difficulties in the way of a universal adoption of the montessori ideas

now, of course, it is infinitely easier in the first place to cry out to a child, “oh, don’t be so careless!” than to consider thus with painful care all the elements lacking in his training which make him heedless, and throughout years of conscientious effort to exercise the ingenuity necessary to supply those lacking elements. but serious-minded parents do not and should not expect to find life a flowery bed of ease, and it is my conviction that most of us will welcome with heartfelt joy any possible solution of our desperately pressing problems, even if it involves the process of oiling and setting in motion the little-used machinery of our brains.

i am opposed in this optimistic conviction by that small segment of the circle of my acquaintances composed of the doctors whom i happen to know personally. they take a gloomy view of the matter and tell me that their experience with human nature leads them to fear that the rules of moral and intellectual hygiene of childhood, of this new system, excellent though they are, will be observed with as little faithfulness as the equally wise rules of physical hygiene for adults which the doctors have been endeavoring[166] vainly to have us adopt. they inform me that they have learned that, if obedience to the laws of hygiene requires continuous effort, day after day, people will not obey them, even though by so doing they would avoid the pains and maladies which they so dread. “people will take pills,” physicians report, “but they will not take exercise. if your new system told them of some one or two supreme actions which would benefit their children, quite a number of parents would strain every nerve to accomplish the necessary feats. but what you are telling them is only another form of what we cry so vainly, namely that they themselves must observe nature and follow her laws, and that no action of their doctors, wise though they may be, can vicariously perform this function for them. you will see that your dr. montessori’s exhortations will have as little effect as those of any other physician.”

i confess that at first i was somewhat cast down by these pessimistic prophecies, for even a casual glance over any group of ordinary acquaintances shows only too much ground for such conclusions. but a more prolonged scrutiny of just such a casually selected group of acquaintances, and a little more searching inquiry into the matter has brought out facts which lead to more encouraging ideas.

in the first place, the doctors are scarcely correct when they assume that they have always been the repository of a wisdom which we laity have obstinately refused to take over from them. comparatively[167] speaking, it is only yesterday that the doctors themselves outgrew the idea that pills were the divinely appointed cures for all ills. so recent is this revolution in ideas that there are still left among us in eddies, out of the main stream, elderly doctors who lay very little of the modern fanatical stress on diet, and burn very little incense before the modern altar of fresh air and exercise. it seems early in the day to conclude that the majority of mankind will not take good advice if it is offered them, a sardonic conclusion disproved by the athletic clubs all over the country, the sleeping-porches burgeoning out from large and small houses, the millions of barefooted children in rompers, the regiments of tennis-playing adolescents and golf-playing elders, the myriads of diet-studying housewives, the gladly accepted army of trained nurses. we may not do as well as we might, but we certainly have not turned deaf ears to all the exhortations of reason and enlightenment.

furthermore, beside the fact that doctors have been preaching “hygiene against drugs” to us only a short time, it is to be borne in mind that, as a class, they do not add to their many noble and glorious qualities of mind and heart a very ardent proselytizing fervor. it seems to be against the “temperament” of the profession. if you go to a doctor’s office, and consult him professionally he will, it is true, tell you nowadays not to take pills, but to take plenty of exercise and sleep, to eat moderately, avoid worry, and drink plenty of pure water; but you do not ever[168] run across him preaching these doctrines from a barrel-head on the street-corner, to all who will hear. the traditional dignity of his profession forbids such salvation army methods. the doctors of a town are apt, prudently, to boil the water used in their own households and to advise this course of action to any who seek their counsel, rather than to band together in an aggressive, united company and make themselves disagreeably conspicuous by clamoring insistently at the primaries and polls for better water for the town. it is perhaps not quite fair to accuse us laity of obstinacy in refusing advice which has been offered with such gentlemanly reserve.

then, there is the obvious fact that doctors, like lawyers, see professionally only the ailing or malcontents of the human family, and they suffer from a tendency common to us all, to generalize from the results of their own observation. our own observation of our own community may quite honestly lead us to the opposite of their conclusions, namely that it is well worth while to make every effort for the diffusion of theories which tend to improve daily life, since, on the whole, people seem to have picked up very quickly indeed the reasonable doctrine of the prevention of illness by means of healthy lives. if they have done this, and are, to all appearances, trying hard to learn more about the process, it is reasonable to hope that they will catch at a similar reasonable mental and moral hygiene for their children, and that they will learn to leave off the unnecessary[169] mental and moral restrictions, the unwise interference with the child’s growth and undue insistence on conformity to adult ideas of regularity, just as they have learned how to leave off the innumerable layers of starched petticoats, the stiff scratchy pantalets, and the close, smothering sunbonnets in which our loving and devoted great-grandmothers required our grandmothers to grow up.

lastly, there is a vital element in the situation which is perhaps not sufficiently considered by people anxious to avoid the charge of sentimentality. this element is the strength of parental affection, perhaps the strongest and most enduring passion which falls to the lot of ordinary human beings. only a napoleon can carry ambition to the intensity of a passion. great, overmastering love between man and woman is not so common as our romantic tradition would have us believe. in the world of religion, saints are few and far between. most of us manage to live without being consumed by the reforming fever of those rare souls who suffer under injustice to others as though it were practised on themselves. but nearly every house which contains children, shelters also two human beings the hard crust of whose natural egotism and moral sloth has been at least cracked by the shattering force of this primeval passion for their young, two human beings, who, no matter how low their position in the scale of human ethical development, have in them to some extent that divine capacity for willing self-sacrifice which[170] comes, under other conditions, only to the rarest and most spiritual-minded members of the race. it is not sentimentality but a simple statement of fact to say that there is in parents who take care of their own children (as most american parents do) a natural fund of energy, patience, and willingness to undergo self-discipline, which cannot be counted upon in any other numerous class of people. the montessori system, with its fresh, vivid presentation of axiomatic truths, with a fervent hope of a practical application of them to the everyday life of every child, addresses itself to these qualities in parents; and, for the sound development of its fundamental idea of self-education and self-government, trusts not only to the wise conclaves of professional pedagogues, but to the co-operation of the fathers and mothers of the world.