The Child under Eight | Page 7

has gone to the very source from which Froebel took his ideas--she has gone to what Froebel indeed called "the only true source, life itself," and she writes from the point of view of the biologist.
There exists at present, in certain quarters, a belief that the Kindergarten is old-fashioned, out of date, more especially that it has no scientific basis. It is partly on this account that the ideas of Dr. Maria Montessori, who has approached the question of the education of young children from the point of view of medical science, have been warmly welcomed by so large a circle. But neither in England nor in America does that circle include the Froebelians, and this for several reasons. For one thing, much that the general public has accepted as new--and in this general public must be included weighty names, men of science, educational authorities, and others who have never troubled to inquire into the meaning of the Kindergarten--are already matters of everyday life to the Froebelian. Among these comes the idea of training to service for the community, and the provision of suitable furniture, little chairs and tables, which the children can move about, and low cupboards for materials, all of which tend to independence and self-control.
It is a more serious stumbling-block to the Froebelian that Dr. Montessori, while advocating freedom in words, has really set strict limits to the natural activities of children by laying so much stress on her "didactic apparatus," the intention of which is formal training in sense-discrimination. This material, which is an adaptation and enlargement of that provided by S��guin for his mentally deficient children, is certainly open to the reproach of having been "devised by adults." It is formal, and the child is not permitted to use it for his own purposes.
Before everything else, however, comes the fact that in no place has Dr. Montessori shown that she has made any study of play, or that she attaches special importance to the play activities, or natural activities of childhood, on which the Kindergarten is founded. This is probably accounted for in that her first observations were made on deficient children who are notably wanting in initiative.
Among these "play activities" we should include the child's perpetual imitation or pretence, a matter which Dr. Montessori entirely fails to understand, as shown in her more recent book, where she treats of imagination. Here she maintains that only the children of the comparatively poor ride upon their fathers' walking-sticks or construct coaches of chairs, that this "is not a proof of imagination but of an unsatisfied desire," and that rich children who own ponies and who drive out in motor-cars "would be astonished to see the delight of children who imagine themselves to be drawn along by stationary armchairs." Imitative play has, of course, nothing to do with poverty or riches, but is, as Froebel said long since, the outcome of an initiative impulse, sadly wanting in deficient children, an impulse which prompts the child of all lands, of all time and of all classes to imitate or dramatise, and so to gain some understanding of everything and of every person he sees around.
The work of Dr. Montessori has helped enormously in the movement, begun long since, for greater freedom in our Infant Schools; freedom, not from judicious guidance and authority, but from rigid time-tables and formal lessons, and from arbitrary restrictions, as well as freedom for the individual as apart from the class. The best Kindergartens and Infant Schools had already discarded time-tables, and Kindergarten classes have always been small enough to give the individual a fair chance. Froebel himself constantly urged that the child should become familiar with "both the strongly opposed elements of his life, the individual determining and directing side, and the general ordered and subordinated side." He urged the early development of the social consciousness as well as insisting on expansion of individuality, but it is always difficult to combine the two, and most Kindergarten teachers will benefit by learning from Dr. Montessori to apply the method of individual learning to a greater extent.
We are, however, fully prepared to maintain that Froebel; even in 1840, had a wider and a deeper realisation of the needs of the child than has as yet been attained by the Dottoressa.[6] In order to make this clear, it is proposed to compare the theories of Froebel with the conclusions of a biologist. For biology has a wider and a saner outlook than medical science; it does not start from the abnormal, but with life under normal conditions.
[Footnote 6: Her latest publication regarding the instruction--for it is not education--of older children makes this even more plain. For here is no discussion of what children at this stage require, but a mere plunge into "subjects" in which formal