Academy Montessori

But the love of man for man is a far more tender thing, and so simple that it is universal. To love in this way is not the privilege of any especially prepared intellectual class, but lies within the reach of all men

It behooves us to think of what may happen to the spirit of the child who is condemned to grow in conditions so artificial that his very bones may become deformed. When we speak of the redemption of the workingman, it is always understood that beneath the most apparent form of suffering, such as poverty of the blood, or ruptures, there exists that other wound from which the soul of the man who is subjected to any form of slavery must suffer. It is at this deeper wrong that we aim when we say that the workman must be redeemed through liberty. We know only too well that when a man's very blood has been consumed or his intestines wasted away through his work, his soul must have lain oppressed in darkness, rendered insensible, or, it may be, killed within him. The moral degradation of the slave is, above all things, the weight that opposes the progress of humanity–humanity striving to rise and held back by this great burden. The cry of redemption speaks far more clearly for the souls of men than for their bodies.

All forms of slavery tend little by little to weaken and disappear, even the sexual slavery of woman. The history of civilisation is a history of conquest and of liberation. We should ask in what stage of civilisation we find ourselves and if, in truth, the good of prizes and of punishments be necessary to our advancement. If we have indeed gone beyond this point, then to apply such a form of education would be to draw the new generation back to a lower level, not to lead them into their true heritage of progress.

All human victories, all human progress, stand upon the inner force.

The new woman, like the butterfly come forth from the chrysalis, shall be liberated from all those attributes which once made her desirable to man only as the source of the material blessings of existence
She shall wish to be loved for herself and not as a giver of comfort and repose. She shall wish a love free from every form of servile labour. The goal of human love is not the egotistical end of assuring its own satisfaction–it is the sublime goal of multiplying the forces of the free spirit, making it almost Divine, and, within such beauty and light, perpetuating the species.

To better the species consciously, cultivating his own health, his own virtue, this should be the goal of man's married life. It is a sublime concept of which, as yet,few think. And the socialised home of the future, living, provident, kindly; educator and comforter; is the true and worthy home of those human mates who wish to better the species, and to send the race forward triumphant into the eternity of life!

DISCIPLINE
THE pedagogical method of observation has for its base the liberty of the child; and liberty is activity.

Discipline must come through liberty. Here is a great principle which is difficult for the followers of common-school methods to understand. How shall one obtain discipline in a class of free children?

INDEPENDENCE

No one can be free unless he is independent: therefore, the first, active manifestations of the child's individual liberty must be so guided that through this activity he may arrive at independence.

We must make of the future generation, powerful men, and by that we mean men who are independent and free.

The child must be prepared for the forms of social life and his attention attracted to these forms
Cleanlinss, order, poise, conversation

Diet must be adapted to the child's physical nature
Foods and their preparation
Drinks
Distribution of meals

NATURE IN EDUCATION–AGRICULTURAL LABOUR; CULTURE OF PLANTS AND ANIMALS

The savage of the Aveyron
Itard's educative drama repeated in the education of little children
Gardening and horticulture basis of a method for education of children
The child initiated into observation of the phenomena of life and into foresight by way of auto-education
Children are initiated into the virtue of patience and into confident expectation, and are inspired with a feeling for nature
The child follows the natural way of development of the human race.

Aim in education biological and social
Education of the senses makes men observers and prepares them directly for practical life.

INTELLECTUAL EDUCATION

Sense exercises a species of auto-education
Importance of an exact nomenclature, and how to teach it
Spontaneous progress of the child the greatest triumph of Scientific Pedagogy
Games of the blind
Application of the visual sense to the observation of environment
Method of using didactic material: dimensions, form, design Free plastic work
Geometric analysis of figures
Exercises in the chromatic sense

Discipline better than in ordinary schools
First dawning of discipline comes through work
Orderly action is the true rest for muscles intended by nature for action
The exercise that develops life consists in the repetition, not in the mere grasp of the idea
Aim of repetition that the child shall refine his senses through the exercise of attention, of comparison, of judgment
Obedience is naturally sacrifice
Obedience develops will-power and the capacity to perform the act it becomes necessary to obey

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