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CHAPTER V. DEVELOPMENT OF INDIVIDUALITY. The Montessori ideal is simply the educational aspect of the Christian ideal of lif e. Solomon said “ sP are the rod and spoil the child. The New Testament takes a different attitude with regard to childhood. Madame Montessori claims that given the right environment and plenty of freedom, a child will tend to develop along the right lines. She asserts, moreover, that it is the child’s own standard that really matters, and that no moral code forced upon him will really affect his character or remain with him in after life. It is the duty of the grown-up to create an atmosphere in which the latent and essential rightness of the child’s soul may develop. The adult is, however, herself human, and liable to be impatient, or undiscernmg, or simply cross. Lack of time, lack of space, lack of funds, tax resources to the uttermost, and the staff are occasionally obliged to resort to sheer compulsion rather than allow disorder to continue, or one turbulent child to disturb the tranquillity of the rest. As the grown-ups have not achieved perfection, so they do not pose as having achieved it. Children share the same ideals and a common standard of morality. Grown-ups have no more right to be cross and irritable than children, but it is conceded that they are liable to the same temptation. The Community has seen its children grow from babies into boys and girls, and has watched eagerly for the emergence of those qualities for which it stands. Looking hack over the cherished hopes and aims of the past eight years, two characteristics stand out as having been striven after—honesty and independence ; and looking at the Community now, with all the faults and weaknesses that a human community must have, those are the characteristics that stamp it. The children, almost without exception, are candid and frank in their relations with one another and the staff. Wrong-doing is seldom practised in secret, and rules are broken in the open light of day. “ Ask the Directors,” says one of the staff, on being besought for permission to do some forbidden thing. “ I have asked them,” is the astonishing answer, “ and they won’t let me.” Intellectual honesty is demanded almost in the nursery. Lessons are sometimes held up because the child fails to agree with the teacher. “ I don’t see much sense m that,” said John, after a lengthy explanation of some difficulty had been offered. The children early learn to differentiate between fact and theory. A fact is to he accepted from a grown-up person because it has been found that she can furnish adequate proof for her statements. A theory on the other hand is private property, and every one has a