from

My System of Education

by

Maria Montessori

The fact on which it was possible to establish my system is the psychologic fact of the "attention" of the child, intensively chained to any exterior object of fact, which proves in the child a spontaneous, although complex activity of entire little personality.

A little girl, about three years of age, was deeply absorbed in the work of placing wooden blocks and cylinders in a frame for that purpose. The expression on her face was that of such intense attention, that it was almost a revelation to me. Never before had I seen a child look with such "fixedness" upon an object, and my conviction about the instability of attention which goes incessantly from one thing to another, a fact which is so characteristic in little children, made the phenomenon the more remarkable.

I watched the child without interrupting her, and counted how many times she would do her work over and over. It seemed that she was never going to stop. As I saw that it would take a very long time, I took the little armchair on which she was sitting and placed child and chair on the big table. Hastily she put the frame across the chair, gathered blocks and cylinders in her lap, and continued her work undisturbed. I invited the other children to sing, but the little girl went on with her work and continued even after the singing had ceased. I counted forty-four different exercises which she made, and when she finally stopped, and did so absolutely independently from an exterior cause that could disturb her, she looked around with an expression of great satisfaction, as if she were awakening from a deep and restful sleep.

To be able to choose objects that will interest and and hold the attention of the child is to know the means of aiding it in its mental development. All those things which naturally arise and hold the attention with considerable steadiness are those which represent a "necessity" for the child. Toward these things its attention is directed in a natural, almost instinctive way.

Of the qualities of the objects one must be picked out which stimulates principally the highest activities of the intelligence; this is the quality that enables the child to verify mistakes. In order to create a process of auto-education, it is not sufficient that the stimulus arouses an activity, it must at the same time direct it; the child must not only be occupied for a long time on an exercise, but it must continue on it without making mistakes.

(When) the child spontaneously abandons the objects, but not with signs of fatigue, although he is carried along by new energy....(then) his mind is capable of abstraction. At this stage of development the child turns his attention to the external world and observes it in an orderly manner, according to the order which has been formed in his mind along with the preceding development, and he unconsciously begins to make a series of measured and logical comparisons which represents a real spontaneous acquisition of knowledge. This is the stage henceforth known as the Period of Discovery, discovering which evokes in the child enthusiasm and joy.

This higher stage of development is most fruitful because of its later growth.

The practical consequences of such a system of education are the easy and spontaneous solution of pedagogical problems considered impossible to solve; the realization of ideals thought to be utopian.

From such a system there comes forth a school where the children work for themselves --- that is, they are free. In this freedom, they work much more than heretofore has been customary in school, not alone without fatigue, but with renewed nervous forces, and they attain culture more rapidly and more efficaciously --- that is, they surpass the ordinary level. In fact, children can learn to read and write at four and one-half years of age generally.

Furthermore, children brought up under our methods acquire a salient personality, a peculiar formation of character, and they are capable of perfect discipline, a thing which solves the problem of liberty. For liberty, as it has been tried up to now, brought about either disorder and lack of discipline or a lessening of scholarship. In truth the solution of the question of freedom depends entirely on finding the means which will serve as an aid to spontaneous psychic development, to character and to intellectual culture. In this manner, auto-education is also attained, a thing which is impossible unless we determine with precision the means necessary for the child to educate himself --- that is, to develop his own activities.