NATURE 



99 



THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 26, 1912. 



SCIENTIFIC PEDAGOGY. 

 (i) Rationalist English Educators. By Dr. G. E. 

 Hodgson. Pp. 254. (London : S.P.C.K. ; 

 New York : E. S. Gorham, 1912.) Price 35. 6d. 



(2) The Montessori Method: Scientific Pedagogy as 

 Applied to Child Education in " The Children's 

 Houses." With additions and revisions by the 

 author. By Maria Montessori. Translated from 

 the Italian by Anne E. George. Pp. xliii + 377. 

 (London : W. Heinemann, 1912.) Price 75. 6d. 

 net. 



(3) The Evolution of Educational Theory. By Prof. 

 John Adams. Pp. ix + 410. (London: Macmil- 

 lan and Co., Ltd., 1912.) Price los. net. (The 

 Schools of Philosophy.) 



(i) "p ROBABLY Miss Hodgson is by tempera- 

 J7 ment incapable of entering sympatheti- 

 cally into the point of view of those of whom she 

 writes in this volume — Locke, the Edgeworths, and 

 John Stuart Mill. In any case she should show a 

 more adequate acquaintance with the Edgeworths 

 when she writes about them. In the first line of 

 her essay she misquotes the title of the only book 

 of theirs she refers to, and continues so to mis- 

 quote it throughout her text. A competent reader 

 will soon discover that she has missed the message 

 of the book in her superficial risume of its con- 

 tents. It is therefore scarcely necessary to examine 

 her criticisms. The treatment of Locke is the 

 most satisfactory performance of the three. 



(2) Mdme. Montessori's work for young children 

 in the slum districts of Rome had received wide- 

 spread recognition before the translation of her 

 chief pedagogical writing appeared. The ground 

 had in other ways been well prepared, and now 

 we are threatened with a regular invasion of 

 Montessori machinery. This is not said to belittle 

 what has been accomplished in the "Children's 

 Houses " in Rome. The idea of a central nursery 

 for children from three to seven in the great tene- 

 ment blocks was admirable in itself, and it was 

 made still more so by associating the parents with 

 its management and by appointing directrices who 

 should live on the spot amongst those whom thev 

 were trying to serve. As a o-reat social experi- 

 ment, there is much to learn from Mdme. Montes- 

 sori's success, whether it is the little school 

 societies themselves which we regard, or the 

 whole social setting of the establishments which 

 she set up. 



From the point of view of scientific pedagogy, 

 the book and the experiment are interesting 

 because of the sources of Mdme. Montessori's in- 

 spiration. Primarily a medical woman, the author 

 made a special study of psychiatry, and took up 

 NO. 2239, VOL. go] 



the education of mentally deficient children. This 

 brought her into touch with the pioneer works of 

 Seguin and Itard, and led her to take courses in 

 experimental psychology. For two years she was 

 the working director of the State orthophrenic 

 school. Her experience and her reading had led to 

 the collection of a great quantity of didactic 

 materiel, but, as she found at Bicetre and else- 

 where, admirable materiel is of little use, even 

 when used in ways that are technically accurate, 

 unless the spirit of its inventor is present. 



The idea of these "tenement nurseries " and of 

 applying the apparatus designed for the mechani- 

 cal exercise of defective neural apparatus to the 

 education and training of young but normal 

 children occurred to her. The volume before us 

 is a simple and fascinating account of what has 

 been accomplished on these lines. Obviously 

 much more than the transference of the apparatus 

 was involved. It had to be adapted to children in 

 whom the power of self-direction and self-educa- 

 tion was present. But the principle of "training 

 the senses," &c. , was preserved. It is an interest- 

 ing reversal of the ordinary tendency which is to 

 apply modified infant school methods to the defec- 

 tive schools, and another instance of the way in 

 which the scientific study of the abnormal may 

 react upon the treatment of the normal. Whether 

 or not Dr. Montessori's methods will lead to a 

 reversion to formal training — none the less soul- 

 less because it is derived from modern psychology 

 — is perhaps debateable. That there is some 

 danger of this nobody who knows the schools will 

 be likely to deny. 



(3) It is quite impossible to do justice to Prof. 

 Adams's latest contribution to the literature of 

 education within the limits laid down. It is the 

 first volume of a series which is to appear under 

 the general editorship of Sir Henry Jones — "The 

 Schools of Philosophy." The task assigned to 

 Prof. Adams was a supremely difficult one, and 

 we know nobody who could have attempted it 

 with greater chances of success. He had no pre- 

 decessors in the field upon whose work he might 

 have improved, as he necessarily abandoned the 

 usual methods of presentation employed by his- 

 torians of educational thought. Instead of a 

 strictly chronological treatment he has given us 

 a broad view of the development of educational 

 concepts — of their interaction, of the recognition 

 of their mutual implications, and of their relation 

 to social and scientific advance. Thus many of the 

 dangers implicit in the study of the history of 

 education are avoided — there is no mistaking the 

 external shell of teaching devices for the spirit 

 and substance of the thought behind them. 



It need scarcely be said that Prof. Adams's 



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