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138 THE CRISIS

In this connection Dr. Montessori makes
use of the three periods into which the lesson,
according to Séguin, is divided:
"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, we
say simply 'This is red,' and presenting the blue, 'This is blue.' Then we lay the spools
of colors 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.' This
process is reiterated many times."
One day the child, who has been drawing
little trees and coloring them all blue or
green, or red, as strikes his fancy, voluntarily
draws a tree with brown trunk and
green leaves. He has observed a tree, and
has found, with great pleasure, that he can
recognize its colors. Undoubtedly this voluntary
observation will have a more lasting
effect upon him than knowledge received at
second hand. And in addition to the mere
possession of this knowledge, note the coordination of the visual impression with the 
execution of the hand. 
The most noteworthy result, however of
Dr. Montessori's method has been obtained
in the matter of teaching children to write
and read. By her system children of four,
five and size have been taught to write in a
manner equal to that obtained in the third
elementary grade. These cases are not
exceptions.
To obtain these results she used small
wood tables, metal insets, outline drawings
and colored pencils. The child takes the
metal frame, places it upon a sheet of white
paper, and with a colored pencil draws
around the contour of the empty center.
Then he takes away the frame, and upon the
paper there remains the geometric figure.
This the child fills in. In this wise he learns
to practice the vertical and horizontal
strokes required in penmanship, and also the
co-ordination of the mental concept with the
manual action, because in filling in he tries
not to go outside the border line.  Gradually
he becomes master of the pencil.
Next the children are given cards upon
which the single letters of the alphabet are
mounted in sandpaper; also larger cards containing
groups of the same letters. He becomes
familiar with the outline of these by
the means of touch, then he traces them,
then he draws them, and lastly, he learns
how to compare and recognize the figures
when he hears the sounds corresponding to
them.
At last, some fine day, he begins to copy
words which contain letters that have impressed
him, though not yet conscious that
he is writing, and still later he learns that
a word may be written at any time to convey
an idea.  Thus his reading follows swiftly
on the heels of his writing and he has practically
accomplished it himself.
It is easy to see how rich may be the
future of children equipped thus early with
sharpened sense perceptions, with independence
and judgment and growing self-control.
For them everything in the world takes on a
more vivid coloring, avenues hitherto unsuspected
are open, and the sheer joy of 
living is keener and stronger. Such a child
gets practically an extension of the years of
his life.
Of course we do not want prodigies,
though, after all, the quality of prodigyship
is relative.  For if all the eleven-year-old
boys in a given radius can work problems
in differential calculus, which on of them,
then, is remarkable? 

The FAITHS OF TEACHERS
By G. S. DICKERMAN

An occupation means much or
little, according to the way
it is taken.  In almost any
pursuit that can be named
you will see some who go
through its forms mechanically
and without interest,
having in mind merely to meet requirements
and draw the pay; and alongside of them
other who seize on every take with avidity,
grappling its difficulties with a sort of joy,
trying experiments, making ventures, incurring
heavy risks and looking for returns beyond
any stipulated wages.  The latter do
honor to their occupation and are likely to
be honored by it.
The teacher's occupation is no exception.
Think of the teachers you have known, some
without aim and drifting into their places
as floating sticks drift into the pool by the
side of a mountain brook, to circle around
there in the still water for awhile till a 
freshet comes to throw them out; and then
another, so unlike these, who began in his 
early schooldays to set the teacher's calling
before him as a goal to ambition to be 
diligently prepared for by years of serious
study, and finally entering on it, put into
its duties his best and holiest service as for
end the highest to be found in all the 
world.
NOw that which makes the difference in
these is the difference in their faiths.  Behind
achievements are faiths.  Great teachers
are men and women of great faiths.  And
there are certain faiths that they all hold
in common.  Let me mention some of these:
1. Faith is the pupil's worth-and in the
worth of all pupils. 
There are pupils whose worth none ever
question, unusually attractive boys and girls,
gifted in mind and sunny of disposition; of
course these should be educated, for anyone
can see that there is something in them.  But
there are others of whom people are not so
sure; perhaps their fathers and mothers hope
that something can be made of them, but
the neighbors say: "No, all the pains taken
with their education is just so much thrown
away; there is nothing there to build on."
It takes the clear-eyed teacher to see the
deeper things in that child; those latent
powers which are waiting to be called into
exercise.
Eighty years ago people thought that nothing
could be made of a blind mute.  Then a 
teacher arose and gathered about him a little
group of blind children and began to try
what could be done for them.  We know 
now the story of Dr. Samuel G. Howe and
of the little speechless, vacant-minded, sightless
Laura Bridgman, whom he trained into
an intellectual and accomplished woman, and
with whose development was established the
Perkins Institution for the Blind.  And at 
that time, eighty years ago, a similar hopeless
feeling prevailed about other children
unfortunate for a different cause, when this
same great teacher began to try his experiments
on these also, and straightway there
grew up a second wonderful school, the
Massachusetts School for Idiotic and Feebleminded
Children.  There was a faith in the 
unpromising pupil and we see that it was
not in vain.
Every school has its unpromising pupils;
but in these the true teacher will search for
promise and will find it.  I know a teacher,
a brilliant, highly educated woman, who for
a number of years has devoted herself to a
class made up of the backward children
in a public high school, the children too
dull to keep in the ranks of the regular
classes, and she delights in her work because
she is able to discover in those stupid pupils
unsuspected capabilities and to kindle in
them a flame of self-respect and of ambition. 
She has had repeated invitations to other 
positions, but she declines them as less interesting
than this.
Not long ago I visited a school in which
the principal talked with me very freely
about his methods and called to the office a
number of boys for personal conversations.
Among these was one for whom he showed
especial solicitude, and this was on account
of his inferiority.  Out of a low family and
from bad home influences, he was what might
be called a hard case, dull-witted, whiffling
and unreliable, without ambition and unresponsive
to his teachers' best efforts-what
was to be done with him? The principal