amazing capacity to improve its actions”.1356
The creation of a world suited to the child is then inevitable. “When the adult does not take the place of the child, but it is the child himself who acts, immediately the need arises to provide the child with a suitable environment”.1357 “In this environment the child must be free to act, namely, it must have reasons to act but in a way suited to it; it must have contact with an adult who knows the laws which govern its life and who will not stand as an obstacle for it, either by protecting it or by guiding it or by forcing it to act independently of its needs”.1358
This is the foundation on which Montessori builds her method, which is preventive when compared with traditional systems or methods either repressive or preventive. This is one of the most original and most universal versions of 'new education'.1359 The period of childhood may be the crucial time for a
regeneration of human ity oriented towards living together and in peace. “The child is the father of humanity and civilisation”.1360 The basic attitude of an adult should be one of “interest and love”.1361 A more recent pedagogical direction is represented by the so-called non-directive education, the pedagogical version, foreseen by Carl Ranson Rogers himself,1362 of non -directive psychotherapy or
client -centered psychotherapy, as proposed and practised by Rogers himself.
This is a more linear and coherent form of education distinct fr om those mixed up with with various
versions of institutional pedagogy. As with therapy, so with the educational process it is up to the
individual to build his own personality. Both therapist and educator facilitate the growing process while
acting as cat alysts for sound and constructive energies which spring from within the patient and pupil
towards self -realisation.
1363
Both patient and pupil will be helped to have a positive perception and acceptance of themselves and of
others: this will be the starting point of any effective cultural, ethical and social growth. The successful
result is tied up with the quality of relationship which the therapist and the educator have been able to
establish and with the attitudes that follow it: the genuineness, sincerity , consistency of the relationship with the individual and with the group, alien from any professional masks; positive consideration,
esteem, trust shown in reference to the potential and aptitudes of the individuals; empathic
understanding, by means of whi ch the other feels that he is understood from his own point of view.
This is a non -authoritarian and non -troublesome way of becoming accustomed to freedom, one's
capacity for self -determination, sense of responsibility and spirit of initiative.
1364
This is a
1356 M. Montessori, Manuale di pedagogia scientifica, Naples, Morano 1935 (III ed.), pp. 15-20.
1357 M. Montessori, Manuale di pedagogia scientifica,p. 20.
1358 M. Montessori, Educazione e pace, Milan, Garzanti 1964, pp. 118-119.
1359 Cf. amongst the best summary studies in the Acts of the 11th International Montessori Congress, Rome, 26-28 Sept
1957, Maria Montessori e il pensiero pedagogico contemporaneo, Rome. Ed. «Vita dell'Infanzia», s. d., 366 p.; G.
Calò, Mari Montessori (1870-1952), in J. Chateau (Ed.), Les grandes pédagogues. Paris PUF 1956, pp. 310-336; R.
Finazzi Sartor, Maria Montessori. Brescia, la Scuola 1961, 191 p.; A. Leonarduzzi, Maria Montessori, Il pensiero e
l'opera. Brescia Paideia 1967, 243 p.; T. Loscho, Maria Montessori. Il progetto-scuola nella visione ecologica
dell'uomo e del bambino, costruttori di un mondo migliore. Bologna, Capelli 1991, 202 p.
1360 M. Montessori, La mente assorbente, third conference at the 8th Congress in San Remo 1949 on La formazione
dell'uomo nella ricostruzione mondiale. Rome, Ente Opera Montessori, s.d., p. 340; Cr. R Regni, Il bambino padre
dell'uomo. Infanzia e società in Maria Montessori. Rome, Armando 1977, 287 p.; A. Scococchera, Maria Montessori
una storia per il nostro tempo. Rome, Edizioni Opera Nazionale Montessori 1997, 196 p.
1361 M. Montessori, L'unità del mondo attraverso il bambino, 4th conference at the 8th Congress, San Remo 1949: La
formazione dell'uomo...., p. 431.
1362 C.R. Rogers, Freedom to learn. Columbus Ohio, C. E. Merril 1969, X-358.
1363 In a developing process that from Client-centered Therapy. Its current practice, implications and theory, Boston
Houghton Mifflin, 1951, XIII-560 p.; and On becoming a person. A therapist's view of psychotherapy. Boston.
Houghton Mifflin 1961, XI-420 p.; he ends up at A Way of Being. Boston Houghton Mifflin 1980.
1364 Cf. R. Zavalloni, Educazione e personalità. Milan, Vita e Pensiero 1955; Idem La terapia non-direttiva
nell'educazione. Rome, Armando 1971, 223 p. (in particular, pp. 129-215); Idem, La psicooogia clinica nell'educazione,