Part 12 (1/2)
This should also be the book of the new teacher, the pri infant life Such a preparation should generate in her consciousness a conception of life capable of transfor forth in her a special ”activity,” an ”aptitude” which shall make her efficient for her task She should become a providential ”force,” a maternal ”force”
But all this is but a part of the ”preparation” The teacher must not remain thus on the threshold of life, like those scientists who are destined to observe plants and aniy and physiology can offer Nor is it her ements in the functions of the body,” like the medical specialist in infantile disease, who is content with pathology She nize that the methods of those sciences are limited When she chants her introit and sets foot upon those steps which in the temple of life ascend to the spiritual tabernacle, she should look upwards, and feel that a host in the vast temple of science, she is a priestess
Her sphere is to be vaster and more splendid; she is about to observe ”the inner life of anic matter will not suffice for her; all the spiritual fruits of the history of huion will be necessary for her nourishment The lofty manifestations of art, of love, of holiness, are the characteristic manifestations of that life which she is not only about to observe but to serve, and which is her ”own life”; not a thing strange to her, and therefore cold and arid; but the intimate life she has in common with all men, the true and only real life of Man
The scientific laboratory, the field of Nature where the teacher will be initiated into ”the observation of the phenomena of the inner life”
should be the school in which free children develop with the help ofabout develop” the spiritual phenomena of the child, and experiences a serene joy and an insatiable eagerness in observing them, then she will know that she is ”initiated”
Then she will begin to become a ”teacher”
V
ENVIRONMENT
Not only must the teacher be transfored The introduction of the ”material of development”
into an ordinary school cannot constitute the entire external renovation The school should become the place where the child may live in freedom, and this freedom must not be solely the intianisetative part to his ht to find in school ”the best conditions for developiene has already put forward as aids to the life of the child No place would be better adapted than these schools to establish and popularize refor of children, which should meet the require freedom of movement, while it should be so made as to enable children to dress themselves No better place could be found to carry out and popularize infant hygiene in its relation to nutrition It would be a work of social regeneration to convince the public of the econoance and propriety in the--nay, more, that they demand simplicity and moderation, and therefore exclude all that superfluity which is so expensive
The above applies inal ”Children's Houses,” s inhabited by the parents of the pupils
Certain special requirenized in the rooiene iene has already done The great increase in the diiene; the ambient air space is measured by ”cubature” in relation to the physical needs of respiration; and for the same reason, lavatories were iene further decreed the introduction of concrete floors and washable dadoes, of central heating, and in ardens or broad terraces are already looked upon as essentials for the physical well-being of the child Wide s already adymnasia with spacious halls and a variety of complex and costly apparatus were established Finally, the most complicated desks, sometimes veritable machines of wood and iron, with foot-rests, seats, and desks revolving automatically, in order to preclude alike thefrom immobility, are the economically disastrous contribution of a false principle of ”school-hygiene” In the modern school, the uniform whiteness and the washable quality of every object denote the triuainst microbes would seeiene now presents itself on the threshold of the school with its new precepts, precepts which economically are certainly no more onerous than those entailed by the first triuiene
They require, however, that schoolrooed, not in deference to the laws of respiration, for central heating, which makes it possible to keep s open, renders calculations based on cubic ible; but because space is necessary for the liberty of movement which should be allowed to the child However, as the child's walking exercise will not be taken indoors, this increase of space will be sufficient if it per the furniture
Still, if an ideal perfection is to be achieved, we may say that the ”psychical” class-rooe as the ”physical”
class-room We all know the sense of coood half of the floor space in a rooreeable possibility of _ isoffered to us in a room of medium size croith furniture
Scantiness of furniture is certainly a powerful factor in hygiene; here physical and psychical hygiene are at one In our schools we recoly simple, and economical in the extreme If it be washable, so much the better, especially as the children will then ”learn to wash it,” thus perfor and very instructive exercise But what is above all essential is, that it should be ”artistically beautiful” In this case beauty is not produced by superfluity or luxury, but by grace and harmony of line and color, cohtness of the furniture Just as the ant than that of the past, and at the same time infinitely simpler and more economical, so is this furniture
In a ”Children's House” in the country, at Palidano, built to coa, we initiated the study of ”artistic” furnishi+ng It is well known that every little corner of Italy is a storehouse of local art, and there is no province which in bygone tiraceful and convenient objects, due to a combination of practical sense and artistic instinct Nearly all these treasures are now being dispersed, and the veryout, under the tyranny of the stupid and uniforhtful undertaking on the part of Maria Maraini to make careful inquiries into the rustic local art of the past, and to give it new life by reproducing, in the furniture of the ”Children's Houses,” the forms and colors of tables, chairs, sideboards, and pottery, the designs of textiles and the characteristic decorative motives to be met with in old country-houses This revival of rustic art will bring back into use objects used by the poor in ages less wealthy than ours, and meanwhile may be a revelation in ”econoraceful objects were manufactured, even this school furniture would sho beautysuperfluous material; for beauty is a question, not of material, but of inspiration Hence we must not look to richness of material, but to refinement of spirit for these practical reforms
If similar studies should be made some day upon the rustic art of all the Italian provinces, each of which has its special artistic traditions, ”types of furniture” ht arise which would in themselves do much to elevate the taste and refine the habits They would bring to the enlightenment of the world an ”educationalof a people with a very ancient civilization would breathe new life into thoseunder the obsession of physical hygiene, and to be actuated solely by a despairing effort to combat disease
We should witness the huliness and darkness of those who have accustoienic houses” of to-day, with their bare walls, and white washable furniture, look like hospitals; while the schools seeed in rows like black catafalques--black, merely because they have to be of the same color as ink to hide the stains which are looked upon as a necessity, just as certain sins and certain crimes are still considered to be inevitable in the world; the alternative of avoiding them has never occurred to any one Class-rooray walls, more devoid of ornament than those of a mortuary cha spirit of the child estible intellectual food which the teacher bestows upon it In other words, every distracting element has to be removed from the environment, so that the teacher, by his oratorical art, and with the help of his laborious expedients,the rebellious attention of his pupils on himself On the other hand, the spiritual school puts no limits to the beauty of its environment, save economical limits No ornament can distract a child really absorbed in his task; on the contrary, beauty both proht and offers refreshment to the tired spirit Indeed, the churches, which are _par excellence_ places of meditation and of repose for the life of the soul, have called upon the highest inspirations of genius to gather every beauty within their precincts
Such words e; but if ish to keep in touch with the principles of science, we may say that the place best adapted to the life of man is an artistic environment; and that, therefore, if ant the school to becoather within it things of _beauty_, just as the laboratory of the bacteriologist must be furnished with stoves and soils for the culture of bacilli
Furniture for children, their tables and chairs, should be light, not only that they may be easily carried about by childish arility is of educational value The salass drinking-vessels, for these objects becoh, disorderly, and undisciplined movements Thus the child is led to correct hiainst, overturn, and break things; softening his radually becomes their perfectly free and self-possessed director In the same way the child will accustoay and pretty things which enliven his surroundings Thus he ress in his own perfection, or, in other words, it is thus he achieves the perfect coordination of his voluntaryenjoyed silence and music, he will do all in his power to avoid discordant noises, which have become unpleasant to his educated ear
On the other hand, when a child comes into collision a hundred times with an enormously heavy iron-bound desk, which a porter would have difficulty in ; when he makes thousands of invisible ink-stains on a black bench; when he lets a round a hundred ti it, he re them; his environment meanwhile is so constructed as to hide and therefore to encourage his errors, with Mephistophelean hypocrisy