The Absorbent Mind. Maria Montessori Montessori
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of taking part in both. In one life because of the child and in the other because he is a member of society. The better of the two is the part which concerns the child because in this life his loftiest sentiments are developed.
Now it is curious that, if the study is carried out among animals instead of among men, these two types of life are also to be found. There are, for instance, the wild and ferocious animals which seem to change their instincts when they have a family. Everybody knows how tender are tigers and lions for their young and how brave becomes the timid deer. It seems as if there were a reversal of instinct in all animals when they have young ones to protect. It is a sort of imposition of special instincts over the ordinary ones. Timid animals, even to a greater degree than we, possess an instinct of self-preservation, but when they have young ones, this instinct of self-preservation changes into an instinct of protection for the young. So with many birds. Their instinct for the protection of life is to fly away as soon as any danger approaches, but when they have young ones, they do not fly away, but some remain frozen upon the nest in order to cover the betraying whiteness of the eggs. Others feign being wounded, keep themselves just out of reach of the dog’s jaws and attract them away from their young who remain in hiding. Ordinarily instead of taking the chance of being caught, they fly away. There are many instances of this kind and in every form of animal life there will be found two sets of instincts: one set for self-protection and another set of instincts for the protection of the lives of their young. One of the books which most beautifully describes this is a book of the French biologist J. H. Fabre in which he concludes by saying that it is to this great mother-instinct that the species owes its survival. This is true because if the survival of the species were due only to the so-called weapons for the struggle for existence, how could the young ones defend themselves? They have not as yet developed these weapons. Are not the small tigers toothless and the young birds without feathers?
Therefore, if life is to be saved and if the species is to survive, it is necessary first of all to provide protection for the young who though unarmed are building up their weapons.
If life owed its survival only to the struggle of the strong, the species would perish. So the real reason, the main factor of the survival of the species, is the love that the adults feel for their young. If we study nature, the fascinating part is to see the revelation of intelligence that there is even in the lowest of the low, as we consider them. Each one is endowed with different kinds of protective instincts; each one is endowed with a different kind of intelligence and all this intelligence is expended for the protection of the young, whereas if one studies their instincts for self-protection, these do not show so much intelligence and there is not the same variety of instinct in this field. There is not the finesse of detail that made Fabre fill 16 volumes, treating mainly of the protective instincts among insects. So studying among all different kinds of life, one sees that two sets of instincts are necessary and two types of life. When we carry this to the field of human life, were it for nothing but for social reasons, the study of the life of the child is necessary for the consequences it has in the adult. And this study of life must go to the very origin.
Embryology
There are today different sciences which take into consideration the life of the child and the life of the living being from its very beginning. One of the most interesting is the study of embryology which is also carried out in a new fashion. Thinkers and philosophers in all times have wondered about the marvel of a being who did not exist before and becomes a man or a woman who will have intelligence, thoughts, and who will be able to show the greatness of his soul. How does this come about? How are the organs made which are so complicated and so marvelous P How are the eyes formed and the tongue, that allows us to speak, and the brain and all the other infinite details of the human organism? How are they formed? In the beginning of the XVIIIth century scientists thought that there must be in the egg-cell a minute ready-made man or woman. It was so small that one could not see it but it was there and afterwards it merely grew. This was thought to be so also for the mammals. Two schools disputed as to whether it was the man who had this in his generating cell or the woman. And they fought carrying on learned discussions in the Universities. At that time there was a young man who made use of the microscope, which had just been invented, saying to himself: “I am going to see what really happens.” He started to study the germinal cell. He came by observations to the conclusion that there is nothing pre-existing.
He said that the being builds itself and described how it is formed. The germinal cell divides itself into two, the two divide into four and by multiplication of cells, the being is formed. (See Fig. 1.) The learned university men who were fighting with each other became angry. Who is this ignorant person who says that nothing exists? Why, this is against religion! And the situation became so bad for this poor man that he was chased out of his country. He remained an exile and died in a foreign country. For 50 years though the microscopes were multiplied, nobody dared to look into the secret again. But meanwhile what this first man had said had begun to penetrate and people thought that it might be true. Another scientist after 50 years made the same study and found that what the first man had said was true. He said it to every one arid this time every one believed it, and a new branch of science arose which today is very advanced: Embryology.
Today embryology has developed to the point that it begins to reason and says that it is true that there is nothing pre-existing, that there is no ready-made man or ready-made woman who grows and grows until he becomes a full-grown man or woman; but there is a pre-established plan of construction which is surprising, because it seems so well made, so well reasoned out, that it appears as if somebody had thought it out and fixed it. It is as though some one wanted to build a house and started by collecting bricks before beginning to build the walls of the house. And the same happens with this primitive cell: first it accumulates a number of cells, by sub-division and multiplication, and then builds three walls. When the three walls have been built, the second phase begins the phase of the construction of the organs.
Now the construction of the organs takes place in an extraordinary way. It begins by one cell at one point. I do not know what happens there. I do not know if it is something of a chemical nature or if it is a sort of sensitiveness. I believe no one does. The fact is that around that point an extraordinary activity begins. There the rate of multiplication of cells becomes feverish whereas elsewhere it continues in the same calm fashion. When this feverish activity ceases, an organ has been built. There are several of these points and each one of them builds up a definite organ. The discoverer has interpreted the phenomenon in this fashion: there are points of sensitivity around which a construction takes place. These organs develop independently one from the other. It is as though the purpose of each of these cellular points were to build something for themselves only, and the intensity, the activity, is such that in each of these organs the cells become so united, so imbued with what we might call their ideal that they actually transform themselves and they become different from the other cells. So the cells assume a special form according to the organs that they are constructing. Then when the different organs are formed independently one of the other, something else comes, which puts them into relation and communication. When they are all united, so united and so interconnected that one cannot live without the other, the child is born. It is the circulatory system that joins them together. And after the circulatory system, the nervous system is finished, to make more intimate the union. And then one sees the plan of construction. This plan of construction is based upon a point of enthusiasm from which a creation is achieved. And once the creation of the organs is a fact, they are destined to unite, to join together. This plan is the same for all superior animals and for man. It is followed by them all for the development of each.
The modern idea is therefore that there is but one plan of construction common to all lives. Embryos are in fact so similar that in the recent past there was a theory that evolution had proceeded along a path of different degrees of animality; so that man for instance came from the monkey, that mammals and birds came from reptiles, these from amphibians, the latter from fishes etc. The embryos of each were thought to pass through the stages of all the preceding ones before achieving birth; so that in the embryos there was a synthesis of the evolution of the species, Today this is an abandoned theory. Today science