MONTESSORI AND THE RIGHT BOOT
SIR,—Dr. Standing feels that I misunderstand much of the nature of Dr. Montessori's work. Be that as it may, he has certainly misread my review. I dealt with one aspect. only of her teaching : her refusal to observe or try to understand the workings of a child's mind, her specific exclusion of the idea of phantasy which must seem fatally limiting to modern lay educationists and is surely the answer to Mr. Standing when he asks in his book why 'relatively few people seem aware of her epoch-making discoveries. On this point the Montessorians have not changed their outlook. Anyone who doubts whether or not their movement is a closed system should compare Mr. Standing's book with Friedrich Froebel and English Education. Here the necessity of modifying Froebel's original concepts in the light of modern psychology is fully accepted and the results of his work are assessed in a factual and non-idealistic way which is impossible for Dr. Montessori's followers. (The only other important book about her is called A True Romance.)
Mr. Standing attributes to me statements I did not make, not, I believe, through ordinary misunderstand- ing but because Catholic and non-Catholic thought on some subjects—in this case educational theory based on the discovelies of Freud—are so far apart that discussion becomes meaningless.—Yours faith- fully, 3.0 St. Ann's TerraCe, NH'S
JEAN HOWARD
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