THE MONTESSORI SYSTEM 297 



The first stage is to develop the senses of touch, sight and hearing; this is done both 

 by games of various sorts and by guiding the attention systematically to the association 

 of things, names and ideas. When a child washes its hands, for instance, it is given first 

 cold and then hot water, and led to observe and understand the difference; the distinc- 

 tion of rough and smooth is emphasized by the provision of different qualities of cards 

 for fingering and sorting. In each case the teacher gets the child to know the word, 

 " hot," " cold," " rough," " smooth;" and thus the knowledge of language is extended 

 in all directions (" high," " low," "thick," " thin," " round," " oval,"qtc.) before aqy 

 question of writing or reading arises. Ideas of form and colour are given precision by 

 games with blocks, cylinders, etc., of varying sizes, to be fitted into frames, or with shades 

 of silk to be arranged to match; touch is practiced by playing the games blindfold; 

 hearing by playing in the dark, and by games with stones of different weights to be 

 rattled and arranged in size according to the sound, and so forth. Skill and neatness in 

 the use of the fingers and movement of limbs are stimulated, partly by the mobility of 

 the light furniture, which the children learn to re -arrange for their own comfort, and 

 partly by games at tying and untying, hooks and eyes, dressing and undressing, waiting 

 on one another at table, washing up, and so on. All such occupations are preliminary 

 to writing and reading, but lead naturally up to both. 



Writing comes essentially before reading, on the Montessori system, hi any proper 

 sense of " reading." Emery-paper letters gummed on cards are provided, with which 

 the child is familiarised by games of hide-and-seek etc., so that, without any active 

 teaching of the alphabet, he not only knows them by sight and by name, but also by 

 feeling. He learns how to imitate them, partly by a touch-game of passing the fingers 

 over the paper letter, thus making the actual motion of writing, and partly by playing 

 at pencilling and colouring with specially devised cards on which an outline is given. 

 The child thus learns to write before he knows that " writing " is what he is learning; the 

 sounds and the shapes of the letters being known, it is a natural transition to build up 

 the letters and their sounds into words. On this point Mr. Holmes says: ." The usual 

 interval between the first preparation for, and the accomplishment of, writing, is about 

 a month and a half in the case of children of four years of age. When the period of 

 preparation is over the average child finds that he can write any simple word, using ink 

 almost from the beginning. After three months most of the children write a good hand; 

 and those who have been writing for six months are as a rule quite on a par with children 

 of the third elementary class in the public schools, i.e. schools for older children." 



The next thing is for the child to " read " not merely to retranslate into sound a 

 word he has translated into symbol, which goes with the acquisition of " writing," but 

 to extract a previously unknown idea from written or printed symbols pf the same sort 

 not put together by himself. It is found however at any rate in so easy and phonetical- 

 ly-spelt a language as Italian that, after ..what has gone before, this is very quickly 

 learnt. Numbers of words, already well-known to the children, are written on cards, 

 and various games are played in identifying them with their objects; and from single 

 words the children pass to phrases and sentences, the teacher writing on the black- 

 board, for instance, questions or orders which form part of a game. The success of this 

 method, by all accounts, is extraordinary. Miss Tozier gives an example of one boy of 

 only 3^, who " without realising that he has yet done anything more than play " could 

 read and write both in English and Italian. This was a child of Dr. Montessori's 

 American friend, the Marchesa Ranieri di Sorbello, whose case may perhaps be thought 

 exceptional; but Mr. Holmes appears to be satisfied that on the Montessori system there 

 is nothing more extraordinary, and no more strain involved, in such young children 

 learning to read and write than in their having learnt to walk and talk. Arithmetic is 

 similarly introduced to the children's minds by the employment of counting-games, in 

 which an apparatus of striped poles, counters, etc., is used. 



The detailed application of the Montessori system has not gone, so far, beyond the 

 infantile curriculum, though Mr. Holmes insists that " the principle is applicable to 

 children of all ages, and will bear its best fruits in the higher classes," and Dr. Montessori 



