IS THE MONTE SSORI METHOD A FAD ? 609 



IS THE MONTESSOEI METHOD A FAD? 



By FRANK PIERREPONT GRAVES 



PROFESSOR OF THE HISTORY OF EDUCATION IN THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA 



AFTEE all the popular excitement, spectacular magazine articles, 

 and more or less interesting books on the subject, the busy man — 

 even the educator — is still asking : " What is the Montessori Method ? " 

 Is it a wonderful discovery of educational principles, an ingenious in- 

 vention of material and devices, or merely a new fad that has been 

 exalted by manufacturers of educational apparatus and enterprising 

 journalists into a profitable cult and propaganda? Will the inventor 

 of the "didactic apparatus" be eventually enshrined a little above 

 Pestalozzi and Froebel, Mann and Barnard, in the educational pantheon, 

 or will she be relegated to the limbo of the exponents of tiddledy-winks 

 and ping-pong, of Belgian hares and Teddy bears? While "neither a 

 prophet nor the son of a prophet," it is in the hope of answering such 

 questions and of satisfying such a mild curiosity, that this sketch is 

 added to the pyramid of Montessorian literature. 



In the first place, it should be noted that Montessori is on the right 

 track in seeking a scientific basis for her educational structure. Despite 

 the close resemblance of the " didactic apparatus " to the " gift of 

 Froebel," it does not find its justification in German idealism 

 Happily the practise of Montessori, which is so similar to that of the 

 kindergarten, is not handicapped with the necessity of awakening the 

 innate concept of "unity" by "adumbration" in the unsuspecting 

 child through his activities with an ordinary ball. The symbolism, 

 mysticism and obscurantism of the literal Froebelians are replaced by 

 a scientific basis of modern biology, physiology and psychology. Some 

 of Montessori' s biological statements have been shown by scientists and 

 physicians to be inadequate, incorrect, or out of date, but, with the 

 rapid expansion of modern science, it is almost inevitable that an edu- 

 cationalist should occasionally reveal a weakness when he builds upon 

 a biological foundation. The scientific attitude of Montessori is an out- 

 growth of her training and experience. She was the first woman to 

 receive the doctorate in medicine from the University of Eome, and she 

 has followed up this medical education with careful study and researches 

 in psychiatry, experimental psychology, anthropology and pedagogy. 

 And it was her success in supervising the instruction of defective 

 children that led to the experiments that have so stirred the educa- 

 tional world. Her procedure in teaching normal children has funda- 



