29 6 THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM 



the normal children, taught by ordinary methods, were retarded. If the same methods 

 were applied to good material that were successful with bad, much better results ought 

 to be attainable; and she determined to investigate the whole subject afresh. 



In 1900 she left the Scuola Ortofrenica, and turned her attention definitely away from 

 the question of the feeble-minded to that of the normal child-mind and its development. 

 She returned to the University of Rome as a student of philosophy, and devoted herself 

 to experimental psychology, then in its infancy at the Italian universities, at the same 

 time making a prolonged and careful study of the actual practice of teaching at the pri- 

 mary schools. The result of several years of child-study and practical pedagogy was to 

 establish her conviction that the master-principle in any proper system is " self-educa- 

 tion," that the work of mental growth must be done by the child itself, according to 

 its own direct initiative and inclination, not in mechanical obedience to dogmatic dicta- 

 tion from a teacher; and she set herself to devise new methods for making the child-mind 

 shape its. own channels instead of the teacher telling the pupil what to do. 



After six or seven years of enquiry and study, a unique opportunity arose in Rome 

 for putting her theories into practice. During the building " boom " at the end of the 

 i88o's, a whole new quarter of apartment houses had been run up by speculators out- 

 side the Porta San Lorenzo. It was from the first a complete fiasco, the houses failing 

 altogether to attract the superior class of tenants for which they were intended; and the 

 district gradually developed into the worst of slums, the flats being farmed out room by 

 room to the poorest families, so that at last a serious condition of insanitary over- 

 crowding had resulted, which seriously engaged the attention of social reformers. In 

 order to remedy this evil, an association was started on philanthropic lines, the Institute 

 Romano di Bene Stabili, with Signer Edoardo Talamo as director-general. It bought 

 up a large part of the San Lorenzo quarter, and reorganized it in 1906 in separate and 

 convenient working-class tenements, with proper air-space; prizes being instituted for 

 the best-kept dwellings. A novel part of the scheme was the provision of infant-schools 

 {Case del Bambini} for the children of each block, the supervision of which was entrusted 

 to Dr. Montessori; the first of these being opened in January 10,07. These " Houses of 

 Childhood " for children between 3 and 7 are themselves a very interesting social 

 experiment, apart from the new methods of teaching which Dr. Montessori introduced. 

 They provide a creche and something more, taking the children off their mothers' hands 

 during working hours. Each school has a: directress living in the block which it serves 

 and in touch with the parents, who can at any time come and see how the children are 

 getting on; and it is thus part of the home life. 



The Montessori system of education was first put in practice in these tenement 

 schools, under teachers following Dr. Montessori's methods. 1 Its fundamental aim and 

 object is self-education by the pupils themselves. There are no timetables, no set les- 

 sons, no classes. There are no rewards or punishments of the ordinary kind. The 

 pleasure of succeeding and getting things right is the only incentive. " Each child," 

 says Mr. Holmes, " is doing what, for the time being, pleases him best. When he is 

 admitted to the school, he sees small groups of children playing at various ' games,' and 

 he joins the group which happens to take his fancy. Then and there his education 

 begins. All kinds of interesting ' occupations ' are going on, and wherever he goes he 

 will get help and guidance from the teachers. If he gets tired of playing at this thing, 

 he goes off and plays at that. But he is never idle, for whatever he does interests him." 

 " The children are provided with light and comfortable chairs, which are easily moved 

 about. There are also rugs, laid on the floor, for them to sit, kneel or recline upon, should 

 they prefer those attitudes. Low and light tables are provided in abundance, but there 

 is also plenty of open floor-space, and many of the ' occupations ' are carried on on the 

 floor." An extensive variety of apparatus, elaborately devised by Dr. Montessori, is 

 provided for the educational games by which the children are stimulated to acquire 

 knowledge; and this " didactic material " constitutes a distinctive part of the originality 

 of the system, which can only be roughly indicated in a verbal description. 



1 At the end of 1912 they were no longer under her direct supervision. 



