 CHAPTER XII. In a pedagogical method which is experimental, the education of the senses must undoubtedly assume greatest importance. Experimental psychology also takes note of movements by means of sense measurements. Pedagogy, however, although it may profit by psychometry, is not designed to measure the senses, but educate the senses. This is a point easily understood, yet one which is often confused. While the proceedings of ethiometry are not to any great extent applicable to little children, the education of the senses is entirely possible. We do not start from the conclusions of experimental psychology. That is, it is not the knowledge of the average sense conditions according to the age of the child which leads us to determine the educational applications we shall make. We start essentially from a method, and it is probable that psychology will be able to draw its conclusions from pedagogy so understood and not vice versa. The method used by me is that of making a pedagogical experiment with a didactic object and awaiting the spontaneous reaction of the child. This is a method in every way analogous to that of experimental psychology. I make use of a material which, at first glance, may be confused with a psychometric material. Teachers from Milan, who had followed the course in the Milan School of Experimental Psychology, seeing my material exposed, would recognize among it measures of the perception of color, hardness, and weight, and would conclude that in truth I brought no new contribution to pedagogy since these instruments were already known to them. But the great difference between the two materials lies in this. The ethyseometer carries within itself the possibility of measuring. My objects, on the contrary, often do not permit a measure, but are adapted to cause the child to exercise the senses. In order that an instrument shall attain such a pedagogical end, it is necessary that it shall not weary, but shall divert the child. Here lies the difficulty in the selection of didactic material. It is known that the psychometric instruments are great consumers of energy. For this reason, when Pizzoli wished to apply them to the education of the senses, he did not succeed because the child was annoyed by them and became tired. Instead, the aim of education is to develop the energies. Psychometric instruments, or better, the instruments of ethyseometry, are prepared in their differential gradations upon the laws of Weber, which were, in truth, drawn from experiments made upon adults. With little children, we must proceed in the making of trials and must select the didactic materials in which they show themselves to be interested. This I did in the first year of the children's houses, adopting a great variety of stimuli with a number of which I had already experimented in the school for deficience. Much of the material used for deficience is abandoned in the education of the normal child, and much that is used has been greatly modified. I believe, however, that I have arrived at a selection of objects which I do not hear wish to speak of in the technical language of psychology of stimuli, representing the minimum necessary to a practical sense education. These objects constitute the didactic system, or set of didactic materials, used by me. They are manufactured by the House of Labor of the Humanitarian Society at Milan. A description of the objects will be given as the educational scope of each is explained. Here I shall limit myself to the setting forth of a few general considerations. First, the difference in the reaction between deficient and normal children in the presentation of didactic material made up of graded stimuli. This difference is plainly seen from the fact that the same didactic material used with deficience makes education possible, while with normal children it provokes auto-education. This fact is one of the most interesting I have met with in all my experience, and it inspired and rendered possible the method of observation and liberty. Let us suppose that we use our first object, a block in which solid geometric forms are set. Into corresponding holes in the block are set ten little wooden cylinders, the base is diminishing gradually about ten millimeters. The game consists in taking the cylinders out of their places, putting them on the table, mixing them, and then putting each block back in its own place. The aim is to educate the eye to the differential perception of dimensions. With the deficient child, it would be necessary to begin with exercises in which stimuli were much more strongly contrasted, and to arrive at this exercise only after many others had preceded it. With normal children, this is, on the other hand, the first object which we may present. And out of all the didactic material, this is the game preferred by the very little children of two and a half and three years. Once we arrived at this exercise with the deficient child, it was necessary continually and actively to recall his attention, inviting him to look at the block and showing him the various pieces. And if the child once succeeded in placing all the cylinders properly, he stopped, and the game was finished. Whenever the deficient child committed an error, it was necessary to correct it, or to urge him to correct himself. And when he was able to correct an error, he was usually quite indifferent. Now the normal child instead takes spontaneously a lively interest in this game. He pushes away all who would interfere or offer to help him and wishes to be alone before his problem. It had already been noted that the little ones of two or three years take the greatest pleasure in arranging small objects, and this experiment in the children's houses demonstrates the truth of this assertion. Now, and here is the important point, the normal child attentively observes the relation between the size of the opening and that of the object which he is to place in the mold, and is greatly interested in the game, as is clearly shown by the expression of the attention on the little face. If he mistakes placing one of the objects in an opening that is small for it, he takes it away and proceeds to make various trials, seeking the proper opening. If he makes a contrary error, letting the cylinder fall into an opening that is a little too large for it, and then collects all the success of cylinders and openings just a little too large, he will find himself at the last with the big cylinder in his hand while only the smallest opening is empty. The didactic material controls every error. The child proceeds to correct himself doing this in various ways. Most often he feels the cylinders or shakes them in order to recognize which is the largest. Sometimes he sees at a glance where his error lies, pulls the cylinders from the places where they should not be, and puts those left out where they belong and replaces all the others. The normal child always repeats the exercise with growing interest. Indeed, it is precisely in these errors that the educational importance of the didactic material lies, and when the child with evident security places each piece in its proper place, he has outgrown the exercise, and this piece of material becomes useless to him. This self-correction leads the child to concentrate his attention upon the differences of dimensions and to compare the various pieces. It is in just this comparison that the psychosensory exercise lies. There is therefore no question here of teaching the child the knowledge of the dimensions through the medium of those pieces. Neither is it our aim that the child shall know how to use. Without an error, the material presented to him, thus performing the exercise as well. That would place our material on the same basis as many others, for example that of Frobell, and would require again the active work of the teacher, who busies herself furnishing knowledge and making haste to correct every error in order that the child may learn the use of the objects. Here instead is the work of the child, the auto-correction, the auto-education, which acts, for the teacher must not interfere in the slightest way. No teacher can furnish the child with the agility which he acquires through gymnastic exercises. It is necessary that the pupil perfect himself through his own efforts. It is very much the same with the education of the senses. It might be said that the same thing is true of every form of education. A man is not what he is because of the teachers he has had, but because of what he has done. One of the difficulties of putting this method into practice with teachers of the old school lies in the difficulty of preventing them from intervening when the little child remains for some time puzzled before the same error and with his eyebrows dawned together and his lips puckered makes repeated efforts to correct himself. When they see this the old-time teachers are seized with pity and long with an almost irresistible force to help the child. When we prevent this intervention they burst into words of compassion for the scholar but he soon shows in his smiling face the joy of having surmounted an obstacle. Normal children repeat such exercises many times. This repetition varies according to the individual. Some children, after having completed the exercise five or six times, are tired of it. Others will remove and replace the pieces at least twenty times with an expression of evident interest. Once after I had watched a little one of four years repeat this exercise sixteen times I had the other children sing in order to distract her. But she continued unmoved to take out the cylinders, mix them up and put them back in their places. An intelligent teacher ought to be able to make most interesting individual psychological observations and, to a certain point, should be able to measure the length of time for which the various stimuli held the attention. In fact, when the child educates himself and when the control and correction of errors is yielded to the didactic material there remains for the teacher nothing but to observe. She must then be more of a psychologist than a teacher and this shows the importance of a scientific preparation on the part of the teacher. Indeed, with my methods, the teacher teaches little and observes much and, above all, it is her function to direct the psychic activity of the children and their physiological development. For this reason I have changed the name of teacher into that of directress. At first this name provoked many smiles for everyone asked whom there was for this teacher to direct since she had no assistance and since she must leave her little scholars in liberty. But her direction is much more profound and important than that which is commonly understood for this teacher directs the life of the soul. Second, the education of the senses has, as its aim, the refinement of the differential preparation of stimuli by means of repeated exercises. There exists a sensory culture which is not generally taken into consideration but which is a factor in a thysiometry. For example, in the mental tests which are used in France or in a series of tests which DeSantis has established for the diagnosis of the intellectual status, I have often seen used cubes of different sizes placed at varying distances. The child was to select the smallest and the largest while the chronometer measured the time of reaction between the command and the execution of the act. Account was also taken of the errors. I repeat that in such experiments the factor of culture is forgotten and by this I mean sensory culture. Our children have, for example, among the didactic material for the education of the senses, a series of ten cubes. The first has a base of ten centimeters and the others decrease successively one centimeter as to base, the smallest cube having a base of one centimeter. The exercise consists in throwing the blocks which are pink in color down upon a green carpet and then building them up into a little tower, placing the largest cube as the base and then placing the others in order of size until the little cube of one centimeter is placed at the top. The little one must each time select, from the block scattered upon the green carpet, the largest block. This game is most entertaining to the little ones of two and a half who, as soon as they have constructed the little tower, tumble it down with little blows of the hand admiring the pink cubes as they lie scattered upon the green carpet. Then they began again the construction, building and destroying a definite number of times. If we were to place before these tests one of my children from three to four years and one of the children from the first elementary, six or seven years old, my people would undoubtedly manifest a shorter period of reaction and would not commit errors. The same may be said for the tests of the chromatic sense, etc. This educational method should therefore prove interesting to students of experimental psychology as well as to teachers. In conclusion, let me summarize briefly. Are didactic material renders auto-education possible? Permits a methodical education of the senses. Not upon the ability of the teacher to such education rest, but upon the didactic system. This presents objects which first attract the spontaneous attention of the child and second contain a rational gradation of stimuli. We must not confuse the education of the senses with the concrete ideas which may be gathered from our environment by means of the senses. Nor must this education of the senses be identical in our minds with the language through which is given the nomenclature corresponding to the concrete idea, nor with the acquisition of the abstract idea of the exercises. Let us consider what the music master does in giving instruction and piano playing. He teaches the pupil, the correct position of the body, gives him the idea of the notes, shows him the correspondence between the written notes and the touch and position of the fingers, and then he leaves the child to perform the exercise by himself. If a pianist is to be made of this child, there must, between the ideas given by the teacher and the musical exercises, intervene long in patient application to those exercises which serve to give agility to the articulation of the fingers and of the tendons in order that the coordination of special muscular movements shall become automatic and that the muscles of the hand shall become strong through their repeated use. The pianist must therefore act for himself, and the more his natural tendencies lead him to persist in these exercises, the greater will be his success. However, without the direction of the master, the exercise will not suffice to develop the scholar into a true pianist. The directoress of the children's house must have a clear idea of the two factors which enter into her work, the guidance of the child and the individual exercise. Only after she has this concept clearly fixed in her mind may she proceed the application of a method to guide the spontaneous education of the child and to impart necessary notions to him. In the opportune quality and in the manner of this intervention lies the personal art of the educator. For example, in the children's house in the Prati di Castello where the pupils belong to the middle class, I found a month after opening the school a child of five years who already knew how to compose any word as he knew the alphabet perfectly. He had learned it in two weeks. He knew how to write on the blackboard and in the exercises and free design showed himself not only to be an observer but to have some intuitive idea of perspective, drawing a house and chair very cleverly. As for the exercises of the chromatic sense he could mix together the eight gradations of the eight colors which we use and from this mass of 64 tablets each wound with silk of a different color or shade he would rapidly separate the eight groups. Having done this he would proceed with ease to arrange each color series in perfect gradation. In this game the child would almost cover one of the little tables with a carpet of finely shaded colors. I made the experiment taking him to the window and showing him in full daylight one of the colored tablets telling him to look at it well so that he might be able to remember it. I then sent him to the table on which all the gradations were spread out and asked him to find the tablet like the one at which he had looked. He committed only very slight errors often choosing the exact shade but more often the one next to it rarely attend two grades removed from the right one. This boy then had a power of discrimination and a color memory which were almost prodigious. Like all the other children he was exceedingly fond of the color exercises but when I asked the name of the white color spool he hesitated for a long time before replying uncertainly white. Now a child of such intelligence should have been able even without the special intervention of the teacher to learn the name of each color. The directorist told me that having noticed the child had great difficulty in retaining the nomenclature of the colors. She had up until that time left him to exercise himself freely with the games for the color sense. At the same time he had developed rapidly a power of a written language which in my method is presented through a series of problems to be solved. These problems are presented as sense exercises. This child was therefore most intelligent in him the discriminative sensory perceptions kept pace with great intellectual activities attention and judgment but his memory for names was inferior. The directorist had thought best not to interfere as yet in the teaching of the child. Certainly the education of the child was a little disordered and the directorist had left the spontaneous explanation of his mental activities excessively free. However desirable it may be to furnish a sense education as a basis for intellectual ideas it is nevertheless advisable at the same time to associate the language with these perceptions. In this connection I have found excellent for use with normal children the three periods of which the lesson according to Seguin consists. First period the association of the sensory perception with the name. For example we present to the child two colors red and blue presenting the red one we simply say this is red and presenting the blue this is blue then we lay the spools upon the table under the eyes of the child. Second period recognition of the object corresponding to the name we say to the child give me the red and then give me the blue. Third period the remembering of the name corresponding to the object we ask the child showing him the object what is this and he should respond red. Seguin insists strongly upon these three periods and urges that the colors be left for several instance under the eyes of the child. He also advises us never to present the color singly but always to at a time for the contrast helps the chromatic memory. Indeed I have proved that there cannot be a better method for teaching color to the deficients who with this method were able to learn the colors much more perfectly than normal children in ordinary schools who have had a haphazard sense education. For normal children however there exists a period preceding the three periods of Seguin a period which contains the real sense education. This is the acquisition of a fineness of differential perception which can be obtained only through auto-education. This then is an example of the great superiority of the normal child and of the greater effect of education which such pedagogical methods may exercise upon the mental development of normal as compared with deficient children. The association of the name with the stimulus is a source of great pleasure to the normal child. I remember one day I had taught a little girl who was not yet three years old and who was a little tardy in the development of language the names of three colors. I had the children place one of their little tables near a window and seating myself in one of the little chairs with a little girl in a similar chair at my right. I had on the table six of the color spools and pairs that is two reds, two blues, two yellows. In the first period I placed one of the spools before the child asking her to find the one like it. This I repeated for all three of the colors showing her how to arrange them carefully in pairs. After this I passed to the three periods of Seguin. The little girl learned to recognize the three colors and to pronounce the name of each. She was so happy that she looked at me for a long time and then began to jump up and down. I, seeing her pleasure, said to her laughing, do you know the colors? And she replied still jumping up and down. Yes, yes! Her delight was inexhaustible. She danced about me, waiting joyously for me to ask her the same question that she might reply with the same enthusiasm. Yes, yes! Another important particular of the technique of sense education lies in isolating the sense whenever this is possible. So, for example, the exercises on the sense of hearing can be given more successfully in an environment not only of silence but even of darkness. For the education of the senses in general, such as in the tactile, thermic, barric, and stereonostic exercises, we blindfold the child. The reasons for this particular technique have been fully set forth by psychology. Here it is enough to note that in the case of normal children, the blindfold greatly increases their interest without making the exercises to generate into noisy fun and without having the child's attention attracted more to the bandage than to the sense stimuli upon which we wish to focus the attention. For example, in order to test the acuteness of the child's sense of hearing, a most important thing for the teacher to know, I use an empiric test which is coming to be used almost universally by physicians in the making of medical examinations. This test is made by modulating the voice, reducing it to a whisper. The child is blindfolded or the teacher may stand behind him, speaking his name in a whisper and from varying distances. I establish a solemn silence in the school room, darken the windows, have the children bow their heads upon their hands, which they hold in front of their eyes, then I call the children by name, one by one in a whisper, lighter for those who are nearer to me and more clearly for those farther away. Each child awaits in the darkness the faint voice which calls him, listening intently, ready to run with keenest joy toward the mysterious and much desired call. The normal child may be blindfolded in the games where, for example, he is to recognize various weights, for this does help him to intensify and concentrate his attention upon the barric stimuli which he is to test. The blindfold adds to his pleasure since he is proud of having been able to guess. The effect of these games upon deficient children is very different. When placed in darkness they often go to sleep or give themselves up to disordered acts. When the blindfold is used they fix their attention upon the bandage itself and change the exercise into a game which does not fulfill the end we have in view with the exercise. We speak, it is true, of games and education but it must be made clear that we understand by this term a free activity ordered to a definite end not disorderly noise which distracts the attention. The following pages of Etard give an idea of the patient experiments made by this pioneer in pedagogy. Their lack of success was due largely to errors with which successive experiments have made it possible to correct and impart the mentality of his subject. Four In this last experiment it was not necessary as in the one proceeding to demand that the pupil repeat the sounds which he perceived. This double work distributing his attention was outside the plane of my purpose which was to educate each organ separately. I therefore limited myself to following the simple perception of sounds. To be certain of this result I placed my pupil in front of me with his eyes blindfolded, his fists closed, and had him extend a finger each time that I made a sound. He understood this arrangement and as soon as the sound reached his ear the finger was raised with a species of impetuosity and often with demonstrations of joy which left no doubt as to the pleasure the pupil took in these bizarre lessons. Indeed, whether it be that he found a real pleasure in the sound of the human voice conquered the annoyance he at first felt on being deprived of the light for so long a time. The fact remains that more than once during the intervals of rest he came to me with his blindfold in his hand holding it over his eyes and jumping with joy when he felt my hands tying it about his head. Five Having thoroughly assured myself through such experience as the one described above that all sounds of the voice whatever their intensity were perceived by Vittorio I proceeded to the attempt of making him compare these sounds it was no longer a case of simply noting the sounds of the voice but of perceiving the differences and of appreciating all these modifications and varieties of tone which go to make up the music of the word. Between this task and the proceeding there stretched a prodigious difference especially for a being whose development was dependent upon gradual effort and who advanced towards civilization only because I led thitherward so gently that he was unconscious of the progress. Facing the difficulty now presented I had need to arm myself more strongly than ever with patience and gentleness encouraged by the hope that once I had surmounted this obstacle all would have been done for the sense of hearing. We began the comparison of vowel sounds and here too made use of the hand to assure ourselves as to the result of our experiments each one of the fingers was made the sign of one of the five vowels lest the thumb represented A and was to be raised whenever this vowel was pronounced the index finger was the sign for E the middle finger for I and so on. Six not without fatigue and not for a long time was I able to give a distinct idea of the vowels the first to be clearly distinguished was O and then A the three others presented much greater difficulty and were for a long time confused at last however the ear began to perceive distinctly and then there returned in all their velocity those demonstrations of joy of which I have spoken this continued until the pleasure taken the lessons began to be boisterous the sounds became confused and the finger was raised indiscriminately the outbursts of laughter became indeed so excessive that I lost patience as soon as I placed the blindfold over his eyes the shouts of laughter began Itard finding it impossible to continue his educational work decided to do away with the blindfold and indeed the shouts ceased but now the child's attention was distracted by the slightest movement about him the blindfold was necessary but the boy had to be made to understand that he must not laugh so much and that he was having a lesson the corrective means of Itard and their touching results are worth reporting here I wish to intimidate him with my manner not being able to do so with my glance I armed myself with a tambourine and struck it lightly whenever he made a mistake but he mistook this correction for a joke and his joy became more noisy than ever I then felt that I must make the correction a little more severe it was understood and I saw with a mixture of pain and pleasure revealed in the dark the same face of the boy the fact that the feeling of injuries surpassed the unhappiness of the blow tears came from beneath the blindfold he urged me to take it off but whether from embarrassment or fear or from some inner preoccupation when freed from the bandage he still kept his eyes tightly closed I could not laugh at the doleful expression on his face the closed eyelids from between which trickled an occasional tear oh in this moment the tears ready to renounce my task and feeling that the time I had concentrated to it was lost however regretted ever having known this boy and how severely I condemned the barren and inhuman curiosity of the men who in order to make scientific advancement had torn him away from a life at least innocent and happy here also was demonstrated the great educative superiority of scientific pedagogy from normal children finally one particular of the technique consists in the distribution of the stimuli this will be treated more fully in the description of the didactic system materials and of the sense education here it is enough to say that one should proceed from few stimuli strongly contrasting to many stimuli and gradual differentiation always more fine and imperceptible so for example together red and blue the shortest rod beside the longest the thinnest beside the thickest etc passing these to the delicate passing from these to the delicately differing tints and to the discrimination of very slight differences in length and size end of chapter 12 chapter 13 of the Montessori method this is a library of recording are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Ashwin Jain The Montessori Method by Maria Montessori translated by Annie E. George chapter 13 education of the senses and illustrations of the didactic material sensibility the tactile, thermic, beryc and stereognostic senses the education of the tactile and thermic senses go together since the warm bath and heat in general render the tactile sense more acute since to exercise the tactile sense it is necessary to touch bathing the hands in warm water additional advantage of teaching the child a principle of cleanliness that of not touching objects with hands that are not clean I therefore apply the general notions of practical life regarding the washing of hands care of the nails to the exercises preparatory to the discrimination of tactile stimuli the limitation of the exercises of the tactile sense to the cushion tips of the fingers rendered necessary by practical life it must be made a necessary phase of education because it prepares for a life in which man exercises and uses the tactile sense through the medium of these fingertips hence I have the child wash his hands carefully with soap in a little basin and in another basin I have him rinse them in a bath of tepid water then I show him how to dry and rub his hands gently in this way preparing for the regular bath I next teach the child how to touch that is the manner in which he should touch surfaces what is necessary to take the finger of the child and to draw it very very lightly over the surface another particular of the technique is to teach the child to hold his eyes closed while touches encouraging him to do this by telling him that he will be able to feel the differences better and so leading him distinguish without the help of sight the change of contact he will quickly learn and will show that he enjoys the exercise often after the introduction of such exercises it is a common thing to have a child come to you and closing his eyes touch with great delicacy the balm of your hand or the cloth of your dress especially any silken or velvet trimmings they do verily exercise the tactile sense they enjoy keenly touching any soft pleasant surface and become exceedingly keen discriminating between the differences in the sandpaper cards the didactic material consists of a regular wooden board divided into two equal rectangles one covered with very smooth paper or having the wood polished until a smooth surface is obtained the other covered with sandpaper b. a tablet like the preceding covered with alternating strips of smooth paper and sandpaper I also make use of a collection of paper slips varying through many grades from smooth fine cardboard to co-zests sandpaper the stuffs described elsewhere are also used in these lessons as to the thermic sense I use a set of physical metal bowls which are filled with water at different degrees of temperature these I try to measure with a thermometer so that there may be two containing water of the same temperature I have designed a set of utensils which are to be made of very light metal and filled with water these have covers and to each is attached a thermometer the bowl touched from the outside gives the desired impression of heat I also have the children put their hands into cold tepid and warm water an exercise which they find most diverting I should like to repeat this exercise with the feet but have not had an opportunity to make the trial for the educations of the beryx sense sense of heat I use with great success metal wooden tables 6 by 8 cm having a thickness of half cm these tablets are in three different qualities of wood wisteria walnut and pine they weigh respectively 24, 18 and 12 grams making them differ in weight by 6 grams these tables should be very smooth and possible varnished in such a way that every roughness shall be eliminated but so that the natural color of the wood shall remain the child observing the color knows that they are of different weights and this offers a means of controlling the exercise he takes two of the tablets in his hands letting them rest upon the palm at the base of his outstretched fingers then he moves his hands up and down in order to gauge the weight this movement should come to be little by little almost insensible we lead the child to make his distinction purely to a difference in weight leaving out the guide of the different colors and closing his eyes he learns to do this of himself and takes great interest in guessing the game attracts the attention of those near who gather in a circle about the one who has the tablets and who take turns in guessing sometimes children spontaneously make use of the blindfold taking turns and interspersing the work with pills of joyful laughter education of the stereonostic sense the education of the sense leads to the recognition of objects through feeling that is to the simultaneous help of the tactile and muscular senses taking this union as a basis we have made experiments which have given marvelously successful educational results I feel that for the help of teachers these exercises should be described their first exacting material used by us of the bricks and cubes of friebel we call the attention of the child to the form of the two solids having filled them carefully and accurately with his eyes open repeating some phrase serving to fix his attention upon the particulars of the forms presented after this the child is told to place the cubes to the right the bricks to the left always filling them and without looking at them finally the exercise is repeated by the child blindfolded almost all the children succeeded in the exercise and after 2 or 3 times are able to eliminate every error there are 24 of the bricks and cubes in all so that the attention may be held for some time to this game but undoubtedly the child's play is greatly increased by the fact of his being watched by a group of his companions all interested and eager one day a directress called my attention to a little girl of 3 years one of our very youngest pupils were repeated this exercise perfectly we seated the little girl in an armchair close to the table then placing the 24 objects before her upon the table we mixed them and calling the child's attention the difference in form told her to place the cubes to the right and the bricks to the left when she was blindfolded she began the exercise as taught by us taking an object in each hand filling each and putting it in its right place sometimes she took two cubes or two bricks sometimes she found a brick in the right hand a cube in the left the child had to recognize the form and to remember throughout the exercise the proper placing of the different objects this seemed to me very difficult for a child of 3 years but observing her that she not only performed the exercise easily but that the movements with which we had taught her to fill the form of superfluous indeed the instant she had taken the two objects in her hands if it so happened that she had taken a cube with the left hand and a brick in the right she exchanged them immediately and then began the laborious the form which we had taught and which she perhaps believed to be obligatory but the objects had been recognized by her through the first light touch that is the recognition was contemporaneous to the taking continuing my study of the subject I found that this little girl was possessed of a remarkable functional ambidextrity I should be very glad to make a wider study of this phenomenon having in view the desirability of a simultaneous education of both hands I repeated the exercise with other children and found that they recognized the objects before filling their contours this was particularly true of the little ones our educational methods in this respect furnished a remarkable exercise of associative gymnastics leading to a rapidity of judgment which was truly inspiring and had the advantage of being perfectly adapted to very young children these exercises of the stereonostic sense may be multiplied in many ways they amuse the children who find delight in the recognition of a stimulus as in the thermic exercises for example they may raise any small objects toy soldiers little balls and above all the various coins in common use they come to discriminate between small forms varying very slightly such as corn, wheat and rice they are very proud of seeing without eyes holding out their hands and crying here are my eyes I can see with my hands indeed our little ones walking in the ways we have planned make a smile over their unforeseen progress surprising us daily often while they are wild with delights over some new conquest we watch in deepest wonder and meditation education of the senses of taste and smell this phase of sense education is most difficult and I have not as yet had any satisfactory results to record I can only say that the exercises originally used in the test of psychometry do not seem to me to be practical for use with young children the olfactory sense in children is not developed to any great extent and this makes it difficult to attract their attention by means of the sense we have made use of one test which has not been repeated often enough to form the basis of a method we have the child smell fresh violets and jasmine flowers within nine fold hem saying now we are going to present you with flowers a little friend holds a bunch of violets and the child knows that he may guess the name of the flower for greater or less intensity we present fewer flowers or even one single blossom but this part of education like that of the sense of taste can be obtained by the child during the luncheon hour when you can learn to recognize various odors as to taste the method of touching the tongue with various solutions bitter or acid sweet salty is perfectly applicable children of four years readily lend themselves to such games we serve as a reason for showing them how to rinse their mouths perfectly the children enjoy recognizing various flavors when they learn after each test to fill a glass with tepid water and carefully rinse them out in this way the exercise for the sense of taste is also an exercise in hygiene education of the sense of vision one differential visual perception of damages first solid inserts these material consist of three solid blocks of wood each 55 cm long 6 cm high and 8 cm wide each block contains 10 wooden pieces set into corresponding holes these pieces are cylindrical in shape and are to be handled by means of a little wooden or brass pattern which is fixed in the center of the top the cases of cylinders in appearance much like the cases of weights used by chemists in the first set of the series the cylinders are all of equal height 55 mm but differ in diameter the smallest cylinder has a diameter of 1 cm and the others increase in diameter at a rate of half cm in the second set the cylinders are all of equal diameter corresponding to half diameter of the largest cylinder in the preceding series 27 mm the cylinders in the set differ in height the first being merely a little disc only a cm high the others increase 5 mm each the 10th one being 55 mm high in the third set the cylinders differ both in height and diameter the first being 1 cm high and 1 cm in diameter and each succeeding one increasing half cm height and diameter with these inserts the child working by himself learns to differentiate objects according to thickness according to height in the school room these three sets may be played with my three children gathered about the table an exchange of games adding variety the child takes the cylinders out of the molds mixes them upon the table and puts each back into its corresponding opening these objects are made of hard pine polished and polished second large pieces in graded dimensions there are three sets of blocks which come under this head and it is desirable to have two of each of these sets in every school a thickness this set consists of objects which vary from thick to thin there are 10 quadrilateral prisms the largest of which has a base of 10 cm the other is decreasing by 1 cm the pieces are of equal length 20 cm these prisms are stained a dark brown the child mixes them scattering them over the little carpet and then puts them in order placing one against the other according to the graduations of thickness observing that the length shall correspond exactly these blocks taken from the first to the last form a species of stair the steps of which grow broader towards top the child may begin with the thinnest piece over the thickest as suits his pleasure the control of the X-er size is not certain as it was in the solid cylindrical insets there the last lindus could not enter the small opening the taller ones would project beyond the top of the block etc in this game of the big stair the eye of the child can easily recognize an error since if he mistakes the stair is irregular that is there will be a high step behind which the step would have extended decreases be length long and short objects this set consists of 10 rods these are four sided each face being 3 cm the first rod is a meter long the last a decimeter the intervening rods decrease from first to last 1 decimeter each each space of 1 decimeter is painted alternately red or blue the rods placed close to each other must be so arranged that the colors correspond forming so many transverse stripes the whole set will arranged as the appearance of a regular triangle made up of organ pipes which decrease on the side of the hypotenuse the child arranges the rods which have first been scattered and mixed he puts them together according to the graduation of length and observes the correspondence of colors this exercise also holds a very evident control of error for the regularity of the decreasing length of the stairs along the hypotenuse will be altered if the rods are not properly placed this most important set of blocks will have its principal application in arithmetic as we shall see with it one may count from 1 to 10 and may construct the addition and other tables and it may constitute the four steps in the study of the decimal and metric system see size objects larger and smaller this set is made up of 10 wooden cubes painted in rose colored enamel the largest cube has a base of 10 cm the smallest of 1 cm the intervening ones decrease 1 cm each a little green cloth carpet goes with these blocks this may be of oil cloth or cardboard the game consists of building the cubes up one upon another in the order of their dimensions constructing a little tower of which the largest cube forms the base and the smallest the epics the carpet is placed on the floor and the cubes are scattered upon it as the tower is built upon the carpet the carpet goes through the exercise of nailing, rising etc the control is given by the irregularity of the tower as it decreases towards the epics a cube misplaced reveals itself because it breaks the line the most common error made by the children in playing with these blocks at first is that of placing the second cube as a base and placing the first cube upon it thus confusing the two largest blocks I have noted the small error was made by deficient children in the repeated trials I made with a test of day sanctics now the question which is the largest the child would take not the largest but dad nearest it in size any of these three sets of blocks may be used by the children in a slightly different game the pieces may be mixed upon a carpet or table and put in order on another table at some distance as it carries each piece the child must walk while letting his attention wander since he must remember the dimensions of the piece the child must look among the mixed blocks and the games played in this way are excellent for children of four or five years while the simple work of arranging the pieces in order upon the same carpet where they have been mixed is more adapted to the little ones between three and four years of age the construction of the tower with the pink cubes is very attractive to the little ones more than three years who knock it down and build it up time after time to differential visual perception of form and visual tactile muscular perception didactic material plain geometric in sets of wood the idea of these in sets goes back to I thought and was also applied by Sangun in the school for deficience I had made and applied these in sets in the same form used by my illustrious predecessors in these there were two large tablets of wood placed one above the other and fastened together the lower board was left solid while the upper one was perforated by various geometric figures the game consisted in placing the corresponding wooden figures which in order that they might be easily handled were furnished with a little brass knob in my school for deficience I had multiplied the games calling for these in sets and distinguished between those used to teach color and those used to teach form the insets for teaching color were all circles those used for teaching form were all painted blue I had great numbers of these insets made in graduations of color and in an infinite variety of form this material was most expensive and exceedingly cumbersome in my later experiments with normal children I have after many trials completely excluded the plain geometric inserts as an aid to the teaching of color since this material offers no control of errors the giant's task being that of covering the form before him I have kept the geometric inserts but I have given them a new and original aspect the form in which they are now made was suggested to me by a visit to the splendid manual training school in the formatory of St. Michael in Rome I saw there wooden models of geometric figures which could be set into corresponding frames or placed above corresponding forms the scope of these materials was to lead to exactness in the making of the geometric pieces in regard to control of dimension and form the frame furnishing the control necessary for the exactness of the work this led me to think of making modifications in my geometric inserts making use of the frame as well as that of the insect and therefore made a rectangular tray which measured 30 x 20 cm this tray was painted a dark blue and was surrounded by a dark frame it was furnished with a cover to arrange it would contain the square frames with their insects the advantage of this tray is that the forms may be changed this allowing us to present any combination we choose I have a number of blank wooden squares which make it possible to present as few as two or three geometric forms at a time the other space is being filled in by the blanks to this material set of white cards 10 cm square these cards form a series presenting the geometric forms in other aspects in the first of the series the form is cut from blue paper and mounted upon the card in the second box of cards the contour of the same figures is mounted in the same blue paper forming an outline 1 cm in width on the third set of cards the contour of the geometric form is outlined by a black line we have then the tray the collection of small frames with the corresponding insects and the set of the cards in the series I also designed a case containing six trays the front of this box may be lowered when the top is raised and the trays may be drawn out as one opens the drawers of the desk each drawer contains six of the small frames with the respective insects in the first drawer I keep the four plain wooden squares and two frames one containing a rhomboid and the other a trapezoid in the second I have a series consisting of a square and five rectangles of the same length but varying in width the third drawer consists six circles which diminish in diameter in the fourth are six triangles in the fifth five polygons from pentagon to a decagon the sixth drawer contains six curved figures an ellipse an oval etc and a flower-like figure formed by four crossed arcs exercise with the insects this exercise consists in presenting to the child the large frame or tray in which we arrange the figures as we wish to present them we proceed to take out the insects mix them up on the table and then invite the child this game may be played by even the younger children and holds the attention for a long period though not for so long time as the exercise with the cylinders indeed I have never seen a child repeat this exercise more than five or six times the child in fact expends much energy upon this exercise he must recognize the form and must look at it carefully at first many of the children only succeed in placing the insects after many attempts trying for example to place a triangle in a trapezoid then in a rectangle etc or when they have taken a rectangle recognize where it should go they will still place it in the long side of the insect across the short side of the opening and will only after many attempts succeed in placing it after three or four successive lessons the child recognizes the geometric figures with extreme facility and places the insects with a security which has a tinge of nonchalance or slight contempt for an exercise that is too easy this is the moment in which the child may be led to a methodical observation of the forms we change the forms in the frame and pass from contrasted frames to analogous ones the exercise is easy for the child who habituates himself to placing the pieces in the frames without errors or false attempts the first period of these exercises is at the time when the child is obliged to make repeated trials with figures that are strongly contrasted in form the recognition is greatly helped by associating with the visual sense the muscular tactile perception of the forms I have the child touch the contour of the piece with the index finger of his right hand and then have him repeat this with the contour of the frame into which the pieces must fit we succeed in making this a habit for the child this is very easy to attain since all children love to touch things I have already learned through my work with deficient children that among the various forms of sense memory that of the muscular sense is the most precocious indeed many children who have not arrived at the point of recognizing a figure by looking at it could recognize it by touching it that is by computing the movements necessary to the following of its contour the same is true with the great number of normal children confused as to where to place a figure they turn it about trying in vain to fit it in yet as soon as they have touched the two contours of the piece and its frame they succeed in placing it perfectly undoubtedly the association of the muscular tactile sense with that of vision aids in a most remarkable way the perception of forms and fixes them in memory in such exercises control is absolute as it was in the solid insets the figure can only enter a corresponding frame this makes it possible for the child to work by himself and to accomplish a genuine sensory auto-education in the visual perception of form exercise with the three series of cards first series we give the child the wooden forms and the cards upon which the white figure is mounted then we mix the cards upon the table the child must arrange them in a line upon this table which he loves to do and then place the corresponding wooden pieces upon the cards here the control lies in the eyes the child must recognize these figures and place the wooden piece upon it so perfectly that it will cover and hide the paper figure the eye of the child here corresponds to the frame which materially led him at first to bring the two pieces together in addition to covering the finger the child is to accustom himself to touching the contour of the mounted figures as a part of the exercise the child always voluntarily follows those movements and after he has placed the wooden inset he again touches the contour adjusting with his finger a supreme post piece until it exactly covers the form beneath second series we give a number of cards to the child together with corresponding wooden insets in this second series the figures are repeated by an outline of blue paper the child through these exercises is passing gradually from the concrete to the abstract at first he handled only solid objects it then passed to a plain figure that is to the plane which in itself does not exist he is now passing to the lion but this lion is not present for him the abstract contour of a plain figure it is to him the path which he has so often followed with his index finger that this lion is a trace of a movement falling again the contour of the figure with his finger the child receives the impression of actually leaving a trace for the figure is covered by his finger and appears as he moves it it is the eye now which guides the movement but it must be remembered that this movement was already prepared when the child touched the contours of the solid pieces of wood third series we now present to the child the cards upon which the figures are drawn in black giving him as before the corresponding wooden pieces here he has actually passed to the lion that is to an abstraction yet here too there is the idea of the result of a movement this cannot be it is true the trace left by the finger but for example that of a pencil which is guided by the hand in the same movements made before these geometric figures in simple outline have grown out of a gradual series of representations which were concrete to vision in touch these representations return to the mind of the child and he performs the exercise of superimposing the corresponding wooden figures three differential visual perception of contours education of the chromatic sense in many of our lessons on the colours we make use of pieces of brightly coloured stuffs and of balls covered with full of different colours the didactic material for the education of the chromatic sense is the following which I have established after a long series of tests made upon normal children in the institute for deficience I used as said above the geometric inserts the present material consists of small flat tablets which are wound with coloured wool or silk these tablets have a little wooden border at each end which prevents the silk covered card from touching the table the child is also taught to take hold of the piece by these wooden extremities so that he need not soil the delicate colours in this way we are able to use this material for a long time without having to renew it I have chosen eight tints each one has with it eight creditions of different intensity of colour there are therefore 64 colour tablets in all the eight tints selected are black from white red orange green blue, violet and brown we have duplicate boxes of these 64 colours giving us two of each exercise the entire set therefore consists of 128 tablets they contain in two boxes each divided into equal compartments so that one box may contain 64 tablets exercises with the coloured tablets for the earliest of these exercises we select three strong colours for example blue and yellow in pairs these six tablets we place upon the table before the child showing him one of the colours we ask him to find its duplicate among the missed tablets upon the table in this way we have him arrange the colour tablets in a column two by two varying them according to colour the number of tablets in this game may be increased until the eight colours or 16 tablets are given at once when the strongest tones have been presented we will proceed to the presentation of the lighter tones in the same way finally we present two or three tablets of the same colour but of different tone showing the child how to arrange these in order of colour in this way the eight gradations are finally present following this we place before the child the eight gradations of two different colours red and blue he is shown how to separate the groups and then arrange each group in gradation as we proceed we offer groups of more nearly related colours for example blue and violet orange etc in one of the children's houses I have seen the falling game played with the greatest success and interest and with surprising rapidity the direct stress places upon the table about which the children are seated as many colour groups as there are children for example three she then calls each child's attention to the colour each is to select of which she assigns to him then she mixes the three groups of colours on the table each child takes rapidly from the mixed heap of tablets all the gradations of his colour and proceeds to arrange the tablets which when those placed in a line give the appearance of a strip of shaded ribbon in another house I have seen the children take the entire box empty the 64 coloured tablets upon the table and after carefully mixing them rapidly collect them into groups and arrange them in gradation constructing a species of little carpet of delicately coloured and intermingling tins the children very quickly acquire an ability before which they are amazed children of three years are able to pull all of the tins into gradation experiments in colour memory experiments in colour memory may be made by showing the child a tint allowing him to look at it as long as he will and then asking him to go to a distinct table upon which all of the colours are arranged to select from among them tins similar to the one at which he has worked the children succeed in this game remarkably committing only slight errors children of five years enjoy this immensely taking great pleasure in comparing the two spools and judging as to whether they have chosen correctly at the beginning of my work an instrument invented by Pizzoli this consisted of a small broken disc having a half moon shape opening at the top various colours were made to pass behind this opening by means of a rotary disc which was composed of strips of various colours let each call the attention of the child to a certain colour then turn the disc to indicate the same disc when it again showed itself in the opening the exercise rendered the child inactive preventing him from controlling the material it is not therefore an instrument which can promote the education of the senses exercise for the discrimination of sounds it would be desirable to have in this connection the didactic material used in molecular education in the principal institutions for deaf youths in Germany and America these exercises are an introduction to the acquisition of language and serve in a very special way to centre the children's discriminative attention upon the modulations of the sound of human voice with very young children linguistic education must occupy the most important place another aim of such exercises is to educate the ear of the child to noises so that he shall accustom himself to distinguish every slight noise in compared with sounds coming to resent hard or disordered noises such sense education has a value in that it exercises aesthetic taste applied in a most noteworthy way to practical discipline we all know how the younger children disturb the order of the room by shouts and by the noise of overturned objects the rigorous scientific education of the sense of hearing is not practically applicable to the didactic method this is true because the child cannot exercise himself to his own activity as it does for the other senses only one child at a time can work with any instrument reducing the gradation of sounds in other words absolute silence is necessary for the discrimination of sounds senorina macharoni directoress first of the children's house in Milan and later in the one in the convent at Rome as invented and has had manufactured a series of 13 bells hung upon a wooden frame these bells are to all appearances identical but the vibrations brought about a blow of a hammer produced the following 13 notes the set consists of a double series of 13 bells and there are 4 hammers having struck one of the bells in the first series the child must find the corresponding sound in the second this exercise presents grave difficulty as a child does not know how to strike each time with the same force and therefore produces sounds which vary in intensity even when the teacher strikes the bells the children have difficulty distinguishing between sounds so we do not feel that this instrument in its present form is entirely practical for the discrimination of sounds we use Pizzoli series of little whistles for the gradation of noises we use small boxes filled with different substances more or less fine sand or pebbles the noises are produced by shaking the boxes in the lessons for the sense of hearing I proceed as follows I have the teachers establish silence in the usual way and then I continue the work making the silence more profound I say st, st in a series of modulations now sharp and short now prolonged and light as a whisper the children little by little become fascinated by this occasionally I say more silent more silent I then begin the sibilant st, st again making it always lighter and repeating more silent still in a barely audible whisper now I hear the clock now I can hear the buzzle of a fly's flame now I can hear the whisper of the trees in the garden the children ecstatic with joy sit in such absolute and complete silence that the room seems deserted when I whisper let's close our eyes this exercise is repeated so I habituate the children to immobility and absolute silence that when one of them interrupts it needs only a syllable a gesture to call him back immediately to perfect order in the silence we proceeded to the production of sounds and noises making these at first strongly contrasted then more nearly alike sometimes we present the comparisons between noise and sound I believe that the best results can be obtained with a primitive means employed by the Eithard in 1805 he used the drum and the bell his plan was a graduate series of drums for the noises or better for the heavy harmonic sounds since these belong to a musical instrument and a series of bells the diapason the whistles the boxes are not attracted to the child and do not educate the sense of hearing as to these other instruments there is an interesting suggestion in the fact that two great human institutions that of hate war and that of love religion have adopted these two opposite instruments and the bell I believe that after establishing silence it would be educational to ring well-toned bells now calm and sweet now clear and ringing sending their vibrations to the child's whole body and when besides the education of the ear we produced a vibratory education of the ear we produced a vibratory education of the whole body through these wisely selected sounds of the bells giving a peace where it's the verifiers of his being then I believe these young bodies would be sensitive to crude noises and the children would come to dislike and to cease from making disordered and ugly noises in this way one whose ear has been trained in their musical education suffers from strident or discordant notes I need to give no illustration to make clear the importance of such education for the masses in childhood the new generation would become turning away from the confusion and the discordant sounds we strike the ear today in one of the wild tenets where the poor live left by us to abandon themselves to the lower more beautiful human instincts musical education this must be carefully guided by method in general we sealed the children passed by the playing of some great musicians as an animal would pass they do not perceive the delicate complexity of sounds the straight children would wonder about the organ grinder crying out as if to hail with joy the noises which would come instead of sounds for the musical education we must create instruments as well as music the scope of such an instrument in addition to the discrimination of sounds is to awaken a sense of rhythm and so to speak to give the impulse to arm and coordinate movements to those muscles already vibrating in the peace and tranquility of immobility I believe the stringed instruments perhaps some very much simplified harp would be the most convenient the stringed instruments together with the drum and the bells form the trio of the classic instruments of humanity the harp is the instrument of the intimate life of the individual legend places it in the hands of obvious folklore puts it into fairy hands and romance gives it to the princess who conquers the heart of a wicked prince and the teacher who turns her back upon her scholars to play far too often badly will never be the educator of the musical sense the child needs to be charmed in every way by the glance as well as by the pose the teacher who bending towards them gathering them about her and leaving them free to go or to stay touches the chord in a simple rhythm puts herself in communication with them in relation with their very souls so much the better this touch can be accompanied by her voice and the children left free to follow her no one being obliged to sing in this way she can select as adapted to education those songs which were followed by all the children so she may regulate the complexity of rhythm to various ages for she will see now only the older children following the rhythm now also the little ones at any rate I believe their simple and primitive instruments are the ones best adapted to the awakening of music in the soul of the little child I have tried to have the experience of the children's house in Milan who is a gifted musician make a number of trials and experiments with a view to finding out more about the muscular capacity of young children she has made many trials with a piano forte observing how the children are not sensitive to the musical tone but only to the rhythm on a basis of rhythm she arranged simple little dances with the intention of studying the influence of the rhythm itself upon the coordination of muscular movements she was greatly surprised to discover the educational disciplinary effect of such music children who have been led with great wisdom and art of liberty to a spontaneous ordering of their acts and movements had nevertheless lived in the streets and coats and had an almost universal habit of jumping being a faithful follower of the method of liberty and not considering that jumping was a wrong act she had never corrected them she now noticed that as she multiplied the rhythm exercises the children little by little left off their ugly jumping until finally it was a thing of the past a director is when they asked for an explanation of this change of conduct several little ones looked at her without saying anything the older children gave various replies whose meaning was the same it isn't nice to jump jumping is ugly it's rude to jump this was certainly a beautiful triumph for her method this experience shows that it is possible to educate the child's muscular sense and it shows how exquisite the refinement of the sense may be as it develops in relation to the muscular memory and side by side with the other forms of sensory memory there is for acuteness of hearing the only entirely successful experiments which we have made so far in the children's houses are those of the clock and of the lowered or whispered voice the trial is purely empirical and does not lend itself to the measuring of the sensation but it is however most useful in that it helps us to approximate knowledge of the child's auditory acuteness the exercise consists in calling attention where perfect silence has been established the ticking of the clock and to all the little noises not commonly audible to the ear finally we call the little ones one by one from an adjoining room pronouncing each name in a low voice in preparing for such an exercise it is necessary to teach the children the real meaning of silence toward this end I have several games of silence which help in a surprising way to strengthen the remarkable discipline of children I call the children's attention to myself telling them to say how silent I can be I assume different positions standing sitting and maintain each pose silently without movement a finger moving can produce a noise even though it should be imperceptible we may breathe so that we may be heard but I maintain absolute silence which is not an easy thing to do I call a child and ask him to do as I am doing he adjusts his feet to a better position and this makes a noise he moves an arm stretching it out upon the arm of his chair it is a noise his breathing is not altogether silent it is not tranquil absolutely unheard as mine is during these maneuvers on the part of the child and while my brief comments are followed by intervals of immobility and silence the other children are watching and listening