The Montessori philosophy ensures the physical development of the children is followed, each child being studied from the anthropological standpoint. Linguistic exercises, a systematic sense-training, and exercises which directly fit the child for the duties of practical life, form the basis of the work done. The teaching is decidedly objective, and presents an unusual richness of didactic material. The method of observation is established upon one fundamental base–the liberty of the pupils in their spontaneous manifestations.
THE pedagogical method of observation has for its base the liberty of the child; and liberty is activity.
Discipline must come through liberty. The concept of discipline is very different from that commonly accepted. If discipline is founded upon liberty, the discipline itself must necessarily be active. The Montessori philosophy does not consider an individual disciplined only when he has been rendered as artificially silent, as a mute and as immovable as a paralytic. He is an individual annihilated, not disciplined.
An individual is considered disciplined when he is master of himself, and can, therefore, regulate his own conduct when it shall be necessary to follow some rule of life. Such a concept of active discipline is not easy to comprehend or to apply. But certainly it contains a great educational principle, very different from the old-time absolute and un-discussed coercion to immobility.
No one can be free unless he is independent: therefore, the first, active manifestations of the child's individual liberty must be so guided that through this activity he may arrive at independence. Little children, from the moment in which they are weaned, are making their way toward independence.
The man who, through his own efforts, is able to perform all the actions necessary for his comfort and development in life, conquers himself, and in doing so multiplies his abilities and perfects himself as an individual.