T HE M OST P OPULAR B OOKS

In general the child will listen to anything that is really interesting. But certainly some surprises will be occasioned by our discovery that the children liked above everything else the readings on Italian history and the Education of the Savage of Aveyron. The phenomenon is sufficiently curious to merit further consideration. The history we used was not one commonly thought adapted to young readers. Quite the contrary: it was Pasquale de Luca's I Liberatori (Makers of Freedom, Bergamo, 1909), written to arouse a feeling of patriotism among the Italian emigrants of Argentina. The special feature of this publication is its contemporary documents reprinted in fac-simile. There are, for instance, telegrams, notices in cipher published on the walls of the towns on the eve of uprisings, commemorative medals, a receipt given by an executioner for whipping publicly an Italian patriot, etc. Patriotic songs are given with the music (these the children learned by heart, following the piano); there are also copious illustrations.

This documented history was so absorbing that the children became entirely possessed by the situations. They started animated discussions on various subjects, arguing and deciding. They were particularly outraged at an edict of the king of Naples which was intended to mislead the public. They raged at unjust persecutions, applauded heroic deeds, and ended by insisting on acting out some of the scenes. They formed little companies of three or four and "acted" the episodes with a most impressive dramatic sense. One little girl was moved to bring to school a collection of all the Italian patriotic songs. It fascinated many of the children, who learned several by heart and sang them in chorus. In a word, the Italian Risorgimento came to live in those little hearts with a freshness it has long since lost in the souls of their elders. Many of the children wrote down their impressions of their own accord, often giving surprisingly original judgments. Finally they began to "take notes." They asked the teacher to give an outline of the principal events, which they took down in their copy-books. This whole experience corrected many of my own ideas on the teaching of history. I had thought of preparing moving-picture films and giving historical representations. But that, naturally, being beyond my resources, I had been compelled to give up the plan. The reading of De Luca's book was a revelation. To teach history to children it is sufficient to give a living documented truth. We need, not more cinematographs, but different school books. Children are much more sensible to the true and beautiful than we. They suggest fact and situation. De Luca, moved by affection for his distant brothers, tried to write a book flaming both with truth and with love, which would awaken them and bring them back to live among us as Italians. Our task is the same. We must be filled with a similarly intense human zeal: we must call back to us the distant souls of the children. They too are brothers

living far away in a distant country. We must arouse them, bring them back to us as partners in our own life.

After our readings from Itard's Savage, the parents of the children kept coming to us with inquiries: "What have you been reading to our children? We should like to hear it ourselves." The little ones had told of hearing an extraordinary story about a child who had lived with the animals, beginning little by little to understand, to feel, to live like us. All the psychological details of his study, his attempts at education, seemed to have touched the children deeply. It occurred to us to take the older of such children to a "Children's House" and show them our educational method. They took the greatest interest in it, and some of them are now collaborators in the foundation of other "Children's Houses." Such children are able to follow the development of the child mind with extraordinary sympathy. However, if we reflect that the best teachers for children are children themselves, and that little tots like the company of another child much better than that of an adult, we need not be surprised at the downfall of another prejudice.

Interpreted reading: "She was sleepy; she leaned her arms on the table, her head on her arms, and went to sleep." Notice the slip of paper which the child has just read. (The Lenox School, Montessori Elementary Class, New York.)

We have conceived of children according to a fantastic idea of our own, making of them a sort of human species distinct from that to which adults belong. As a matter of fact, they are our children, more purely human than we ourselves. The beautiful and the true have for them an intense fascination, into which they plunge as into something actually necessary for their existence.

The results here witnessed led us to many a reflection. We succeeded in teaching history and even pedagogy by means of "reading." And, in truth, does not reading embrace everything? Travel stories teach geography; insect stories lead the child into natural science; and so on. The teacher, in short, can use reading to introduce her pupils to the most varied subjects; and the moment they have been thus started, they can go on to any limit guided by the single passion for reading. Our task is to offer the child the instruments of education, to keep pure within him the springs of his intellectual growth, of his life of feeling. The rest follows as a matter of course. As the ancients said: "Necessary education is the three 'r's': reading, writing and arithmetic," for these are things which the child cannot discover by himself. We can only add that "method" must be scientifically determined only at the points where it becomes necessary to assist the "formation of man," that he may develop his activities by strengthening them and not by repressing them, that he may receive essential help without losing any pure freshness of his interior activities. But this does not mean that "a rigorous method must guide

the child at all times and in every step that he takes." When he has become strong and is in possession of his tools for discovery, he will be able to uncover many of life's secrets by himself. We tied the child to the materials in his sensory exercises, but we left him free to explore his environment. This must be the method for all his later steps in advance: he must be given the instrument and the strength to use it, and then left free to find things out for himself.

Exercises in interpreted reading and arithmetic. (The Rivington Street Montessori School, New York.)

The fondness of children for reading and their preference for the "true" is something already demonstrated by experiments conducted elsewhere. I may refer here to the investigations on readings for children conducted by the "Education" section of the Federation for School Libraries of the province of Emilia (Italy). The questionnaire was as follows:

Do you remember what books you have read and which you liked best? How did you get them?

Do you know the title of some book you would like to read?

Do you prefer fairy-tales, or rather stories of true or probable facts? Why? Do you prefer sad or humorous stories?

Do you like poetry?

Do you like stories of travel and adventure?

Do you subscribe to any weekly or monthly newspaper? If so, to which?

If your mother were to offer you a choice between a subscription to a weekly or monthly and an illustrated book, which would you take? And why?

The answers, very carefully sifted, showed that the vast majority of children preferred readings which dealt with fact. Here are some of the reasons alleged by the children in support for their preference for "truth": "Facts teach me something; fairy-tales are too improbable; true stories don't upset my thinking; true stories teach me history; true stories always convey some good idea; fairy- stories give me desires impossible to satisfy; many good ideas come from actual experiences; fantastic tales make me think too much about supernatural things"; etc., etc. In favor of the fairy-tales we find: "They amuse me in hours free from work; I like to be in the midst of fairies and enchantments"; etc. Those who preferred sad or serious stories justified themselves as follows: "I feel that I am a better person, and realize better the wrong I do; I feel that my disposition becomes more kindly; they arouse in me feelings of kindness and pity." Many supported their preference for humorous tales on the ground that "when I read them, I am able to forget my own little troubles." In general, a great majority denied any educational value to joy and humor. In this conviction—or rather this feeling—so widely diffused among children, have we not evidence that something must be wrong in the kind of education we have been giving them?

FOOTNOTES:

PART III

ARITHMETIC

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