The Montessori Elementary Material / The Advanced Montessori Method

2d stage

When these fundamental notions have been acquired the child is ready for the more difficult problems of anacrusis, catalexis, irregular feet and irregular pauses, which he can recognize in almost any poem of considerable length by comparing the transcription of a given foot with specimen transcriptions of regular lines, which are always accessible to him.

APPENDICES

APPENDIX I

Copies of this Chart (pages 409-422) will be supplied, in convenient form, by the publishers, Frederick A. Stokes Company, 443-449. Fourth Avenue, New York, at 20 cents for the set. Diary pads are 10 cents additional.

GUIDE FOR PSYCHOLOGICAL OBSERVATION

WORK.

When a child begins to show constant application to a piece of work.

What this work is and how long he remains at it (speed or slowness he shows in completing it, the number of times he repeats the same exercise).

CONDUCT.

OBEDIENCE.

ETHICAL EXAMINATION
QUESTIONNAIRE FOR MORAL HISTORY
Criteria of Praise and Pride in the Family

What is commended in the family, e.g., devoutness, patriotism, or their opposites, affectionateness, honesty, modest, neatness, generosity, kindness, independence, etc. The social relationships between husband and wife (rights, privileges, or equality). Special distinctions of family members (public honors, acts of courage, etc.).

Criteria of Blame and Excuse in the Family

What complaints are made in the home against members of the family, e.g., drinking, lack of affectionateness, gambling, irreligion, disorderliness, lawlessness, extravagance, laziness, etc.

Educational Criteria in the Family

What concept do the parents have of education? e.g., severity gentleness, rewards, punishments, understanding of children, the freedom accorded the children, etc.

Mother's Opinion of Her Children

What care is taken of the child and what rights are recognized by the family as belonging to him.

APPENDIX II

SUMMARY OF THE LECTURES ON PEDAGOGY DELIVERED IN HOME AT THE SCUOLA MAGISTRALE ORTOFRENICA IN 1900

This appendix contains a summary of a few of my lectures delivered in 1900 in the Scuola Magistrate Ortofrenica in Rome and published in pamphlet form for the benefit of the teacher-students who were attending that course. A number of distinguished physicians were at the same time lecturing in the school on various subjects—such as Psychology, Esthesiology, Anatomy of the Nerve Centres, etc. I had reserved for myself the teaching, or rather the development, of a special pedagogy for defective children, along the lines previously laid down by Itard and Séguin.

In the summary of these old lectures of mine are included some of my experiments with certain subjects taught in the elementary grades. They show that the origin of my present work with older children is to be sought in my teaching of defectives.

I still possess, as documentary relics of this course, a hundred copies of a pamphlet entitled: Riassunte delle lezioni di didattica della Prof^ssa Montessori, anno 1900, Stab. Lit. Romano, via Frattina 62, Roma. More than three hundred teachers followed my course, and are able to bear witness to the work done there.

I republish the following excerpts not because I consider my work so important as to merit the preservation of all the documents touching on its origin, but to prevent the giving of undue prominence to those remnants of my earlier attempts and studies which are still to be found in the Scuola Magistrale Ortofrenica in Rome.

"The child should be led from the education of the muscular system to that of the nervous end sensory systems; from the education of the senses to concepts; from concepts to general ideas; from general ideas to morality. This is the educational method of Séguin."

However, before we begin education, we must prepare the child to receive it by another education which is to-day regarded as of the very first importance. This preparatory education is the foundation on which all subsequent education must be based, and the success we obtain in it will determine the success of our subsequent efforts. by preparatory education I here mean hygienic education, which in defective children sometimes includes medical treatment. That is why the educational method for defectives is sometimes described as medico-pedagogical.

Those who realize that importance of feeling and internal sensation in education will understand that the bodily organism must function properly in order to respond to our educational efforts. We must preserve good health where good health exists: we must restore it where it is lacking.

We are therefore under strict obligation to pay close attention to nutrition and to the condition of the vital organs. Every one is aware of the close relation existing between general sensibility and morality. Criminals and prostitutes show very scant sensitiveness to pain and to tactile stimuli. The same situation is frequently apparent in defectives; hence the necessity of restoring the tactile sense with adequate attention to hygiene.

We cannot educate the muscles to perform a given coordinate movement if they have lost their power of functioning (as in paresis, etc.). Education, properly so-called, must be preceded by a medical treatment to restore the muscles, if possible, to good health.

It will be impossible to educate, for example, the sense of hearing, if some pathological situation has produced partial deafness. We cannot educate the sense of smell if the excessive excretion of mucus prevents external stimuli from acting on the ends of the sensory nerves. Obviously, we need a medical treatment to remove these diseased conditions.

MEDICAL EDUCATION

General baths: When not too prolonged they develop the sensibility of the nervous papillæ. They give tone to the cellular and muscular tissues, especially to the skin.

Hot and cold baths given alternately are a powerful educational instrument in attracting the attention of a child to his external environment.

Local hot baths may be given to areas deficient in sensibility. For instance, try bathing the hands if tactile education proves impossible, or bathe the feet if the defect in standing upright or in walking comes from the insensitiveness of the soles.

Local cold baths: Given to the head while the patient is entirely covered in warm water are a tonic to the scalp; they facilitate the knitting of the bones of the skull and the formation of wormian bones, preventing also cerebral congestion. They stimulate and regularize the cerebral circulation. Such baths are particularly useful for hydro-cephalics and micro-cephalics, but all patients are benefited by such baths, which are the most generally useful of all.

Steam baths develop perspiration which at times is completely absent or partial in defectives, causing serious physical disturbances. These baths, furthermore, predispose the nerve ends to the most intense sensitiveness.

Such baths are, however, not to be used on epileptics or on children suffering from rickets, weak circulation or general debility.

In general, local steam baths are used especially for hands and feet, and also for the tongue.

General cold baths are used in cases of super-excitation, motor-hyperactivity, excessive sensitiveness to pain and touch. These baths must be accompanied by constant cold lotions on the head.

Baths may be accompanied, with good results, by massage and rubbing.

Rubbings may be given dry or with water, alcohol, aromatic creams or ointments.

Local rubbings may be applied: (a) To the spine, carefully avoiding the lumbar region so as not to excite the sexual sensibilities. Dry rubbings should be made with a piece of flannel and continued until the skin reddens. They are especially useful after hot baths followed by cold douches. (b) To the chest to stimulate respiration. (c) To the abdomen to correct various internal disorders (here, however, massage is more efficacious). (d) To the joints (rubbings with aromatic creams and with alcohol are very effective).

A brief rubbing with alcohol or creams can be followed with good effect by massage in the case of abdomen and joints. Massage on the abdomen stimulates circulation in the intestines and intensifies and regularizes the movements of the muscular walls.

Massage has a surprising effect on the muscles of the joints; it shocks the muscular fibers in their innermost parts and sets them in motion; it regularizes the functioning of the muscles by reducing excessive contraction and restoring deficient contractibility. Emaciated muscles are regenerated, the muscular bulk is vigorously augmented, while the fat tissues are absorbed.

The repetition several times a day of bathing, rubbing and massage has produced real miracles of physical regeneration.

FEEDING

Intestinal disturbances have a direct influence on the functional power of the central nervous system. They merit, therefore, special consideration. For in defectives an intestinal inflammation may produce symptoms of meningitis, and a disorder in digestion even unattended by fever may occasionally give rise to convulsions.

The hygiene of feeding which is almost the same as that for normal children must therefore be rigorously observed.

The general rule is list the children should have regular meals and be allowed nothing whatever to eat between meals. It is commonly believed that a piece of candy or a bit of fruit given between meals has no bad effect. This is a common error of many mothers, who by allowing such slight irregularities in diet, become the unwitting cause of serious illnesses in their children. When we say that children should be fed at mealtimes, we mean that nothing should be given them except at meal times; nothing, not even the most innocent confection; not a crumb of bread, not a drop of milk. This severity has the quantity and quality of food allowed in each.

Number: For children between 2 and 7 years: 4 meals a day; for children between 8 and 14 years: 3 meals a day. These meals should be at regular hours, and followed without exception by a period of mental rest, which must be provided for in making up the daily program of lessons.

We need special researches as to what type of activity may be allowed children during digestion and what organs may be active without damage to the child while the stomach is taxed with the labor of digestion. A few things are clear. The children should be sent out of closed rooms where their play raises more or less dust, and kept in well-ventilated places, if possible, in a garden or in a woods well supplied with aromatic trees. The best thing a child can do immediately after a meal is to take a short walk in the open air without much exertion.

Quantity: In the case of children between 2 and 7 years of age, there should be two full meals and two luncheons. After the age of 7 there should be one lunch and two full meals. We cannot be more specific.

Quality: In the case of defectives it would be useful for the doctor to order a diet day by day after having examined the diaries of the nurses as is done in hospitals. For it may be possible to introduce into the food elements which constitute an actual cure for certain diseased conditions and preventives of certain kinds of attacks. In food we should realize the distinctions between the elements which build tissues—true food substances, and others whose function is purely stimulatory—alcohol, coffee, tea, etc., which should be used only occasionally.

Among the food substances properly so-called are the albuminoids (proteins), fats, and carbo-hydrates (sugars, starches, wheat and potato flours, etc.). The fats are the least digestible foods, but they produce the greatest number of calories.

The proportion of the different elements in the food should be determined by the amount of albumin, which constitutes the real food element. Albumin is of both vegetable and animal origin. Its animal forms are more nutritious, more easily digestible, and products more calories than the vegetable forms. The foods which produce animal-albumin are milk, eggs, and meats. Vegetables themselves furnish what is known as vegetable-albumin. Children up to 8 years of age are supplied usually with the following albuminous foods: eggs, milk and vegetables. For children between 6 and 8: eggs, milk, fish and vegetables may be provided. Older children may be given chicken, veal, and finally beef.

Though for normal children a restricted meat diet is desirable, in the case of defectives a rich supply of meat as well as of albuminoids in general is to be sought. Their treatment resembles that of weak convalescent patients whose strength is to be restored. The meats best adapted to such children are those containing large amounts of mucilaginous substances and sugar (veal, lamb and young animals in general). Vegetable purées, fat gravies, butter, etc., are to be recommended in these cases.

For nervous children, fats, oils, acids, and flours should be avoided.

For apathetic children, who experience difficulty in digestion, tonics and rich seasonings should be used, such as spices, which have come to be almost excluded from ordinary cooking, especially for children. Spices may well be restored to the diet of institutions for defectives, since they have the additional advantage of permitting mixture with irons, of which they neutralize the taste.

Questions of food depend largely upon the individual condition of the children. The important thing is to avoid "the school ration." This is all the more true of beverages.

Beverages: While stimulants are usually to be excluded from the diet of normal children of 7 or under, it is often desirable to introduce tea, coffee, etc., into the meals of defectives. This should be done, however, only in the daily diets ordered by the physician for individuals.

Nervous children should be restricted to milk and water for their meals with some moderately sweet drink (orange juice, weak lemonade, etc.) after eating.

Apathetics, showing atonic digestion, may have coffee either before eating or during their meals.

Special education is necessary to accustom the children to complete mastication. Such practice in the use of the organs of mastication assists also in the later development of speech.

EXCRETION

Among the physiological irregularities that appear among children special importance attaches to excretions.

Defecation: Among defectives especially, so-called "dirty children" are often so numerous that special sections have to be made for them in institutions. Such children show involuntary losses of fæces and urine, as in the case of infants. Most frequently the defecations are of liquid consistency though sometimes the reverse is true. Our remedial effort should be in two directions: we should try to regularize the operation of the intestines by giving solidity to the excretions; secondly, we should endeavor to strengthen the sphincter muscles.

A strict observance of the diet hygiene outlined above, especially as concerns regularity of meals and mastication of food, will assist in the attainment of the first object. We should try in addition to regularize defecation by stimulating it at regular intervals (to be gradually increased in length) through light massages and hot rubbings on the abdomen.

To strengthen the sphincters general tonics (iron, strychnine), and local tonics (such as cold "sitz-baths," cold showers and electric baths) may be used. Suppositories may also be used to advantage in stimulating sphincter contractions and accustoming the muscles to constrictive action.

Urine: some defectives show involuntary loss of urine, especially at night, up to very advanced ages. Epileptics are particularly predisposed to this. The treatment is analogous to that just described. Beverages should be carefully supervised. Diuretics and excessive drinking in general should be avoided.

General recommendations: Local baths, and rigorous cleanliness to avoid any stimulus to onanism.

Education can do much in the treatment of this situation. Urination should be regularly suggested to the child before he goes to bed and when he wakes in the morning. In special cases it might be well to waken the child once or twice during the night for the same purpose. This defect is often associated in a child with some abnormality in the phenomena of perspiration.

Perspiration: The sweat has almost the same composition as urine, and perspiration is a process supplementary to the action of the kidneys. It has been observed that often in defective children perspiration is either entirely lacking or limited to certain areas (the palms of the hands, the nose, etc.). It is absolutely necessary to stimulate and regularize perspiration over the whole surface of the body. This may be done by hot and steam baths, by dry rubs with flannels (long sustained if necessary), by woolen garments constantly worn next to the skin, and other similar mechanical devices. We must, however, absolutely avoid the use of special diaphoretic drugs, which often bring about a fatal weakening of the organs of perspiration. The treatments we have suggested above are, first of all, harmless, but besides they contribute to the general toning and sensitizing of the skin.

Nasal mucus and tears: Tears are often lacking in defectives. On the other hand nasal excretion is very abundant and replaces the tears, which are often so rare that some children reach a relatively advanced age without having wept. In such cases there is a predisposition to certain diseases of the eyes; and excessive nasal excretion prevents the functioning of the olfactory organs.

For this we recommend inhaling of hot vapors and of fragrant irritants, which correct the excessive excretion of mucus and exercise the olfactory sense. Usually the regular secretion of tears follows as a matter of course.

Saliva: One of the most unpleasant abnormalities in defectives is the continuous loss of saliva from "hanging lips." But the effects are not only unesthetic. The continuous over-excretion of saliva makes the inner organs of the mouth flabby and swollen. The tongue and the organs of speech in general gradually lose their contractive power, and articulation is ultimately rendered impossible. Taste and tactile ability often disappear altogether. Mastication becomes difficult and deglutition irregular. The secondary effects on the digestive organs are bad. We possess a variety of efficient curatives and educational treatments for this defect: first, general tonics; second, local cold douches on the lip muscles, electric massage of the lips; third, the use of licorice sticks, large at first but gradually reducing in diameter, to be introduced between the lips to stimulate the sucking activity and the exercise of the contractive muscles. This will ultimately give the necessary muscular tone. The lips of the child should be closed mechanically from time to time to force him to swallow the saliva and to create the habit of deglutition.

CLOTHING AND ENVIRONMENT

The principles of hygiene must be extended to the dress of the child and to the environment in which it lives.

Clothing: The child's clothes should be so made as to be easily put on and off. They should not hinder normal functioning of the body (breathing). They should afford no opportunity for dangerous vices (onanism). If the child can dress and undress without difficulty, it will learn the more readily to look after itself even in those little necessities of daily life where partial undressing is necessary. Special attention should be given to stockings, which affect the development of sensitiveness in the soles of the feet and also concern the process of learning to walk.

Environment: Just a few reminders: for defectives perfect ventilation of course; but the walls and furniture should be upholstered in the case of impulsive defectives or of defectives who do not know how to walk. There is danger in furniture with sharp projections and in toys which may be thrown about. A "child's room," the luxury of which consists in it hygienic location, its elastic walls, and its very emptiness, is the best gift a rich family can make to the education of a defective child.

MUSCULAR EDUCATION

Muscular education has for its object the bringing of the individual to some labor useful for society. This labor must always be executed by means of the muscles, whether it be manual labor, speaking or writing. In a word, the intelligence must subject the muscles to its own purposes and, that the muscles may be equipped for such obedience, it is necessary to prepare them by some education which will reduce them to coordination. Muscular education in defectives accordingly has for its object the stimulation and coordination of useful movements.

It prepares: for exercise; for the activities of domestic service (washing, dressing, preparing food, setting and clearing the table, etc.); for manual labor (trades); for language (use of the vocal organs). The preparation consists in bringing the child to tonic quiescence in standing posture. The child must learn first to stand still with head erect and with his eyes fixed on the eyes of the teacher. From this position of tonic quiescence we must pass to exercises in imitation. We obtain tonic quiescence by a variety of procedures, the variation depending upon individual cases. We must stimulate the apathetic and the sluggish; we must moderate the hyperactive; we must correct paresis, tics, etc. In other words, medical education must precede pedagogy itself. It may be a question of applying medical gymnastics both for active and passive movements, alternating this treatment with massage, electric baths, etc.

Let us note one or two motor abnormalities which are easy to detect in defectives. Atony: the child does not move; he cannot stand; he cannot sit upright nor execute any movement whatever. Hyperactivity: this is characterized by almost constant incoordinated or disorganized movements which have no useful purpose, e.g., jumping, beating, tearing up of objects within reach and so on. Such patients are dangerous to themselves and to others.

MECHANICAL MOVEMENTS

(A).—Movements executed upon the person of the child: sucking of the fingers; biting of the nails; constant stroking of some part of the body. These movements are caused by imperfectly developed sensibility; the children stroke or caress, for example, that area of the skin which possesses greatest tactile sensitiveness, etc.

(B).—Movements executed upon surrounding objects: rapping on tables; constant and careful tearing of pieces of paper into small bits, etc. This too is associated with some sensory pleasure on the part of the patient.

Rocking: (a) with patient reclining: the head is nodded from left to right, from right to left; (b) with patient sitting: the trunk is rocked backward and forward; (c) with patient standing: the whole bod; rocks from left to right, the whole weight resting now on one foot and now on the other. Difficulty and hesitation are experienced in walking. These motory defects proceed from the difficulty experienced by the child in finding his center of gravity, his equilibrium.

Inability to perform local movements: (a) Inability to move certain of the fingers, the tongue, the lips, etc. From such defects arises the impossibility of performing certain simple manual exercises (bringing the finger tips of the two hands together; taking hold of objects, e.g., inability to button, etc.) and the inability to pronounce certain words; (b) Inability to contract the lip and sphincter muscles (loss of saliva, involuntary defecation).

Atony and hyperactivity may be overcome by appropriate educational remedies which we will now discuss. Local agitations disappear with the general education of the senses; while rocking is cured by exercises in balancing.

(A).—Stimulate active movements in the atonic child until he is able to stand erect in tonic quiescence.

Begin by stimulating the simple movements, gradually working up to the most complicated. We have a sure guide for this education in the spontaneous developments of movements in the normal child: he begins with the easiest spontaneous movements and gradually arrives at the harder ones.

The first movement which develops in the child is the prehensile act (grasping). Next comes the movements of the lower joints used in creeping and walking; next the ability to stand; and finally the ability to walk alone. Grasping: if no external stimulation is capable of interesting the defective of low type, grasping cannot be stimulated merely by presenting to the child some object or other which might seem to be interesting for color taste or some other quality. In such a case we must have recourse to the instinct of self-preservation, to that innate fear of void which defectives almost always have. The child feeling himself fall will instinctively grasp at some support within his reach. This is the simplest point of departure for our possible development of the grasping faculty in the defective child.

Method: The hands of the child am mechanically fixed around the rung of a ladder suspended to the ceiling. Then the child in left to himself. Since his fingers are already around the support he needs only to clench his hands to find support. He may not succeed even in this simple act the first time. The teacher must patiently repeat the exercise, always being ready, of course, to catch the child if he should fall. In this exercise the defective is very much alarmed as a rule and all his muscles are as a result more or less stimulated.

Likewise based on the instinct of self-preservation is the swing, where the defective must cling to some support with his hands to keep from falling.

Finally a ball is hung from the ceiling and swung in such a way as continually to strike the child in the face. To protect himself he must keep it away by seizing it.

In still lower types we must have recourse to the instinct for nutrition which exists even in such children.

Standing: Under this heading we include also the movements which precede the actual attainment of the standing posture. To overcome the sinking of the knees, which impedes standing, the swinging chair may be used. The seat must reach nearly to the child's feet and the knees are tied to the seat. The child's foot, as he swings, strike against a board. This exercise prepares the lower joints to hold themselves in position when resting on a plane surface. Next the child is placed on parallel bars. The bars pass under the arm-pits and support the child while his feet rest on the floor. In these exercises we try to stimulate the movements which appear in walking (exercises of the lower joints). Next we exercise the muscles which support the spinal column. The child is made to sit down: first the spine in upright against the back of the chair; finally it remains upright when the support is removed. Little by little walking can be produced if the child is taken away from the bars and supported with a simple gymnastic belt. The exercise is continued until he can be left entirely without support.

When the child has learned to walk we can command him to stop in the position of tonic quiescence.

(B).—Moderation of hyperactivity by forced quiescence.

In hyperactive children the arms must first be restrained by holding them tight in our hands. The movements of the lower limbs may be checked by holding the child's legs tight between our knees. Finally the child may be kept entirely quiescent with his legs held between the teacher's knees, his arms in the teacher's hands, with the trunk pushed back and held firmly against the wall. By a similar process he can be kept quiet while standing; then later in a position of tonic quiescence.

General Rule: Exercises of the limbs beginning with the arms should precede those specifically directed toward the spinal column. Séguin says "tonic quiescence is necessarily the first step from atonic quiescence; or if you wish, from a disordered activity to an activity which represents harmony between the muscular system and the mind."

We noted above that the posture of tonic quiescence involves a fixity of gaze on the part of the child. This is the point of departure for the development of coordinative movements and imitation of what the child sees the teacher do.

EDUCATION OF THE FIXED GAZE

If the child is kept in the dark for some time and is suddenly shown a bright light he will experience the sensation of red.

Keeping the child in a dark room for a shorter time a sudden light will attract his gaze.

Move the light along the wall until the child's gaze follows it.

Next, in a light room, the child is shown a red cloth kept in motion; a red balloon hung from the ceiling keeps striking him in the face.

After these preparatory exercises the teacher can try to get the child to fix its eyes on his own and to maintain the fixed gaze. Here use may be made also of the sense of hearing (words of command, encouragement, etc.).

Finally to obtain complete fixity of gaze, one may use the large mirror, before which lights may be passed. There the child can gaze at his own face and at the face of the teacher, which will be kept motionless and which the child may come to imitate.

Exercises of imitation: (1) The child is taught to become acquainted with himself. The various parts of his body are pointed out to him and he is made to touch them. This continues up to the point of distinguishing right from left. Begin with the larger members of the body (arms, legs, trunk, head) to be named in connection with movements of the whole body. Then pass to the smaller members (the fingers, knuckles, the organs of the mouth), to be referred to respectively in the education of the hand and in the teaching of speech.

(2) The child is taught coordinative movements relating to gymnastics (walking, running, jumping, pushing, etc.).

(3) Movements relating: (a) to the simpler forms of manual labor (exercises of practical life: washing, dressing, picking up and laying down various objects, opening and closing drawers); (b) to more complex kinds of manual labor (elements of various trades; weaving, Froebel exercises, etc.).

(4) Movements relating to articulate language. For this educational process the following general rules are to be followed: first, movements of the whole body must precede movements of specific parts; second, only by analyzing complex movements in their successive stages and by working out their details point by point can we arrive at the execution of a perfect complex movement.

This latter rule applies especially to manual education and the teaching of language. When movements of the whole body have been obtained it will often be necessary, before going on to movements of particular members, to alternate the educational cure with the medical: (1) to overcome the weakness of some of the muscles (perhaps of some finger), use local electric baths, passive gymnastics, etc.; (2) for retractions, retarded development of aponeurosis of the palms, etc., use orthopedic treatment.

Gymnastics, manual labor, trades and speaking are special branches of teaching, that usually require specially trained teachers.

EDUCATION OF THE SENSES

Outline for examination.

Sight: Sense of color. It is necessary to call the attention of the child several times to the same color by presenting it to him under different aspects and in different environments. The stimulus should be strong. Other senses tend to associate themselves with the chromatic sense, for example, the stereognostic and gustatory senses. Whenever the teacher gives an idea she should unite with it the word, the only word which is related to the idea. The words should be emphatically and distinctly pronounced.

(1) Pedagogical aprons: The colors are presented on a large moving surface, as for instance, an apron worn by the teacher; e.g., a red apron. The teacher points to it, touches it, lifting it with noticeable movements of the arms, continually calls the attention of the child to it. "Look! See here! Attention!" and so on; then saying in a low voice and slowly, "This is (and then in a louder voice), red, red, red!!!" Now take two aprons, one red, the other blue; repeat the same process for the blue. There are three stages in the process of distinguishing between colors: (a) "This is ... red!" (b) "Your apron is red!" (c) "What color is this?" Then try three aprons, red, blue, and yellow, bordered with white and black.

(2) Insets—color and form. The red circle, the blue square. There are three stages: (a) "This is red, red, red! Touch it! Do you feel? Your finger goes all the way around, all the way around. It is round, it is round, all round. Put it in its place!" (b) "Give me the red one!" (c) "What color is this circle?"

(3) The dark room. A Bengal red color is shown: "It is red!" The color appears behind a circular disc: "It is red!" The blue is shown behind a square window: "It is blue, blue, blue," etc.

(4) The child is given a circular tablet of red sugar to eat and a square lump of blue sugar. He is made to smell a red piece of cloth strongly scented with musk; or a blue piece of cloth scented with asafetida, etc.

(5) The color chart.

(6) The first game of Froebel.

The first pedagogical material given should contain the color already taught. The notion of color should be associated with its original environment.

Shapes: Solids, Insets: The procedure is always in the three stages mentioned. (1) Show the object to the child. (2) Have him recognize it. (3) Have him give it its name.

Dimensions: Rods of the same thickness, but of graduated length. First the longest and the shortest are shown. The child is made to touch them and interchange them "Pick up the longest!" "Place it on the table!" etc. Repeat this exercise, adding some intermediate lengths; again finally, with all the rods. Next the rods may be disarranged; the child is to put them back in order of length. Notice whether the child makes an accurate choice in the confused pile of the graduated dimensions; or whether it is only by placing two rods together that he comes to notice the difference between them. Notice how long it is before the child makes an accurate choice in the pile and of what degrees of difference in length he is accurately aware.

Try the same exercise for thickness: prisms of equal length, but of graduated thickness, using the same procedure in analogous exercises. Games may be used for the estimation of distances.

The tactile sense proper: One board with a corrugated surface (like a grater) and one smooth. Another board with five adjacent surfaces of graduated roughness. Similar exercises may be used in the feeling of cloths (guessing games).

Games: The child is blindfolded and lightly tickled. He must seize what is tickling him, putting his hand rapidly to the irritant. ("Fly catching," a game for the localization of stimulants.)

Liquids		Astringents
		Glues
		Oils

Tactile muscular sense:

Elastic bodies		Balls		Rubber
Non-resilient bodies				Wooden

Use skins, leather gloves, and various kinds of cloths for feeling.

The muscular sense: Balls of the same appearance, but of graduated weights. Differentiation of coins by weight.

The stereognostic sense: Recognition of elementary forms, of rare objects, of coins.

Thermal senses: Hot liquids, iced liquids; relative warmth of linen and wool, wood, wax, metal.

Olfactory sense: Asafetida, oil of rose, mint, etc.,

Odors of		Tobacco smoke
		Burned sugar
		Incense
		Burned maple

 

Odors of burning   substances		Wood		Various applications to    practical life.
		Straw
		Paper
Guessing games		Wool
		Cotton
		Edibles

Odors of foods (practical life): fresh milk, sour milk, fresh meat, stale meat, rancid butter, fresh butter, etc.

Taste: The four fundamental tastes (guessing games). Instructive applications to practise in the kitchen and at meals.

Tastes of various food substances:

Exercises of practical life		milk gruel (milk and flour);
		diluted wine;
		sweet wine;
		turned wine (vinegar), etc.

The practise of the senses begins in the lower classes in the form of guessing games; in the higher classes the education of the senses is applied to exercises of practical life.

Hearing: Empirical measurement of the acuteness of the sense of hearing. Specimen game: the teacher about 35 feet away from the blindfolded children and standing where an object has been hidden, whispers the words "Find it!" Those who have heard her will be able to find the object. Having removed from the line the children who have heard, the teacher steps to another place about a yard nearer and repeats the experiment to the children who are left over, etc.

 

Intensity of sound:

Throw to the floor metal blocks of various sizes, coins of graduated weight.
Strike glasses one after the other according to size.
Bells of graduated size.

 

Quality of sound: Produce different sounds and noises.

Bells		of metal
		of terracotta

Open Bells.
Closed Bells.
Strike with a wooden stick on tin plates, glasses, etc.
Identify various musical instruments.
Identify different human voices (of different people).
Identify the voice of a man, a woman, a child.
Recognize different people by their step, etc., etc.

Pitch: Intervals of an octave, of a major triad, and so on; major and minor chords. However, musical education requires a separate chapter.

Sound projection, localization of sound in space: The child is blindfolded. The sound is produced; (1) in front of him; behind him; to the right; to the left; above his head; (2) the blindfolded child recognizes the relative distance at which the sounds are produced; (3) the child decides from which side of the room the sounds come; he is made to follow some one who is speaking.

The horizontal plane: This is the first notion imparted to the child concerning his relationship to the objects about him. Almost all the objects the child may perceive around him with his senses rest on the horizontal plane: his table, his chair, and so on. The very objects on which the child sits or puts his toys are horizontal planes. If the plane were not horizontal, the objects would fall, but they would strike on the floor which, again, is a horizontal plane. Place an object on the child's table and tip one end of the table to show him that the object falls.

Guessing game for the plane surface: This game serves to fix the notion of the plane surface and at the same time trains the eye and the attention of the child.

1. Under one of three aluminum cups is placed a small red ball, a cherry or a piece of candy. The child must remember under which cup the object is hidden. The teacher tries herself and fails, always raising the empty cups and returning them to their places. The child, however, finds the object immediately.

2. The teacher now begins to move the three cups about on the plane surface. The child has to keep his eye on his cup and never loses sight of it.

3. Repeat this exercise with six cups.

Checkerboard game: This serves to teach the child the limits and the various divisions of a plane. The squares are large and in black and white. The whole board should be surrounded by a border in relief. Various points are indicated on the plane: forward, backward, right, left, center, by placing a tin soldier at each point indicated. The soldiers may be moved about by the child in obedience to directions of the teacher: "The officer on horseback to the center": "Standard-bearer to the right, etc.!" Finally, make all the soldiers advance toward the center of the board over the black squares only; then over the white squares only, etc.

These notions may be applied to exercises of practical life. The children already know how to set the table without thinking of what they are doing. From now on, the teacher may say: "Put the plates on the plane surface of the tables!" "Put the bottle to the left! In the center!" etc. Have a small table set with little dishes, having the objects arranged in obedience to commands of the teacher. After this, we may proceed to the Froebel games on the plane surface with the cubes, blocks, and so on.

Inset game as a preparation for reading, drawing, and writing: After the child knows the different colors and shapes in the inset, the color tablets of the big inset can be put in place: (1) on a piece of cardboard where the figures have been drawn in shading in the respective colors; (2) on a cardboard where the same figures have been drawn merely in colored outline (linear abstraction of a regular figure).

Inset of shapes where the pieces are all of the same color (blue): The child recognizes the shape and puts the pieces in place: (1) on a cardboard where the figure is shaded; (2) on a cardboard where the figure is merely outlined (linear abstraction of regular geometrical figures). Meanwhile, the child has been touching the pieces: "The tablet is smooth. It turns round and round and round. It is a circle. Here we have a square. You go this way and there is a point; this way, and there is another point, and another, and another; there are four points! In the triangle there are three points!" Then the child follows with his finger the figures outlined on the cardboard. "This one is entirely round: it is a circle! This one has four points: it is a square! This one has three points: it is a triangle!" The child runs over the same figures with a small rod of wood (skewer), etc.

SIMULTANEOUS READING AND WRITING

At this point, we may bring in the chart with the vowels, painted red. The child sees "irregular figures outlined in color." Give the child the vowels made of red wood. He is to place them on the corresponding figures of the chart. He is made to touch the wooden vowels, running his finger around them in the way they are written. They are called by their names. The vowels are arranged according to similarity in shape (reading):

o e a
i u

Then the child is commanded: "Show me the letter o! Put it in its place!" Then he is asked: "What letter is this?" It will be found at this point that many children make a mistake, if they merely look at the letter, but guess rightly when they touch it. It is possible accordingly to distinguish the various individual types, visual, motory, etc.

Next the child is made to touch the letter outlined on the chart, first with his forefinger only, then with the fore and middle fingers, finally with a little wooden skewer to be held like a pen. The letter must always be followed around in the way it is written.

The consonants are drawn in blue and arranged on various charts, according to similarity in shape (reading, writing). The movable alphabet in blue wood is added to this. The letters are to be superimposed on the chart as was done for the vowels. Along with the alphabet we have another series of charts, where, beside the consonant identical with the wooden letter there are painted one or more figures of objects, the names of which begin with the letter in question. Beside the long-hand letter, there is also painted in the same color a smaller letter in print type. The teacher, naming the consonants in the phonic method, points to the letter, then to the chart, pronouncing the name of the objects which are painted there, and stressing the first letter: e.g., "m ... man ... m: Give me M!" "Put it where it belongs!" "Follow around it with your finger!" Here the linguistic defects of the children may be studied.

The tracing of the letters in the way they are written begins the muscular education preparatory to writing. One of our little girls of the motory type when taught by this method reproduced all the letters in pen and ink long before she could identify them. Her letters were about eight millimetres high and were written with surprising regularity. This same child was generally successful in her manual work.

The child, in looking at the letters, identifying them, and tracing them in the way they are written, is preparing himself both for reading and writing at the same time. The two processes are exactly contemporaneous. Touching them and looking at them brings several senses to bear on the fixing of the image. Later the two acts are separated: first looking (reading), then touching (writing). According to their respective type, some children learn to read first, others to write first.

Reading: As soon as the child has learned to identify the letters and also to write them, he is made to pronounce them. Then the alphabet is arranged in phonetic order. This order is to be varied according to individual defects made apparent while the child is pronouncing spontaneously the sounds of the consonants or vowels, or the words illustrating the consonants on the charts. We begin by showing the child and having him pronounce, first, syllables and, then, words which contain the letters he is able to pronounce well. Then we go on to the sounds he has trouble with, finally to those he cannot pronounce at all (linguistic correction). The phonomimic correction of speech requires special discussion. In primary schools speech correction should be in the hands of a specially trained teacher, like gymnastics, manual training and singing. Should no defects in speech appear in the child, the letters of the alphabet should be taught in the order of physiological phonetics.

Beside the big long-hand letters should be placed the small letters in print type. The letter is taught; then recognition is prompted by asking as each large letter is reached: "I want the little one like it." The two types of letter appear also on the illustrated charts. Next the printed letter is shown, with the request: "Give me the big letter that goes with it." Finally: "What letter is it?" The little letters are not "touched," because they are never to be written.

DRAWING AND WRITING

The child is given a sheet on which appear a circle and a square in outline. The circle is filled in with a red pencil, the square with blue (insets). Smaller and smaller circles are next given, also circles and triangles. They are variously disposed on the page. They are to be filled in with colored pencils. Then comes the tracing. The black lines are followed around with colored pencils: the circle, the triangle, the square. This comes easily to the child who has been taught to trace with the wooden skewer the figures outlined on the inset-charts. Writing follows immediately on the exercises in tracing with the skewer on the charts of the written alphabet. Some help can be given the child by having him darken with a black pencil the letter written on the copy book by the teacher. As the child writes, his attention should be directed to the fact that he is writing on a limited plane surface; that he begins at the top, moving from left to right and little by little coming down the page.

Séguin's method began with shafts and curves. His copybooks for the shafts were prepared as follows: the shaft to be executed by the child was delimited by two points, connected by a very light line. In the margin of the pages appear two shafts to be executed by the teacher. Similarly for the curves: ( ( ( (. He has the printed capitals drawn as combinations of shafts and curves: B, D, etc.

SIMULTANEOUS READING AND WRITING OF WORDS

The child, through sensory education, has acquired some notions of color, shape, surface (smooth and rough), smell, taste, etc. At the same time, he has learned to count (one, two, three, four points). Uniting all possible notions concerning a single object, we arrive at his first concrete idea of the object itself: the object lesson. To the idea thus acquired, we give the word which represents the object. Just as the concrete idea results from the assembling of acquired notions, so the word results from the union of known sounds, and perceived symbols.

Reading lesson: On the teacher's table is the large stand for the movable alphabet in black printed letters. The teacher arranges on it the vowels and a few consonants. Each child, in his own place, has the small movable alphabet in the pasteboard boxes. The children take from the box the same letters they see on the large stand, and arrange them in the same order. The teacher takes up some object which has a simple word for a name, e.g., pane ("bread"). She calls the attention of the child to the object, reviewing an objective lesson already learned, thus arousing the child's interest in the object. "Shall we write the word pane?" "Hear how I say it!" "See how I say it!" The teacher pronounces separately and distinctly the sounds of the letters which make up the word, exaggerating the movements of the vocal organs so that they are plainly visible to the children. As the pupils repeat the word they continue their education in speaking.

A child now comes to the teacher's desk to choose the letters corresponding to the sounds and tries to arrange them in the order in which they appear in the word. The children do the same with the small letters at their seats. Every mistake gives rise to a correction useful to the whole class. The teacher repeats the word in front of each one who has made a mistake, trying to get the child to correct himself. When all the children have arranged their letters properly, the teacher shows a card (visiting-card size) on which is printed (in print-type letters about a centimeter high) the word "pane." All the children are made to read it. Then some child is asked to put the card where he finds the word written before him; next, on the object the word stands for. The process is repeated with two or three other objects, with their respective names: pane (bread), lume (lamp), cece (peas). Then the teacher gathers up the cards from the various objects, shuffles them and calls on some child: "Which object do you like best?" "Lume!" "Find me the card with the word lume!" When the card has been selected, all the children are asked to read it: "Is Mary right in saying that this is the word lume?" "Put the card back where it belongs!" (i.e., on its object). In the subsequent lessons, the old cards, with the objects they stand for removed, should be mixed with the new ones. From the entire pack the children are to select the new cards and place them on their objects. A primary reading book ought to present these words next to a picture of the object for which they stand.

In this way the children are brought to unite the individual symbol into words. When they have been taught to make the syllable, the reading lesson may be continued without the use of objects, though it is still preferable to use words which will, if possible, have a concrete meaning for the children.

Writing: The children are already able to use the cursive (writing) alphabet which corresponds to the small letter (print-type) that is neither "touched" nor written, but is merely read. They must now write in hand writing, and place close together, the little letters which they have assembled in the movable alphabet to compose words. As each word is read or written for every object lesson, for every action, printed cards are being assembled which will later be used to make clauses and sentences with movable words that may be moved about just as the individual letters were moved about in making the words themselves. Later on, the simple clauses or sentences should refer to actions performed by the children. The first step should be to bring two or more words together: e.g., red-wool, sweet-candy, four-footed dog, etc. Then we may go on to the sentence itself: The wool is red; The soup is hot; The dog has four feet; Mary eats the candy, etc. The children first compose the sentences with their cards; then they copy them in their writing books. To facilitate the choice of the cards, they are arranged in special boxes: for instance, one box is labeled noun: or its compartments are distinguished thus: food, clothing, animals, people, etc. There should be a box for adjectives with compartments for colors, shapes, qualities, etc. There should be another for particles with compartments for articles, conjunctions, prepositions, etc. A box should be reserved for actions with the label verbs above; and then in a compartment should be reserved for the infinitive, present, past and future respectively. The children gradually learn by practice to take their cards from the boxes and put them back in their proper places. They soon learn to know their "word boxes" and they readily find the cards they want among the colors, shapes, qualities, etc., or among animals, foods, etc. Ultimately the teacher will find occasion to explain the meaning of the big words at the top of the drawers, noun, adjective, verb, etc., and this will be the first step into the subject of grammar.

GRAMMAR