick. The didactic material did not offer _any control_ in the work, or rather it offered only the uncertain control of the child's glance, which could, to be sure, see if the finger continued upon the sign, or not. I now thought that in order to have the pupil follow the movements more exactly, and to guide the execution more directly, I should need to prepare letter forms so indented, as to represent a _furrow_ within which the wooden stick might run. I made the designs for this material, but the work being too expensive I was not able to carry out my plan.

After having experimented largely with this method, I spoke of it very fully to the teachers in my cla.s.ses in didactic methods at the State Orthophrenic School. These lectures were printed, and I give below the words which, though they were placed in the hands of more than 200 elementary teachers, did not draw from them a single helpful idea.

Professor Ferreri[14] in an article speaks with amazement of this fact.[15]