The Absorbent Mind (Rediscovered Books). Maria Montessori Montessori
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It is taken into no consideration whatever by the school. This age is called pre-scholastic and this means it falls outside the concern of the school. And as to people who are just born what could the school do about them? Wherever institutions have been created for children of pre-school age, these are hardly ever governed by the ministry of education. They are controlled by municipalities or private institutions who dictate their own rules and regulations. Who is concerned as a social problem with the protection of the life of the small child? No one! Society says that small children belong to the family and not to the state. Today great importance is given to the first years of life. But what is it that is being recommended? A modification of the family, a modification in the sense that mothers must be educated. Now, the family does not form a part of school, but of society. So we see how the human personality or the care of the human personality is broken into pieces. On one side there is a family which is one part of society, but is generally isolated from society, from social care. On the other the school, also kept apart from society, and then the university. There is no Unitarian conception of the social care of life. There is one piece here, one piece there and each one ignores the other. Even those new sciences that reveal the harm of this isolation such as social psychology and sociology are themselves isolated from the school. So nowhere is there a reliable system of help for the development of life. When a statesman says that education must be a help to life, we realize the importance of it. It is, as I mentioned before, nothing new to abstract science, but socially it is something that does not yet exist. It is the next step to be taken by civilization. Everything is prepared however: criticism has revealed the errors of the existing conditions, others have shown the remedy to be applied at different stages of life. Everything is ready for the construction. The contributions of science may be compared to the stones cut and ready for the building, but what is necessary is some one who takes the stones and puts them together to make the new building necessary for civilization. That is why the resolution of this Indian leader is of such great importance. It is a step that will permit civilization to rise higher and it is to the building of this step, that in the field of applied science, we strive and work.
The Task of Education and Society
What is the conception of education that takes life as the center of its own function? It is a conception that alters all previous ideas about education. Education must no longer be based upon a syllabus but upon the knowledge of human life. Now, if this is so and it has to be so the education of the new-born acquires a sudden great importance. It is true that the new-born cannot do anything, cannot be taught in the ordinary sense, it can only be observed, it can be studied so as to find out what are the needs of the new-born life. Observation has been carried out by us with a view of discovering what are the laws of life, because if we wish to help life the first thing we must do is to know the laws governing life. Not- only this, because if it were merely knowledge that we sought then we would remain in the field of psychology; but if we are concerned with education our action cannot be limited merely to knowledge. This knowledge must be spread, for all must know what is the psychic development of the child. Education then acquires a new dignity, a new authority, because education will then tell society: “These are the laws of life. You cannot disregard them and you must act in this way.”
Indeed if society wishes to give compulsory education it means that education must be given, practically, otherwise one cannot call it compulsory; and if education is to be given from birth, then it is necessary for society to know what are the laws of the development of the child. Education can no longer remain isolated from society but must acquire authority over society. Social machinery must arrange itself around what is to be done so that life be protected. All must be called upon to collaborate: mothers and fathers must, of course, do their part well, but if the family has not sufficient means, then society must give not only knowledge, but enough means to educate the children. If education means care of the individual and if society recognizes that such and such a thing is necessary for the child for its development and the family is not capable of providing for it, then it must be society which provides for the child. The child must not be abandoned by the state. Thus education, instead of remaining apart from society, is bound to acquire authority over society. It is evident that society must have control over the human individual, but if education is considered as a help to life, this control will not be one of restraint and oppression, but a control of physical help and psychic aid. It will be realized by these few words that the next step for society is that of allotting a great deal of money to education.
Step by step the needs of the child during the years of growth have been studied scientifically and the results of this study are being given out to society. The education conceived as a help to life takes in every one not only the child. That means that social conscience must take over responsibility for education and that education will spread its knowledge to the whole of society in every step it takes, instead of remaining isolated from society as it does today. Education as protection to life affects not only the child, but the mothers and fathers as well as the state and international finance. It is something which moves every part of society, indeed it is the greatest of social movements. Education as it is today! Can we imagine anything more immobile, stagnant and indifferent? Today if economy is to be made in a state, education is the first victim. If we ask any great statesman about education he will tell us: “I do not know anything about education. Education is a specialization. I have even entrusted the education of my children to my wife and she has given them to the school.” In future it will be absolutely impossible for any head of the state to answer in this fashion when one speaks about education.
The Child Builder of Man
Now, let us take another point. Let us take the statements made by different psychologists who have studied small children from their first year of life. What conception does one derive from them? Generally that from now on instead of growing haphazardly, the individual will grow scientifically, with better care. He will achieve better development and growth. This is the common idea: “The individual will grow stronger, the individual will grow more balanced in mind and have a stronger character,” In other words the extreme conception is that besides being provided with physical hygiene, the growing child will be provided with mental hygiene. But this cannot be all. Let us suppose that science has made some discoveries about this first period of life, and this is not merely a supposition. .Indeed there are powers in the small child that are far greater than is generally realized, because it is in this period that the construction, the building-up of man takes place, for at birth, psychically speaking, there is nothing at all zero! Indeed not only psychically, for at birth the child is almost paralytic, he cannot do anything, he cannot speak, even though he sees all that happens around him. And behold him after a while; the child, talking, walking and passing on from conquest to conquest until he has built up man in all his greatness, in all his intelligence. If we consider this we begin to have a glimpse of reality. The child is not an empty being who owes whatever he knows to us who have filled him up with it. No, the child is the builder of man. There is no man existing who has not been formed by the child he once was. In order to form a man great powers are necessary and these powers are possessed only by the child. These great powers of the child which we have described for long, and which at last have attracted the attention of other scientists, were hitherto hidden under the cloak of motherhood, in the sense that people said that it is the mother who forms the child, the mother who teaches him to talk, walk etc., etc. But I say that it is not the mother at all. It is the child himself who does all these things. What the mother produces is the new-born babe, but it is this babe who produces the man. Suppose the mother dies, the child grows just the same. Even if the mother is not there, and even if the mother has not the milk necessary to feed him, we give other milk to the child and that is how he continues to grow. It is the child who carries out the construction and not the mother. Suppose we take an Indian child to America and entrust him to some Americans. This child will learn the English language and not an Indian language. By English, we mean American English. So it is not the mother that gives the knowledge. He takes it himself and if these Americans really treated the child as one of their own, this Indian child would acquire the habits and customs of the American people and not those of the Indian people. So none of these things is hereditary. The father and mother cannot claim the credit: it is the child who, making use of all that he finds around him, shapes himself for the future.
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