THE MONTESSORI DEVICES
WHAT THEY ARE AND HOW TO USE THEM IN THE SCHOOL AND HOME
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| © House of Childhood Inc. |
| Dr. Maria Montessori |
| Here is “the only example of an educational system inaugurated by the feminine mind.” |
DR. MARIA MONTESSORI, founder of the Montessori system, began her career in the medical profession. The only daughter of middle class parents, brilliant and ambitious, she was the first woman to obtain a medical degree from the University of Rome. Making a specialty of children's diseases, she became director of an institution for the feeble minded. It was in connection with this work that she first developed her system and became interested in its possibilities as applied to normal children. She resigned from the institution and became a student of philosophy in the University of Rome, specializing in child psychology and visiting primary schools. In January, 1907, she opened in Rome the first Case dei Bambini, or “Children's House.” Her work almost immediately attracted wide attention.
In 1911 Switzerland established the Montessori system in its schools, and E. G. C. Holmes, the chief inspector of the elementary schools of England, as a result of personal investigation, said of Dr. Montessori:
She is great because she has discovered Froebel's master principle for herself, and in so doing has interpreted it anew . . . . In theory Froebel left much to the child's initiative; in practice, comparatively little.
The Montessori system is part of the course of instruction in many leading normal schools in Canada and its importance is widely recognized by educational leaders in the United States where its adoption is being promoted under the auspices of the Montessori Educational Association of Washington, of which Mrs. Alexander Graham Bell is President and Dr. Claxton, U. S. Commissioner of Education, Miss Margaret Woodrow Wilson, John A. Brashear, Chairman of the Educational Fund Commission of Pittsburg, and William E. Davidson, Superintendent of Education of Pittsburgh, members of the Board of Trustees.
THE SYSTEM
Teaching by the Montessori system begins with devices most directly related to the child's daily life—as those for teaching the lacing of shoes and the buttoning of dresses. Thus the occupations of home and school constantly review, supplement and emphasize each other.
Teaching Through the Fingers: One of the first steps is to train the finger tips. For example, the child learns the “feel” of letters made of sand paper and pasted upon cards. In these exercises movements are always from left to right, because of the preparation thus afforded for writing. Stress is laid upon the training of the finger tips because up to the age of six, children see imperfectly and because, up to this age, the brain is best educated through the fingers; hence, in part, their eagerness to help vision by feeling—an instinct which is either a nuisance or an education, in proportion as it is, or is not, applied under the guidance of an adult.
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| © House of Childhood Inc. |
| Children Using Counting and Geometrical Devices |
| The child on the left is placing figure cards over the corresponding number of counting sticks; on the right is fitting geometric insets into corresponding holes. His eyes are closed and he decides which hole the cylinder will fit, solely by sense of touch. |
