Pedagogical Anthropology, Maria Montessori [online e book reader TXT] 📗

Well, in order to accomplish such a lofty work, we do not need to find a method. Method is always more or less mechanical. Here, on the contrary, is the supreme expression of human life—an evocation of the superman. What we need to find is not a method, but a Master.

Séguin, in his glorious treatise on scientific pedagogy, dedicates a chapter to the training of the teacher of defective children. The teacher of abnormal pupils is not an educator, he is a creator; he must have been born with special gifts, as well as to have perfected himself for this high task. He ought, says Séguin, to be handsome in person, and strong as well, so that he may attract and yet command; his glance should be serene, like that of one who has gained victories through faith and has attained enduring peace; his manner should be imperturbable as that of one not easily persuaded to change his mind. In short, he ought to feel beneath him the solid rock, the foundation of granite on which his feet are planted and his steps assured. From this solid base, he should rise commandingly, like a magician. His voice should be gentle, melodious, and flexible, with bursts of silvery and resounding eloquence, but always without harshness. Séguin describes the methods by which the teacher should educate his own voice, speech and gesture; he should take a course in facial expression and declamation, like a great actor who is preparing to win favor of the select and critical public of the proudest capital.

For, as a matter of fact, he must attract the minds and souls of human beings who are almost inaccessible, beings who form whole armies in the world, entire peoples, they are so numerous; powerful human armies that threaten society with terrible punishment and bring about cruel executions.

But the perfect teacher must possess something more than physical beauty and acquired art; he must have the loftiness of a soul ardent for its mission; yet even this may be cultivated and perfected. The teacher must "perfect himself" in his moral nature. There are men, who from the moment they make their appearance, exert a sort of fascination; everyone else becomes silent in their presence. It is almost as though some natural fluid emanated from them and spread to the others, so profoundly does everyone feel the attraction. When such a man speaks, the words seem, as if by magic, to touch the profoundest recesses of the heart. Hypnotists and magicians! Conquerors of souls! Valiant souls themselves; souls with a great mission!

Well, this is more or less what is demanded of the teacher of abnormal children. He ought to be conscious of his personal dignity and human virtue, and of a sincere love for the children whom it is his task to redeem; his own greatness must overcome their wretchedness. And if he continues to perfect himself and to mount toward the moral altitudes, cultivating at the same time a love for his own mission, he will, as if by magic, become an educator; he will feel that a magic power of suggestion goes forth from him and conquers; the work of redemption will then seem to accomplish itself like a conflagration which has been kindled from some central point and spreads in rolling flames through the dried undergrowth.

Undoubtedly, the guidance of science is not everything to a teacher; the better part is given him through his own moral perfectionment.

4. The biographic history completes the individual study of the pupil and prepares for his diagnosis: combining, to this end, the work of the school with that of the home.

Sergi, in his memorable work, First Steps in Scientific Pedagogy, expresses himself as follows: "the biographic chart is a methodical means for learning to know the body and spirit of the pupil through direct observations.... And, since pupils may be classified according to tendencies, character and intelligence, the master may rationally divide them into various groups, to which he will give varied treatment, according to the direction in which each group shows the greatest need of education.... And he will place himself in closer association with the pupils' families, who should communicate to him their earliest observations regarding the physical and psychological nature of their children."

As a matter of fact, the anthropological movement, through the inquiries necessitated by the compilation of biographic charts, often proves illuminating to the members of the family, in regard to facts and conditions of which they had hitherto remained ignorant (sexual hygiene); in regard to the view they should take of their own children (those who had been regarded as "bad," and who were really ill), in regard to the way they should watch over them and take care of them, etc. Hence it has made a beginning of the practical application of a pedagogic principal that hitherto has only been abstractly visioned, of coordinating the educative work of the family with that of the school. A pedagogic institution which practically realizes this conception, which was hitherto only a utopian dream of pedagogy, is the "Children's House;" because by having school in the home and by having teachers and mothers living together, it results in harmonizing the environment of the family with that of the school, for the furtherance of the great mission of education.

5. The biographic chart will furnish everyone with a document capable of guiding him in his own subsequent self-education.

Sergi says further in the work above quoted:

"The biographic chart should become a precious document to every man, if the sort of record of which I speak were continued through a series of years, from the kindergartens upward through the entire course of the secondary schools, because it would contain, in compact and methodical form, the history of his physical and mental life, and he would find it of inestimable advantage both in practical life and in his various social relations."

6. "Lastly, the biographic chart with its gathering of positive data, prepares a great body of scientific material which will be useful, not alone to pedagogy, but also to sociology, medicine, and jurisprudence."

And in the same aforesaid work, Sergi adds: "If, for example, we should gather" (under the guidance of his biographic chart) "biographic notes in the city of Rome alone and in the elementary schools for both sexes, we should have for a single year, an average of fifty thousand observations, taken on entering and leaving school; if we could have them throughout the whole course of elementary instruction, the number of observations would amount to two hundred and fifty thousand.

"Then we should be able to see in every social class all the individual variations in physical and physiological condition which contribute to the development of the intelligence and to the manifestations of sentiments which play an active part in practical life. And all this would have a value of a sociological character."