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Project Gutenberg's Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook, by Maria Montessori

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Title: Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook

Author: Maria Montessori

Release Date: August 8, 2009 [EBook #29635]

Language: English

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Dr. Maria Montessori

DR. MONTESSORI’S
OWN HANDBOOK
BY
MARIA MONTESSORI
AUTHOR OF “THE MONTESSORI METHOD” AND
“PEDAGOGICAL ANTHROPOLOGY”
WITH FORTY-THREE ILLUSTRATIONS

NEW YORK
FREDERICK A. STOKES COMPANY
PUBLISHERS

Copyright, 1914, by
Frederick A. StokesCompany

All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages
 
-------------------------------------------------
May, 1914

TO MY DEAR FRIEND
DONNA MARIA MARAINI
MARCHIONESS GUERRIERI-GONZAGA
WHO
DEVOTEDLY AND WITH SACRIFICE
HAS GENEROUSLY UPHELD
THIS WORK OF EDUCATION BROUGHT TO BIRTH IN
OUR BELOVED COUNTRY
BUT OFFERED
TO THE CHILDREN OF HUMANITY

NOTE BYTHE AUTHOR
As a result of the widespread interest that has been taken in my method of child education, certain books have been issued, which may appear to the general reader to be authoritative expositions of the Montessori system. I wish to state definitely that the present work, the English translation of which has been authorised and approved by me, is the only authentic manual of theMontessori method, and that the only other authentic or authorised works of mine in the English language are “The Montessori Method,” and “Pedagogical Anthropology.”

vii
PREFACE
If a preface is a light which should serve to illumine the contents of a volume, I choose, not words, but human figures to illustrate this little book intended to enter families where children are growing up. I thereforerecall here, as an eloquent symbol, Helen Keller and Mrs. Anne Sullivan Macy, who are, by their example, both teachers to myself––and, before the world, living documents of the miracle in education.
In fact, Helen Keller is a marvelous example of the phenomenon common to all human beings: the possibility of the liberation of the imprisoned spirit of man by the education of the senses. Here lies thebasis of the method of education of which the book gives a succinct idea.
If one only of the senses sufficed to make of Helen Keller a woman of exceptional culture and a writer, who better than she proves the potency of that method of education which builds on the senses? If Helen Keller attained through exquisite natural gifts to an elevated conception viiiof the world, who better than she provesthat in the inmost self of man lies the spirit ready to reveal itself?
Helen, clasp to your heart these little children, since they, above all others, will understand you. They are your younger brothers: when, with bandaged eyes and in silence, they touch with their little hands, profound impressions rise in their consciousness, and they exclaim with a new form of happiness: “I see with my...