DR. MONTESSORI'S NEW BOOK.
[To THE EDITOR or THE " SPECTATOR.") Sia,—In your review of Spontaneous Activity in Education there is a quotation from the authoress which seems to call for com- ment :—
" To be ready for a struggle it is not necessary to have struggled from one's birth, but it is necessary to be strong. He who is strong is ready. The trials life has in store for us are unforeseen, unex- pected : no one can prepare us directly to meet them : it is only a vigorous soul that can be prepared for anything."
Your reviewer seems to think this argument " successful." I do not. If it is really true that the trials and difficulties of life are so unforeseeable and unexpected that no one can prepare us for them, the first inference I should draw is that compulsory educa- tion is a useless persecution, and that Mr. Herbert Fisher ought to be promptly hanged. As a matter of fact, is it not absolutely certain that eight out of every ten schoolboys of to-day will after- wards have sometimes to work when they would prefer to play, be punctual when punctuality is unpleasant, and be far more accurate in vexatious detail than the schoolboy is naturally inclined to ? It may not be desirable to- begin struggling from birth; but I maintain that to have struggled before is the best way of being ready for future struggle. The American soldiers of 1861-62, who were only "naturally strong," often ran away. The veterans of 1864 did not. They had struggled before. If the school cannot do any of-this preliminary hardening for the battle, it has no raison d'etre.
What is the reason for this growing preference for " the play .way " and " spontaneity " in education ? When the child of a larger growth says " I don't want to" to the community's demand for disagreeable duty, there are no Montessori specialists to insist that compulsion is a grave psychological mistake. George Eliot has drawn a picture of Gwendolen Harleth, accustomed to an atmo- sphere of petting, and suddenly thrown into an irksome job. Contrast with this the man who told •the present writer that, .com- pared with his present work in a Government office, his schooldays were " bell," and ask if Gwendolen Harleth's is not •the unhappier lot. Of course, a good Montessorian would say that George Eliot's psychology is wrong : •that Gwendolen's previous luxurious- ness had nothing to do with her rebellion against drudgery. I am
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