The Absorbent Mind (Rediscovered Books). Maria Montessori Montessori
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unconscious to the conscious and of constructing the human faculties; then the whole conception of education will change and will become that of a help to the child’s life. Education will take the guise of an aid to the psychic development of man and not of making him memorize ideas and facts.
This is the new path of education and how to help this mind in its different processes, how to second the different powers and how to give strength to the different qualities of this mind will be the object of our study in this book.
Chapter IV
A New Orientation
In our days there is a definitely new orientation in biological studies. Previously all study was carried out on the adult being. For instance, when animals or plants were studied by scientists it was the adult specimen which came under consideration. This applied also to the studies upon humanity. It was always the adult that was taken into consideration, e.g. in the study of morality, in the study of sociology, it was always the adult. Another field which attracted the attention and meditation of the thinkers was death and this was logical because the adult being as he proceeds in life is headed towards death. The study of morality was, we might say, the study of the conditions and rules of social contact amongst adults. It is true that there are moral ideas such as love for one another, the sacrifice of one’s self for the welfare of other beings and so forth, but all these are difficult virtues. They require a preparation and an effort of the will. Today scientists seem to have taken the opposite direction. It seems as though they were proceeding backwards. Both in the study of human beings and of other types of life, they consider not only the very young beings, but their very origin. So biology directs its attention to embryology, to the life of the cell and so forth. From this orientation towards the origin a new philosophy has sprung up but this philosophy is not of an idealistic nature. Rather, we might say, it is scientific because it springs from observation and not from abstract deductions of thinkers. The progress of this philosophy proceeds side by side with the progress in the discoveries made in the laboratories.
When one enters the field of origins, the field of embryology, one sees things which do not exist in the fields that concern adults, or if they do exist, they are of a very different nature. Scientific observations reveal a type of life which is quite different from the one that humanity was accustomed to consider previously. It is by this new field of research that the personality of the child has been thrown into the limelight. A very banal consideration will show that the child does not progress towards death like the adult, the child progresses towards life because the purpose of the child is the construction of man in the fullness of his strength and in the fullness of his life. When the adult arrives, the child is no longer. So the whole life of the child is a progress towards perfection, a progress of ever greater achievement. Even from this banal observation, one can deduct that the child can find joy in the fulfilment of a task of growth and perfection. The child’s is a type of life in which work, the fulfilment of one’s task, brings joy and happiness, whereas in the field of adult, work is something which is usually a rather painful process. This process of growth, this proceeding in life is for the child something that expands and enlarges, inasmuch as the older the child becomes, the more intelligent and stronger he becomes. His work, his activity help the child to acquire intelligence and strength, whereas in the case of adults, it is rather the contrary. Also in this field of the child, there is no competition, because no one can do the work that the child does in order to construct the man that he has to construct. In other words, nobody can grow for him.
The adults who are near the child usually are protectors of the child. So one can see that, in the case of human beings, it is in the field of the child that examples and inspiration for a better society can be found. It is not a question of an ideal. It is a reality. As this field is different and also as it represents a better kind of life, it deserves to be studied.
Now let us go still further back in the life of the child, i.e. to the period before birth. Already before birth the child has contact with the adult because as an embryo life is spent in the body of the mother. Before the embryo, there is the germinal cell which is the result of two cells which come from adults. So from either side when one goes towards the origin of the life of human beings, and when one goes on following the child towards the completion of his task of growth, one finds the adult. The child’s life is the line that joins the two generations of adult life. The child’s life which originates and is originated, starts from the adult and finishes in the adult. This is the way, the path of life, and it is from this life that touches the adult so intimately that a great light can be derived. That is why its study is so fascinating.
The Two Lives
Nature furnishes special protection to the young. They are born amidst love, the very origin of the child is love. Once he is born, he is surrounded by the love of his father and mother. So it is not in strife that he is generated and that is his protection. Nature gives to the parents love for their young and this love is not something artificial, or enforced by reason, such as the idea of brotherhood that all people aspiring to unity are trying to arouse. It is in the field of the child’s life that can be found the type of love which shows what ought to be the ideal moral attitude of the adult community, because only here can be found love that naturally inspires self-sacrifice. It inspires the dedication of an ego to somebody else, the dedication of one’s self to the service of other beings. In the depth of their sentiment all parents give up their own life in order to dedicate it to their children. This sacrifice that the father and mother make is something natural that gives joy. It does not appear as sacrifice. Nobody for instance says: “Oh, this poor man has two children etc.” But one says: “How lucky this man is to have a wife and children. What a joy it must be for her to have such lovely children!” And yet there is a real self-sacrifice on the part of the parents for their children, but it is a sacrifice which gives joy. It is life itself, so that the child inspires that which in the adult world represents an ideal: renunciation, self-sacrifice which are almost impossible to attain. What businessman, if, on the market, there is something rare he needs, tells another rival firm: “Here you take it, I do not want it?” But if they are both hungry and if there is only a small piece of bread, what father or mother would not say to the child: “You eat it. I am not hungry?” This is a very lofty sort of love that can be found only in the world of children. It is nature that gives it. So there are two different lives. The adult has the privilege 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