IS THE MONTE SSORI METHOD A FAD? 613 



writing through the names of familiar objects written on the blackboard 

 or upon cards. The word is shown the child, and if he interprets the 

 sounds correctly, the teacher has him repeat them more and more rapidly 

 until the word as an entity, and not as a succession of sounds, dawns on 

 his intelligence. After single words can be read with some facility, 

 progress is made to short phrases and sentences. But there is nothing 

 very novel about this method of securing interest in reading, and, when 

 undertaken with English, where sounds are so capriciously spelt, it seems 

 as if it could hardly be effective. Nor do the Montessori methods in 

 arithmetic reveal anything very different in principle from the " table 

 of units " of Pestalozzi, introduced into America nearly a century ago by 

 Warren Colburn, or from the various objective methods in number work 

 that have been so common ever since. The chief feature in the arith- 

 metical methods of Montessori consists in acquiring the fundamental 

 operations by means of rods of different lengths marked off into sections 

 by coloring them alternately red and blue. This apparatus, known as 

 " the long stair," was originally used for part of the visual training, and 

 seems to have been conveniently at hand when Montessori found it neces- 

 sary to start number work. After the child has learned to count the sec- 

 tions, the teacher selects a rod at random and asks for the next longer 

 or shorter, or has the child build up all the rods until each result equals 

 the longest. When the numbers from one to ten are fully understood in 

 the concrete, the abstract conception is taught by placing the figures 

 against the corresponding sections. Other exercises are similarly per- 

 formed until the child has some command of elementary arithmetic. 



The value of the Montessori system to modern educational theory 

 and methods should now be fairly obvious. It is at least nominally 

 based upon scientific experiment, and, while its biological statements 

 can not always be accepted without modification, it is permeated with 

 the scientific spirit that is animating modern education. Its emphasis 

 upon individual liberty is most admirable, but the material for exercis- 

 ing this freedom is decidedly limited and social cooperation is somewhat 

 neglected. The exercises in practical activities form a valuable, though 

 not altogther original, feature, and the devices for acquiring writing 

 are possibly a contribution. The importance of the sense training for 

 normal children is probably not as great as Montessori supposes, and 

 the psychological theory upon which it is based has been largely dis- 

 credited. The devices for teaching reading and arithmetic contain no 

 really new principle, and are not markedly superior to the methods 

 practised for many years by progressive teachers. Clearly, however, 

 while Montessori is neither the tremendous innovator nor "wonder- 

 worker " she has been represented to be, her method is not merely the 

 latest fad. Her indebtedness to the past and the comparative worth of 

 her system are fairly evident to one acquainted with the history of edu- 



