HITHERTO
the only aim of the educator, the aim towards which all his efforts were directed,
was that of preparing the pupil for that social life in which he would later
on be forced to live. Therefore, as what was aimed at principally was that
he should know how to imitate the adult, he was forced to suffocate the creative
forces of the spirit under he cloak of the instinct of imitation. Preferably
he was taught that which was considered indispensable to known in order to
be able to live in a civilized community. This forced an absolute assimilation
of a form of social life which is not natural to children, and should become
natural to them only when they would be adults. In such conditions the real
nature of the children could not be appreciated either in the old type of
school or in the form of old-fashioned family education. The child was only
"a future being". He was not envisaged except as one "who is
to be become", and therefore he was of no account until he had reached
the stage in which he had become a man.
Yet
the child, like all other human beings, has a personality of his own. He carries
within him the beauty and the dignity of the creative spirit, and these can
never be erased, so that his soul which is pure and very sensitive requires
our most delicate care. We must not only preoccupy ourselves with his body
which is so tiny and so fragile. We must not think only of nourishing and
washing and dressing him with great care. Man does not live by bread alone
even in his infancy. Material needs are on a step which is lower and can be
degrading at any age. Slavery fosters in children, as well as in adults, inferior
sentiments and generates an absolute lack of dignity.
The
social environment which we have created for ourselves is not suited to the
child. He does not understand it and therefore he is kept busy away from it,
and as he cannot adapt himself to our society he is excluded from it, and
is given into the care of the school which often becomes his prison. Today
we can at last see very clearly how fatal are the consequences of a school
where the children are taught by old methods. They suffer on this account
not only organically but also morally. It is this fundamental problem of education,the
education of character, that has been up to now neglected by the school. Also
in the family circle there is the same error of principle. There, also, it
is always the tomorrow of the child, his future existence, which is the constant
preoccupation. The present is never taken seriously into account. By the present
I mean what the child needs in order to be able to live fully according to
the psychic needs of his age. At the most, when things have been going well
in families which have more modern ideas it is the physical life of the child
that has begun to be taken into account in these last years. Rational alimentation,
hygienic dressing, life in the open air constitute the latest progress that
science has brought, during this century, into the life of the child.
But
the most human of all the needs of the child is neglected- the exigencies
of his spirit, of his soul. The human being who lives within the child remains
stifled therein. To us are known only the efforts and the energy that are
necessary for the child to defend itself against us. What we know is the weeping,
the shouting,the tantrums, the timidity, the possessiveness, the fibs, the
selfishness and spirit of destruction. We commit an error which is even more
serious and has more serious consequences. That is, to consider these means
of defence as if they were the essential traits of the infant character, and
to subdue them, as we consider is our strict duty, to try and eliminate them
with the greatest severity, with a sternness which carries us even to the
extremes of corporal punishment. These reactions of the child are often the
symptoms of a moral illness, and very frequently they precede a real nervous
disease which makes its consequences felt for the rest of the individual's
life.
We
all know that the age of development is the most important period of the whole
life. Moral malnutrition and intoxication of the spirit are as fatal for the
soul of man as physical malnutrition is for the health of his body. Therefore
child-education is the most important problem of humanity.
THE
REMEDY
It
is for us a question of conscience to try to understand even the faintest
shades of the soul of the child, and to take extreme care in our relations
with the world of the small ones. Previously we were almost complacent in
performing the part of pitiless judges in front of the children. They appeared
to us full of defects when compared with adults, and we set ourselves in front
of them as examples of beings overflowing with every virtue. We must now be
content with a much more modest role, that required by the interpretation
that Emerson gave of the message of Jesus Christ:
Infancy is he
eternal Messiah,
which continuously comes back to the arms
of degraded humanity
in order to entice it back to heaven
If we consider the
child in this light, we shall be forced to recognize, as an absolute and urgent
necessity, that care must be given to childhood,creating for it a suitable world
and a suitable environment. We shall have accomplished a great task in favour
of man by doing this. The child cannot lead a natural life in the complicated
world of adults; also it is clear that the adult by his continuous supervision,
by his uninterrupted advice, by his dictatorial attitude, disturbs and thwarts
the development of the child. All the good forces which are sprouting in its
soul are suffocated in this fashion, and nothing is left in the child but a
subconscious impulse to free himself as soon as possible form everything and
every one.
Let us therefore
discard our role of prison warden, and let instead preoccupy ourselves with
preparing an environment in which as far as possible we shall try not to harass
him by our supervision and by our teaching. We must become persuaded that the
more the environment corresponds to the needs of the child, the more limited
becomes the activity of the teacher. But here a very important principle must
not be forgotten- giving freedom to the child does not mean to abandon him to
his own resources and perhaps to neglect him. The help that we give to the soul
of the child must not be passive indifference to all the difficulties of its
development. Rather we must second it with prudence and affectionate care. However,
even by merely preparing with great care the environment of the children, we
shall have already done a great task, because the creation of a new world, a
world of the children, is no easy accomplishment. As soon as small furniture
is prepared, of which children stand in as much need as adult people (perhaps
even more, for to them it is not merely a piece of furniture but a means of
development) we see that their movement and activity become incredibly ordered.
Before, their limbs seemed to be without any master to direct them; they ran
about knowing everything down, jumping here, crashing there. Now their movements
seem to be directed by a conscious will They can be left alone without any danger
because they know what they want.
The need for activity
is almost stronger than the need for food. This has not been recognized heretofore
because a suitable field of activity was not there for the child to manifest
his needs. If we give him this we shall see the small tormenters who could never
be satisfied convert themselves into cheerful workers. The proverbial destroyer
becomes the most zealous custodian of the objects that surround him. The noisy
and boisterous child, disorderly in its movements and in its actions, is transformed
into a being full of spiritual calm and very orderly. But if the child lacks
suitable external means, he will never be able to make use of the great energies
with which nature has endowed him. He will feel the instinctive impulse towards
an activity such as may engage all his energy, because this is the way nature
has given him of making perfect the acquisitions of his faculties. But if there
is nothing there to satisfy this impulse, what can the child do but what he
does - develop his activity without any aim in disorderly boisterousness?
In the preparation
of an environment everything depends upon this.
THE
HOUSE OF CHILDREN
By now almost every
one knows of the House of Children. Small furniture and small simple objects
whose aim is to serve the intellectual development of the child are being built
in all civilized nations: small furniture brilliant in colour, and so light
that when knocked against it falls easily, and that therefore the children can
easily move about. The lightness of the colour places in evidence the spots
and the dust, and in this fashion any disorder or lack of attention on the part
of the child is revealed. But as it is revealed easily it can be as easily corrected
with the aid of a little soap and a little water. In our House of Children the
furniture is like that. Every child chooses the place which he likes best, and
places everything to suit his taste, but he must beware of any disorderly action
because, as the furniture is light, every disorderly movement is betrayed by
the furniture that scrapes upon the floor. So the child is surrounded by admonishing
friends whose voices are not the voices of the adults, and he learns to be careful,to
be conscious and to direct the movements of his body. It is for this reason
that we place in the environment of the child beautiful fragile little objects
of glass or of china, because if the child lets them fall they will break, and
he will lose forever those beloved little objects that gave him so much joy
and that attracted his eyes and hands every time he came into the room. Gone,lost
forever, just because he had not taken enough care in the way he held them,
just because he let them slip between his fingers! They are now broken into
pieces, dead, no longer there to call him and to smile at him. What greater
punishment could the child have than that of losing his beloved objects, that
nowhere else was he allowed to touch, except in the small house which had been
built for him to suit his size, and his mental development! What stronger voice
can there be than that which admonishes the child "Be careful of your movements!
Every disorderly movement of yours is a danger of death for one of your beloved
friends who surround you? "What great pain the loss of a dear object is
for a child, we who have been with him know. And who would not feel the urge
of consoling one of these tiny beings who, all red in the face, stands crying
before a beautiful little porcelain vase that he has let fall? And if you could
see him later! From that time on how concentrated his face is when he carries
frail objects, how visible the effort of will to command all his movements in
order to achieve their correctness.
So you see it is
the environment itself which helps to make the children continuously better,
because every error, no matter how small, becomes so evident that it is useless
for the teacher to interfere. She can remain a quiet spectator of all the little
mistakes that occur around her, and little by little it will seem as if the
child heard the voices of the objects that, in their silent language, speak
and admonish, revealing to him his small errors. "Be careful. Don't you
see I am your beautiful little table? I am all shiny and polished and varnished.
Don't scratch me. Don't spot me. Don't soil me!" The aesthetic quality
in the objects and in the environment is a great spur to the activity of the
child, so that it makes him redouble his efforts. That is why in our House of
Children all the objects are attractive. The dusters are gaily coloured, the
broom-handles are hand-painted in bright tints,and the small brushes are as
attractive as the small pieces of soap which, round or rectangular, are there
in pink and blue and yellow calling to the eyes of the child asking to be used.
From all the objects that voice must spring forth which says to the child; "Come
and touch me, make use of me. Don't you see me? I am the beautiful duster all
pink and red. Come, let us go and take the dust off the top of the table."
And from the other side: "Here I am, the small broom. Take me in your little
hand and let us clean the floor." And still another voice calls to say:
"Come, beautiful little hands. Dive into the water and take the soap."
From everywhere the bright objects call to the child: they almost begin to form
part of its mood, of its being, of its very nature, and there is no longer need
for the teacher to say: "Charles clean the room;" and "John wash
your hands."
Every child who has
been freed, who knows how to care for himself, how to put his shoes on, to dress
and undress without help,mirror in his joy, in his merriment, the reflection
of human dignity; because human dignity is born of the sentiment of one's independence.
The joy that the
small ones feel in their work makes them accomplish everything with an enthusiasm
that is almost excessive. If they are shining the brass handle of a door they
do it for such a long time that it becomes as shining as a mirror. Even the
most simple things, such as dusting and sweeping, are done with an amount of
exaggeration.
MARVELLOUS
RESULTS
It is evident that
it is not the attainment of an external aim which spurs them to activity, but
rather the possibility of being able to valorize and to exercise their latent
energies. It is this valorization which decides the duration of the activity
and asks for continuous repetition. The repetition of an action,while making
the child happy, makes him also accomplish real feats. We see, for instance,
children of a very young age dressing, and undressing alone, hooking buttons,
making bows, laying a table to perfection, cleaning the dishes. But this is
not enough; the superabundance of its energy is revealed in the fact that the
child uses what he has just learned to the advantage of those who as yet have
not acquired an equal degree of perfection. So we see a child buttoning the
clothes of his younger fellow, tying his shoestrings or quickly cleaning the
ground if someone happens to upset the soup. If he washes the dishes he cleans
those which others have soiled, and when he lays the table he works for the
benefit of many others who have not partaken the work with him. And in spite
of this he does not consider this work done in service of others as a supplementary
effort deserving praise. No, it is the effort itself which is for him the most
sought after prize. I have seen once a little girl sit very sad before a steaming
dish of soup without even tasting it. Why? Because they had promised to let
her lay the table and then had forgotten about it. And the disillusion was so
great that even the clamour of the body's needs had been silenced. Her little
heart cried louder than her stomach.
In this way that
part of the exterior activity of the child which is aimed towards social purposes
is developed. The child has an aim which he understands very well and which
he can accept with ease. His intelligence seeks for this aim, and we in placing
it within the frame of its environment give to the child the freedom of attaining
it. Certainly his real nature,his real interest, has much deeper roots, and
the child acts as he does, not merely to finish a duty which he has chosen,
but to satisfy this desire for activity and to slacken a thirst which obeys
the laws of development. And exterior aim, simple and clear, is necessary in
order to bring about the satisfaction of this desire. We shall see him wash
his hands God knows how many times,not because they are dirty but because he
is compelled by a need which requires of him the progressive development of
the necessary secondary actions, such as to bring and to pour water, to make
use of the soap and of the towel, etc.. The continued and accurate use of all
these things, how much work does it all entail? To sweep the room, to change
water for the flowers, to place the furniture in the room, to roll the carpets,
to lay the table. All these are reasonable activities which are joined to physical
exercise. Whoever is in life forced to do this manual work and whoever experiences
the fatigue which it causes, he knows how much movement is necessary to accomplish
this series of tasks.
Lately much has been
spoken of the need of physical exercise. Well, here is an exercise and not of
the useless and mechanical kind, but of the type that can be accomplished with
clarity of mind and with a purpose behind it. In spite of this, the exercises
of practical life that the small ones carry out with so much joy, and that surprise
so pleasantly all the visitors of the House of Children, do not as yet represent
the essential part. They are but a beginning, an initiation, and form the least
important side of the child's activity. It is a well-known fact that scientists
give the impression of deep concentration which makes them indifferent to worldly
things. All know the anecdote of Newton who forgets to take his food, of Archimedes
who does not even notice the furious sounds of the battle for the conquest of
Syracuse, and allows himself to be surprised by the enemy intently immersed
in geometrical calculations. Well,it is just this sort of anecdote which shows
the opposite side,the other phase of this deep concentration. The great discoveries
that bring progress for all humanity are not due so much to the culture of the
scientists, or to their knowledge, as to this capacity of complete concentration,
to the power on the part of their intellect to bury itself in the task that
fascinates them, that makes them no longer feel the need of society which they
shun, retiring into their house or into some solitary spot.
When the child finds
a field of accomplishment which corresponds to the intimate needs of its soul,
he will reveal also what else he needs for the development of his existence.
He is seeking, for the moment, his relations with the rest of humanity that
surrounds him, and he is finding them. There are, however, inner exigencies
which, while leading him into his mysterious task, require complete solitude,
the separation from all and from every one. No one can help us to reach the
intimate isolation which makes accessible to us our most hidden world, our deepest
nature, so very mysterious, so very rich and full. If anyone comes to us in
such a moment and interferes, he interrupts and destroys this intimate work
of the soul. This concentration which is obtained by freeing oneself from the
external world must arise in our very soul, and what surrounds us cannot procure
its growth,its order and its peace. The state of complete concentration can
be found only in great men, and even in them it is exceptional. It is the origin
of an inner force, of an inner strength which makes them stand out from among
the others. From this concentration springs forth the faculty that the great
have of influencing the masses with medidated tranquillity and infinite benevolence.
They are men who, after a prolonged separation from the world, feel themselves
capable of solving the great problems of humanity while with infinite patience
they bear the weaknesses and imperfections of their fellows, even if these rise
to the extremity of hate and persecution.
Studying the phenomenon
we see that there is a close link between the manual work which is accomplished
in common life and the profound concentration of the spirit. Although at first
it seems that these two things are opposed, in reality they are deeply united,
because the one is but the source of the other. The life of the spirit prepares
in solitude the strength which is necessary for ordinary life, and, in its turn,
daily life fixes the concentration through orderly work. The wastage of energy
is continually replaced from the sources of the concentration of the spirit.
The man who sees clearly in himself feels the need of an inner life, just as
the body feels the needs of the material life such as hunger and sleep. The
soul which no longer feels its spiritual needs is in the same dangerous position
as the body which is no longer capable of feeling the pangs of hunger or the
need of rest.
But if we find this
concentration and this burying of the soul within itself in the child, it becomes
evident that the phenomenon does not represent an exceptional state of persons
who are especially endowed with spiritual gifts; but it is a universal quality
of the human soul which, on account of circumstances, survives in only a few
people who have reached adult age. Now if we consider in the children these
single glimmers of concentration, a picture is unfolded which is completely
different from the one when we spoke of utilitarian tasks that the children
performed. An object from which no possible usefulness can be derived suddenly
attracts the attention of the child, who begins to fuss around it and move it
in all directions. Often they are but small movements, uniform and almost mechanical.
Often the hand destroys that which it had constructed but a moment before, in
order to start building again. These movements will be repeated so many times
that one is forced to think that here is an activity which is not carried out
with the special enthusiasm we saw to be the characteristic of the Exercises
of Practical Life. It opens a shutter that allows us to glimpse a special phenomenon.
When for the first
time I discovered the existence of this aspect of the character of the children,
I was surprised and I asked myself if I was not in front of an extraordinary
happening; if I was not witnessing a new and marvellous mystery; because I saw
being destroyed before my eyes many of the theories that the most renowned psychologists
had made us believe. I also had believed that the children were incapable of
fixing their attention for a long time upon any task. And here in front of me
was a little girl of three years who, with the evident signs of the most intense
attention, was placing certain wooden cylinders differing in size within cavities
which exactly corresponded to them. She was introducing them with the utmost
care, and when they had all been placed she took them out again, to put them
back immediately. She did it again and again, taking them out, putting them
back, always with the same deep concentration, so that one could not foresee
when this would finish. I began to count. When she had repeated this more than
forty times I went to the piano and started playing, while I asked the other
children to sing. But she, the little one, continued in her useless task without
budging from their table, without lifting her eyes, as if she were completely
abstracted from what surrounded her. Then she suddenly ceased, and smiling and
glad she lifted her limpid eyes. She appeared as though a weight had been lifted
from her shoulders, as if she had undergone a period of rest: she smiled as
children do when they wake from a beneficial sleep. Since then I have observed
this same manifestation hundreds of times.
After any task done
with this type of concentration,they appear always rested and intimately strengthened.
It seems almost that in their soul a path has been opened for the radiant forces
revealing in this fashion the best side of their character. They become then
kind to everybody. They give themselves to do in order to be useful to other
people and they are full of the desire to be good.
THE
KEY TO ALL PEDAGOGY
It has happened sometimes
that one of the children has come near to the teacher, to whisper in her ear
as if revealing a secret: "Teacher, I am good." These observations
have been valorized by others, but they have been specially made use of by me.
I saw a law in what was taking place in those souls, and I understood it; and
this law gave me the vision of the possibility of solving completely the problem
of education. I understood that which the child had revealed. Clear before me
arose the idea that order,mental development, intellectual and sentimental life
must have their origin from this mysterious and hidden fount; and since then
I have done all I could in order to find experimentally objects that would make
this concentration possible. And I studied with great care how to produce that
environment which would include the most favourable external conditions to arouse
this concentration, and it was in this fashion that I began to create my method.
Certainly here is
the key to all pedagogy: to know how to recognize the precious instinct of concentration
in order to make use of it in the teaching of reading, writing and counting
and, later on, of grammar, arithmetic, foreign languages, science, etc. After
all, every psychologist is of the opinion that there is only way of teaching,
that of arousing in the student the deepest interest and at the same time a
constant and vivacious attention. So the whole thing resolves itself in this
, to make use of those intimate and hidden forces of the child for his education.
Is this possible?
Not only is it possible but necessary. Attention, in order to be able to
concentrate itself, needs graded stimuli. In the beginning these will be
objects which are easily recognized by the senses and these will interest the
smaller child- cylinders of different sizes, colours to place in gradation of
intensity, different sounds to be distinguished one from the other, surfaces
differing in degrees of roughness to be recognized only by touch; but later
we shall have the alphabet, the numbers, writing, reading, grammar, drawing,
more difficult arithmetical sums, natural science; and thus at different ages
by different stimuli the culture of the child will be built.
THE
NEW TEACHER
Consequently the
task of the new teacher has become much more delicate than that of the old one,
and much more serious. Upon her rests the responsibility, upon her depends whether
the child will find its way towards culture and towards perfection, or whether
everything will be destroyed. The most difficult thing is to make the teacher
understand that if the child is to progress she must eliminate herself and give
up those prerogatives that hitherto were considered to be the sacred rights
of the teacher. She must clearly understand that she cannot have any immediate
influence either upon the formation or upon the inner discipline of the students,
and that her confidence must be placed and must rest in their hidden and latent
energies. Certainly there is something that compels the teacher to continually
advise the small children, to correct them or encourage them, showing them that
she is superior on account of her experience and her culture. But until she
is able to resign herself, to silence the voice of all vanity, she will not
be able to attain any result. However, if she on one side must refrain from
interfering directly,her indirect action must be assiduous, and she must prepare
the environment with full knowledge of every detail, and she must know how and
where to dispose the didactic material and introduce very carefully the children
to exercise.
It is she who must
be able to distinguish the activity of the child who is seeking the correct
way, from that of him who is on the wrong path. She must be always calm, always
ready to run when she is called to show her love and her sympathy. To be always
ready, this is all that is required. The teacher must consecrate herself to
the formation of a better humanity. As were the vestals to whom it had been
given to keep pure and clean from ashes the sacred fire that others had lit,
so must be the teacher to whose care has been consigned the flame of inner life
in all its purity. If this flame is neglected it will be extinguished, and no
one will be able to light it again.