1. It is based on years of patient observation of child nature.
2. It has proved itself of universal application. Within a
single generation, it has been tried with complete success with
children of almost every civilized nation. Race, color, climate,
nationality, social rank, type of civilization- all of these
make no difference to its successful application.
3. It has revealed the small child as a lover of work,
intellectual work, spontaneously chosen and carried out with
profound joy.
4. It is based on the child's imperious need to learn by doing.
At each stage in the child's mental growth, corresponding
occupations are provided by means of which he develops his
facilities.
5. While it offers the child a maximum of spontaneity, it
nevertheless enables him to reach the same, or even higher level
of scholastic attainment as under the old systems.
6. Though it does away with the necessity of coercion by means
of rewards and punishments, it achieves a higher discipline than
formerly. It is an active discipline which originates within the
child and it is not imposed from without.
7. It is based on a profound respect for the child's personality
and removes from him the preponderating influence of the adult,
thus leaving him room to grow in biological independence. Hence
the child is allowed a large measure of liberty (no license) which
forms the basis of real discipline.
8. It enables the teacher to deal with each child individually
in each subject and thus guide him according to his individual
requirements.
9. Each child works at his own pace , hence the quick child is
not held back by the slow, nor is the latter, in trying to keep
up with the former, obliged to flounder along hopelessly out of
his depth. Each stone in the mental edifice is "well and truly
laid" before the next is added.
10. It does away with the competitive spirit and its train of
baneful results. More than this, at every turn it presents
endless opportunities among children for mutual help-which is
joyfully given and gratefully received.
11. Since the child works from his own free choice, without
competition and coercion, he is freed from danger of overstrain,
feelings of inferiority, and other experiences which are apt to
be unconscious cause of profound mental disturbances in later
life.
12.Finally, the Montessori method develops the whole personality
of the child, not merely his intellectual faculties but also his
powers of deliberation, initiative and independent choice, with
their emotional complements. By living as a free member of a
real social community, the child is trained in those fundamental
social qualities which form the basis of good citizenship.
