# Montessori and the Baha'i Faith

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> Source: Bahá'í Library Online (bahai-library.com), curated by Jonah Winters. Used by permission of the curator. Original citation: Barbara Hacker, Montessori and the Baha'i Faith, bahai-library.com.
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> Published in the Journal of Bahá’í Studies Vol. 1, number 2 (1988)
> © Association for Bahá’í Studies 1988
> 
> Montessori and the Bahá’í Faith
> Barbara Hacker
> 
> Abstract
> The life and work of Dr. Maria Montessori (1870-1952), scientist and educator, are introduced as relevant for the
> study of those investigating education in the light of the Bahá’í teachings. It is illustrated that Montessori was
> attuned to the spirit of the Bahá’í Era and that both her thoughts and actions showed understanding of such Bahá’í
> principles as the oneness of humanity, the equality of the sexes, the oneness of science and religion and a spiritual
> orientation to life. Her discoveries with children and view that they are key to the development of human society
> and ultimately world peace are presented in relation to Bahá’í writings on these subjects.
> 
> Résumé
> La vie et l’oeuvre du Dr Maria Montessori (1870–1952), femme de science et éducatrice, sont présentées ici comme
> étant pertinentes pour les chercheurs qui se penchent sur la question de l’éducation à la lumière des enseignements
> bahá’ís. L’auteure démontre que Montessori était en harmonie avec l’esprit de l’ère bahá’íe et que dans ses pensées
> et actions elle a fait preuve d’une bonne compréhension de principes bahá’ís tels que l’unité de humanité l’égalité
> des sexes, l’unité de la science et de la religion, et une orientation spirituelle de la vie. Ses découvertes avec les
> enfants et ses vues selon lesquelles les enfants sont la clé du développement de la société humaine et, en fin de
> compte, de la paix mondiale sont présentées par rapport aux écrits bahá’ís sur ces sujets.
> 
> Resumen
> Se introduce la vida y trabajo de la Dra. María Montessori (1870-1952), científica y educadora, como relevante para
> el estudio de aquellos que investigan la educación a la luz de las enseñanzas Bahá’ís. Se ilustra que Montessori
> estaba afinada al espiritu de la Era Bahá’í y que tanto sus pensamientos como sus acciones demostraban un
> entendimiento de tales principios Bahá’ís como la unidad de la humanidad, la igualdad de los sexos, la unidad de la
> ciencia y la religión y una orientación espiritual de la vida. Se presentan sus descubrimientos sobre los niños/niñas y
> su opinión de que ellos son la clave al desarrollo de la sociedad humana y a la larga a la paz mundial en relación a
> las escrituras Bahá’ís sobre estos temas.
> 
> T   he Revelation of Bahá’u’lláh marks a whole new cycle in human history. It marks mankind’s arrival at a new
> plane of development. The spiritual teachings that have sustained mankind and spurred its growth throughout
> history have been renewed by Bahá’u’lláh, and a larger measure of the spiritual reality explained because of man’s
> greater capacity to understand in this day. Like those spiritual leaders of the past—the Founders of the world’s great
> religions who have led mankind to increasingly higher levels of social organization and unity (the family, the tribe,
> the nation)—Bahá’u’lláh’s mission is to bring our awareness and communal life to the ultimate level (in this world)
> of planetary unity. His spiritual teachings concerning the oneness of God, the oneness of religion, and the oneness
> of mankind provide the foundation for this new organization, eliminating the root causes for much of the world’s
> disunity. His very existence as the most recent of God’s Messengers, fulfilling the prophecies of the world’s
> religions provides the motive force—acceptance of his Revelation—for that unification.
> Bahá’u’lláh tells us clearly what our tasks are in this world: to recognize his Revelation, and through it to
> know and worship God; to develop ourselves spiritually, growing through the tests and difficulties of our daily lives
> to reflect more and more of the divine attributes or spiritual qualities; and finally, to carry forward an ever-
> advancing civilization. The civilization we aim towards today is a worldwide civilization. Every aspect of
> mankind’s life will undoubtedly be affected: work, economics, medicine and health care, government, the arts, and,
> of course, education. Bahá’u’lláh has given us numerous principles to guide us in our development in each of these
> areas. It is tremendously exciting to contemplate this world civilization and to work towards it through our chosen
> occupations. We must keep in mind, however, that we do not know just what this future order will look like.
> Bahá’u’lláh did not tell us exactly and neither did ‘Abdu’l-Bahá or Shoghi Effendi. The new organization will
> evolve from many sources, its elements discovered by both Bahá’ís and non-Bahá’ís, both past and future, and from
> people of many races and ethnic backgrounds whose ascendancy the world has not yet experienced.
> In many passages, Bahá’u’lláh tells us that every atom of the universe was touched by the power of his
> Revelation, and indeed when we look at a graph of the growth of invention and technology in the centuries prior to
> this Revelation and the decades since, we see a tremendous increase dating from the time of Bahá’u’lláh.
> The technological means for planetary unity have been established. In the social sciences as well, there have been
> discoveries that revolutionized our understanding of human life. Many are those who have helped and are helping to
> build a new world though still unaware of the Source of the Revelation and its aim. An important and exciting task
> then falls upon those who can investigate with the highest standards of scholarship, the theory, research, and
> applications of each branch of knowledge important for a world civilization and then evaluate, refine, and direct that
> knowledge on the basis of the standards established in the Bahá’í writings.
> With this perspective in mind, I would like to consider the life and work of a truly great woman, Dr. Maria
> Montessori. Although her life’s work was in the field of education, her definition of education was a broad one, and
> this is, in part, what makes it important for our consideration. Born in 1870 and active until her death in 1952, she
> lived at the same time as Bahá’u’lláh, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá, and Shoghi Effendi. I have no indication that she had
> knowledge of the Bahá’í Faith, but she was one of those souls who seems to have been attuned to the spirit of the
> time in which she was living. These words of hers written in the 1930s reflect this:
> 
> An era that lasted for thousands of years, one as old as human history, beginning in fact in a legendary age and
> before that in epochs of which we have only a few traces buried in the bowels of the earth, has now come to an
> end. An immense chapter of history taking millennia to unfold has now closed.
> We are undergoing a crisis, torn between an old world that is coming to an end and a new world that has
> already begun and already given proof of all the constructive elements it has to offer. The crisis we are
> experiencing is not the sort of upheaval that marks the passage from one historical period to another. It can be
> compared only to one of those biological or geological epochs in which new, higher, more perfect forms of life
> appeared, as totally new conditions of existence on earth came about. (Education 24)
> 
> Montessori was born in the province of Ancona, Italy, the very year that Italy first became united. She spent
> her childhood and early adulthood in Rome. Yet throughout her life she exemplified Bahá’u’lláh’s injunction: “Let
> man not glory in this that [h]e loveth his country, let him rather glory in this that he loveth his kind” (Tablets 127-
> 28). Once when asked her nationality she replied, “I live in Heaven, my country is a star which turns around the sun
> and is called the Earth” (Maria 50). Her understanding of this principle was profound. In part, it seems to have
> been an intuitive realization, but it was also as we shall see confirmed and strengthened by her research. She spoke
> out about it time and again even when much of the world was preparing for or participating in the two world wars
> that threatened to stop her work. In 1936, she addressed the European Congress for Peace in Brussels with these
> words:
> We are all a single organism, one nation. By becoming a single nation we have finally realized the
> unconscious spiritual and religious aspiration of the human soul, and this we can proclaim to every corner of the
> earth. “Humanity as an organism” has been born; the superconstruction that has absorbed man’s efforts from
> the beginning of his history has now been completed....In a word, contemporary man has citizenship in the great
> nation of humanity.
> It is absurd to believe that such a man, endowed with powers superior to those of nature, should be a
> Dutchman or a Frenchman or an Englishman or an Italian. He is the new citizen of the new world—a citizen of
> the universe. (Education 28)
> Like the vast majority of Italians, Montessori was a Catholic. What pervades her writings, however, is not her
> Catholicism (although she sometimes draws on the lives of saints or quotes scripture to illustrate a point), but her
> deep sense of spirituality and her ability to transcend a particular religion for the deeper truth. It was this quality
> that made her work attractive to people of so many religious backgrounds. Spirituality was at the very heart of her
> work with children. She states: “Our goal is not so much the imparting of knowledge as the unveiling and
> developing of spiritual energy” (Maria 47). One of the things that makes her unique is her unfailing commitment to
> religious truth and the place of the spiritual component in education and all of life. She spoke with certitude on this
> subject even when it was not fashionable to do so. This contributed to her being somewhat ostracized by the
> scientific and educational establishment and her being labeled as “mystical” and unscientific. Ironically, there was
> disagreement over her even within the religious establishment. There is an account in a recent biography of
> Montessori being lambasted by an American priest because her work flew in the face of the doctrine of “original
> sin.” Yet posthumously she was honored by Pope John XXIII.
> Her life’s work is a blending of the scientific and the spiritual. She never saw the two areas as being in conflict
> with each other. Sheila Radice, a writer for the Times Educational Supplement, followed Montessori’s lectures and
> courses in London in the early 1920s and had many conversations with Montessori which resulted in Radice’s
> publishing a book called The New Children. She writes of Montessori:
> In those days she told me she saw the “two camps” very plainly—the professors of the humanities sneering
> at science; and the scientists laughing at the philosophers, and she thought to herself that some day the teacher
> would come who could unite these two opposed interpretations of life in one. (3)
> Radice goes on to explain how she felt Montessori herself did so much toward this end.
> In the area of politics as well, Montessori’s life reflected a constant effort to remain aloof to serve a higher
> interest even when there was much pressure to align herself with a particular group. This is an aspect of her life that
> can be particularly appreciated by Bahá’ís, as the teachings of Bahá’u’lláh stress noninvolvement in politics as an
> assistance to serving the higher goal of unity. In Montessori’s life, this pressure was especially evident in the days
> prior to World War II when she was attempting to expand her work in Italy. On the one hand, she resisted attempts
> by Mussolini to use her schools to indoctrinate youth. Kramer, her biographer, on the other hand, is somewhat
> critical of her for not leaving Italy sooner or taking an active stand against the rising Fascism. It was not until her
> schools were forced to close that she gave up her work in Italy and went to Spain, making Barcelona her
> headquarters. In Germany and Austria, the Nazis burned her effigy as well as her books in public squares in both
> Vienna and Berlin. When the Spanish Civil War broke out, her life was in danger in Spain, as a Catholic who had
> written on the teaching of religion. She was evacuated on short notice with the help of the British government. She
> left on a battleship and resettled in Holland where she again proceeded with her work. In 1939 as World War II was
> declared, she was invited to India by the Theosophical Society and remained there until 1946. In 1940 when Italy
> entered the war, she was confined to the Society’s compound, and her son Mario was interred in a camp for
> civilians.
> Although externally her life was affected by political forces, within she remained detached as this statement
> indicates:
> Not in the service of any political or social creed should the teacher work, but in the service of the complete
> human being, able to exercise in freedom a self-disciplined will and judgement, unperverted by prejudice and
> undistorted by fear. (Maria 53)
> Many of her close associates observed that she seemed to feel that her life was guided by a force beyond herself
> to accomplish some definite purpose. Even as young as ten-years-old, while desperately ill, she comforted her
> mother saying “Do not worry, mother I cannot die. I have too much to do in my life” (6).
> Anna Maccheroni, a colleague quotes her as saying, “To collect one’s forces, even when they seem to be
> scattered, and when one’s aim is only dimly perceived—this is a great action and will sooner or later bring forth
> fruits” (Standing, Maria Montessori 30). And Standing, an early biographer, recalls her saying that the art of
> life consisted in learning how “to be obedient to events” (31). She quite evidently applied these principles many
> times over in her own life. On this topic, Maccheroni elsewhere writes:
> She seems to face life in such a different way from most people. She sees, I might say, the unknown side of
> life. Often she repeats, “We are not born simply to enjoy ourselves.”...She is by no means a fatalist, but she
> does feel that there are results from what we are and what we do that are not chosen by us as we choose so
> many things on the surface of our lives. “We human beings,” she said, “we must have a mission too, of which
> we are not aware.” (Maria 5)
> By following this sense of inner direction, the young Montessori was led into a series of challenges based on
> another important Bahá’í principle, the equality of men and women. Bahá’u’lláh has said that humanity is like a
> bird with the one wing male and the other female, and that if one wing is weak and undeveloped the bird will be
> unable to fly. Not only outspoken on the equality of men and women, Montessori lived this principle. She was a
> bright young student, and as she approached the age of choosing her course in adulthood, the only profession open
> to women in Italy was teaching. She flatly refused it. She especially loved mathematics and chose a career in
> engineering. This necessitated her attending a technical school then the exclusive domain of males. She was
> admitted and did well despite having to be sequestered in a separate room at break times. Open to what she felt to
> be guidance, Montessori changed her direction and chose a medical career. Initially told it was impossible, she
> persisted and became the first woman admitted to the University of Rome Medical School. There are many stories
> of the “petty persecutions” she endured with good humor, as well as the official regulations such as having to wait
> until all the men were seated before entering the lecture halls and having to work on her cadaver alone at night,
> before she won the respect of her professors and fellow students and graduated with high honors as Italy’s first
> woman doctor in 1896.
> She was a delegate to many international women’s conferences and spoke out on behalf of women’s right to
> education, equal pay, etc. Professionally, she was appointed assistant doctor at the psychiatric clinic in the
> University of Rome, as well as establishing a private practice. In 1898, she became Director of the Orthophrenic
> Institute in Rome, in 1900 became a lecturer at the Feminine Teachers Training College, and from 1904-06 she was
> also a lecturer in anthropology at the University of Rome.
> It was during these early years in hospital work that Montessori began to discover her real life’s work: the
> study of the child and education. It began seemingly quite accidentally. She discovered a locked room in the
> hospital for the insane in which only the most basic custodial care was being given to a group of mentally defective
> children. The room was bare except for hard benches. The woman in charge spoke disparagingly of the children
> saying they crawled on the floor searching for crumbs, which they would place in their mouths. Montessori saw in
> this act a crying out for stimulation. She began to work with these children and began to speak openly of her view
> that “defective children were not extra-social beings but were entitled to the benefit of education as much as—if not
> more than normal ones” (Standing, 29). Out of this came her directorship of the Orthophrenic Institute into which
> institute all the retarded children of Rome were transferred from the insane asylums. During this period she trained
> teachers, visited other parts of Europe to study methods, and spent tremendous amounts of time with the children
> themselves in observation and experimentation with the materials she would design at night. She herself has said,
> “Those two years of practice are indeed my only true degree in pedagogy” (29).
> We do not know the level of mental functioning of these children by today’s standards, but all were sufficiently
> retarded to have been institutionalized, and after her work with them, all made progress. Some learned to read and
> write well enough to compete successfully with normal children on state examinations. There was a great deal of
> adulation for her work, but her own mind was going in another direction. She later reflected:
> Whilst everyone was admiring my idiots I was searching for the reasons which could keep back the healthy
> and happy children of the ordinary schools on so low a plane that they could be equalled on tests of intelligence
> by my unfortunate pupils. (30)
> Her course of action was to again enroll in the University of Rome as a student. She spent four years studying
> philosophy and psychology while also a lecturer herself. She gave special study to the works of Itard and Seguin.
> She translated and copied by hand the works of these two men “in order that I might have time to weigh the sense of
> each word and read in truth the spirit of the authors” (32). All of this was a thorough and exacting preparation for
> the work she longed to do with normal children.
> The opportunity finally came in 1906. In one of the poorest districts of Rome, known as the San Lorenzo
> quarter, new tenement housing for about a thousand people was constructed by a building and redevelopment
> society. The difficulty arose when the three to six-year-old children, left unattended while the parents worked,
> began defacing the building. With perhaps more concern for the building than the children, the authorities decided
> to supply a room and gather the sixty children together with some sort of supervision. Montessori took on the task.
> It was with this group of shy, dishevelled, disorderly, malnourished children that Montessori made an important
> discovery that is at the heart of all her future work. It was soon replicated in other schools in Rome, other parts of
> Italy, and then in other countries.
> She did not begin with a preconceived notion of what would happen. Her approach was to study the children, to
> learn from them, to observe their spontaneous activity, and to adjust what she did in response. Here, she was a
> scientist engaged in naturalistic observation. Her laboratory was the tenement classroom, and the materials were
> those she had made initially for her retarded pupils, plus small tables and chairs she had specially made. Without
> going into detail of the experimentation with this group of children, the end result which so astounded Montessori
> was that the children took on a new set of characteristics not usually attributed to children. They were
> spontaneously interested in the materials provided for them and would repeat the exercises with deep concentration
> and interest, completing their labor with obvious satisfaction and content. They were joyful in their work. They
> became very orderly. A spontaneous discipline developed—a self-discipline that was not imposed from outside but
> arose from within the child. They developed an internal motivation and became self-directed learners. They were
> readily obedient and respectful of reasonable authority, strongly attached to reality, and exhibited independence and
> initiative. The possessiveness so often associated with children became sublimated, and they began to display a
> profound sense of personal dignity. The process came to be known as normalization, and many more keys to the
> process were discovered over the years with various groups of children. The children were sometimes called “new
> children,” and visitors came to that classroom from all over the world. Froebel had had glimpses of the normalized
> child and so had Tolstoy in his school at Yasnaya-Polyana, but Montessori was the first to study normalization to
> find out what conditions facilitated and which hindered its occurrence.
> The experience of seeing individual children and a whole class reach normalization is a profound experience for
> a teacher. One feels truly privileged and spiritually uplifted to be able to witness it. For Montessori seeing it the
> first time, it was almost unbelievable. Her own words describe the sense of wonder in this first experience:
> It took time for me to convince myself that all this was not an illusion. After each new experience proving such
> a truth I said to myself, “I won’t believe it yet; I’ll believe it next time.” Thus for a long time I remained
> incredulous, and at the same time deeply stirred and trepidant. How many times did I not reprove the children’s
> teacher when she told me what the children had done of themselves! “The only thing which impresses me is the
> truth,” I would reply severely. And I remember that the teacher would reply without taking offence and often
> moved to tears: “You are right! When I see such things I think it must be the holy angels who are inspiring
> these children.”
> One day in great emotion I took my heart in my two hands as though to encourage it to rise to the heights of
> faith and I stood respectfully before the children, saying to myself: “Who are you then? Have I perhaps met
> with the children who were held in Christ’s arms and to whom all the divine words were spoken to? I will
> follow you to enter with you into the Kingdom of Heaven.”
> And holding in my hands the torch of faith, I went on my way. (53)
> For the next forty-six years Maria Montessori labored for the benefit of the child and, through the child, for
> all of humanity. Her studies of the child never stopped. She investigated the many types of deviations from
> normalcy exhibited in such behaviors as aggressiveness, timidity, disobedience, various fears, disorderliness and
> destructiveness, as well as excessive dependence, possessiveness, and excessive fantasy. She described how the
> deviated child could be guided into the process of normalization. Thus, education became a healing process for the
> spirit of the child. The words of ‘Abdu’l-Bahá come to mind in this regard:
> Therefore must the mentor be a doctor as well: that is, he must in instructing the child, remedy its faults;
> must give him learning, and at the same time rear him to have a spiritual nature. Let the teacher be a doctor to
> the character of the child, thus will he heal the spiritual ailments of the children of men. (Bahá’í Education 30)
> This is the first and foremost aim of Montessori education.
> Montessori discovered that children would explode into writing and then reading quite as naturally as they learn
> to speak. She observed and described the phenomena of sensitive periods in children. The term sensitive periods
> was first used by deVries, a biologist, in connection with animals. It refers to a period of sensitivity towards which
> the organism is directed with an irresistible impulse and a well-defined activity. These periods are transitory and
> serve to help the organism acquire certain functions or determined characteristics. Montessori says of children:
> 
> Children pass through definite periods in which they reveal psychic aptitudes and possibilities which afterwards
> disappear. That is why at particular epochs of their life, they reveal an intense and extraordinary interest in
> certain objects and exercises, which one might look for in vain at a later age. (Standing, 120)
> Her work expanded to the study of later childhood and adolescence and in the other direction to infancy and
> even prenatal development and the preparation for parenthood. Montessori came to see more and more of the great
> possibilities for childhood if the needs and tendencies of children were understood and met. She did a tremendous
> amount of writing and an astounding amount of work in designing materials to serve the educational needs of the
> child.
> While expanding from within as a body of knowledge about the child and a method for meeting the child’s
> needs, Montessori education was also expanding from without, spreading across the world. Montessori herself
> traveled to various parts of Europe, lecturing to the public, establishing training courses for teachers and helping to
> establish schools. In 1913 she made the first of several trips to the United States. She spoke to an audience of 5,000
> in Carnegie Hall, won gold medals for a model classroom at the 1915 San Francisco Exhibition, and spoke to many
> interested societies and individuals. She was the guest of Alexander Graham Bell, who became president of the first
> American Montessori Society, whose secretary was Margaret Wilson, daughter of President Wilson. Montessori
> lectured in cities in South America and, of course, conducted many courses in India during her stay there, returning
> again in 1948 at the age of 78 to give more courses, and in 1949 she gave her first course in Pakistan.
> People visited her from various parts of Asia, Africa, and Australia as well as from Europe and the Americas.
> Schools were started in these various countries with children of all different economic levels and cultural
> backgrounds, and it became obvious that the phenomena Montessori observed and cultivated were universal.
> It was characteristic of Montessori that while deeply concerned with the minutest detail in the design of a piece
> of didactic apparatus, she was also deeply concerned with the wider viewpoint: the implications of her work for the
> whole of humanity. She saw in her discoveries with young children from such diverse backgrounds a potent force
> for the uplifting of mankind, through proper education. She writes:
> Education cannot be dismissed as an insignificant factor in people’s lives, as a means of furnishing a few
> rudiments of culture to young people. It must be viewed first of all from the perspective of the development of
> human values in the individual, in particular his moral values, and second from the point of view of organizing
> the individuals possessed of these enhanced values into a society consciously aware of its destiny. A new
> morality must accompany this new form of civilization. Order and discipline must be aimed at the attainment
> of human harmony and any act that hinders the establishment of a genuine community of all mankind must be
> regarded as immoral and a threat to the life of society. (Education xiii)
> These thoughts are in harmony with the Bahá’í Writings, which contain numerous references to the importance
> of education both for the individual and society, and which emphasize the need for spiritual and moral education
> along with material education. The following quotations from ‘Abdu’l-Bahá illustrate this point:
> You must attach the greatest importance to the education of children, for this is the foundation of the Law of
> God, and the bedrock of the edifice of His Faith. (Bahá’í Education 29)
> Every child is potentially the light of the world—and at the same time its darkness; wherefore must the
> question of education be accounted as of primary importance. (31)
> Good behavior and high moral character must come first, for unless the character be trained, acquiring
> knowledge will only prove injurious. (38)
> Education must be considered as most important; for as diseases in the world of bodies are extremely
> contagious, so, in the same way, qualities of spirit and heart are extremely contagious. Education has a
> universal influence, and the differences caused by it very great. (28)
> In order to develop the potential of each child, through education, for the benefit of society, Montessori asks us
> to take a new perspective. She asks that we strip away the veils and prejudices we have about the nature of
> childhood and education and to try to see these in a new light. Among those prejudices is the notion that the child is
> an empty vessel that adults have complete authority and responsibility to fill. Also, it is assumed that the child is
> capable of little self-control and concentration, and is incapable of taking care of his or her own needs. It is believed
> that young children should not be allowed to do any form of work and should be sheltered from intellectual
> challenge.
> So widespread are these prejudices that they are almost universally accepted. The result is that many people
> have never seen a “normalized” child (like those that emerged from the Montessori schools around the world)
> displaying the characteristics of love of work, deep concentration, independence, attraction to challenge, as well as
> manifesting an inner peace and joyfulness.
> Key to overcoming the whole set of prejudices regarding the child is understanding that the child has an “inner
> guide” to his development. It is as real a guide as that which directs the physical development of the child, which
> begins with the first union of sperm and egg. The expectant mother can respect the process going on within her and
> protect it through proper diet and rest, abstention from harmful chemicals, but she does not control the development
> that takes place. Montessori refers to the child after birth, during its extended infancy (much longer than in animals)
> as a “spiritual embryo” in which the developmental process continues. She says:
> ...the formation of the intelligence of a human personality is certainly a miracle. How is it formed? By means
> of what process and in obedience to what laws?
> If the whole universe is governed by fixed law, is it possible that the human mind be formed haphazardly,
> i.e., without law at all? Everything in course of development passes through a complex process of evolution.
> (Formation 9)
> 
> Montessori was resistant to her work being called the Montessori Method, as it suggested a system of schools
> and institutions distracting us from a focus on the inner reality of the child. She emphasized that “This education is
> something that is given to us, not something that we can construct ourselves” (Reconstruction 1). Frequently, she
> urges us to view education as a “help to life.” Student of Montessori and trainer of teachers,
> Margaret Stephenson explains:
> 
> If we are thinking of life, then, not of a school or class, we have to take a very much deeper, broader, and wider
> view than if we were to study merely a system of education....Montessori was working for life, not merely for
> the educational process of life; and only if we understand this, can we begin to understand what was her real
> contribution to mankind. If we are studying life, not a child in a class, we are faced with something different
> from a person who has to be taught, someone who has to work at certain things for certain periods of time,
> someone who has to reproduce what has been assimilated....This is not a child to be reported on, marked,
> graded, classified, labelled, but a living organism following a pattern of development.        (Montessori, Secret
> xvi)
> 
> The role of education therefore must be to uncover these inner laws for the development of the human
> personality, respect them, and provide the environment, the attitude, and the materials that most effectively aid their
> unfolding, while removing obstacles to the process. To the extent that Montessori did this were manifested most
> wonderful results. One cannot help but think of the words of Bahá’u’lláh:
> Man is the Supreme Talisman. Lack of a proper education hath, however, deprived him of that which he doth
> inherently possess. Through a word proceeding out of the mouth of God he was called into being; by one word
> more he was guided to recognize the Source of his education; by yet another word his station and destiny were
> safeguarded. The Great Being saith: Regard man as a mine rich in gems of inestimable value. Education can
> alone, cause it to reveal its treasures, and enable mankind to benefit therefrom. (Gleanings 259)
> The precious gems unearthed by Montessori—children reflecting spiritual qualities, integrated personalities and
> imbued with a love of learning—suggested to her largely untapped resources for the development of the whole of
> humanity. She viewed children as the “makers of men.” Emphasizing that the human personality is essentially one
> during the successive stages of its development, she urges the conception of “a principle of education that has regard
> to all stages” (Formation 8). She adds, “In our most recent courses in fact, we call the child `man’” (9). With
> regard to this concept, Montessori’s grandson, Dr. Mario M. Montessori, Jr., a psychoanalyst, emphasizes her
> contribution as
> her identification of children as the link that guarantees the continuity of human evolution, which is a cultural
> evolution. Because of their close emotional bond with those into whose care they are given, children turn, with
> their special sensibilities and potentialities, to adults. From them they unconsciously absorb the fundamental
> patterns on which they base their personal behavior during their childhood. Their minds absorb and digest
> impressions of the social environment as they travel the road toward their own destiny in society.     (Human
> Development 39)
> He further illustrates this potent force in the nature of childhood by relating the story of a young child
> abandoned by members of her South American Indian tribe and raised by a French researcher who had been
> studying the tribe. Born into a nomadic tribe living at the level of the Stone Age but raised in a totally different
> environment, this child grew into a highly educated, modern, European woman distinguishable only by her physical
> features. The development that took our ancestors two hundred centuries was accomplished in one lifetime because
> of the nature of childhood.
> Montessori would have us look to the child for the key to development within human society—development,
> not only to the levels of civilization we know today but also to yet unrealized levels of perfection and unity. She
> speaks of the promise of childhood with these words:
> We need to know more of the Law that is behind all humanity, the source from which came all humanity, every
> personality, every race, every religion. That great Source has a Plan which is fulfilled not through the influence
> of the adult man on the child only, but also by the influence of the child upon the grown-up man. And the latter
> is not a love sentiment alone, though that is of very great influence; but it is a real influence of knowledge and
> wisdom, because if we have the problem to unite all humanity by taking into consideration the child, we touch
> something common to all humanity...when the child is born he has no special language, he has no special
> religion, he has not any national or racial prejudice. It is men who have acquired these things. What an
> opportunity is presented to humanity by this little child! (Reconstruction 6)
> With this perspective, the task becomes to apply the principles that have demonstrated results with smaller
> groups of children on a wider scale. A potential means to the extension of these principles is the application of the
> Bahá’í principle of universal education. On one level the principle, of course, refers to education for everyone—
> male and female, of every race and group of people, of every economic level, everywhere in the world. The
> application of this principle in this way will surely make a difference in our world. In The Promulgation of
> Universal Peace, ‘Abdu’l-Bahá suggests another meaning as well:
> ...education is essential and all standards of training and teaching throughout the world of mankind should be
> brought into conformity and agreement; a universal curriculum should be established and the basis of ethics be
> the same. (182)
> Wider acceptance of Bahá’u’lláh and the application of Bahá’í laws and teachings will provide a universal
> standard of guidance. The work of Montessori suggests the means to a universal curriculum and method within a
> richly diverse world because it is based on the universal laws of development of man as manifested in the child
> rather than on some externally devised and culturally biased methods of teaching. Montessori classes throughout the
> world, with students and teachers from widely varying backgrounds, demonstrate that it is possible to have a unity
> of purpose and approach by focusing on the needs common to all children, while still respecting valuable cultural
> differences.
> One of the greatest obstacles to a new world civilization that must be overcome is the constant threat and reality
> of war. ‘Abdu’l-Bahá spoke extensively about “waging peace” and in this quotation clearly makes peace one of the
> goals of education:
> You must sow the seeds of peace in the plastic minds of children. Teach them the victories of peace. Surround
> them with the lessons of peace. Envelop them with the atmosphere of peace, and inspire their hearts with the
> glorious achievements of peace. Let their food be peace, their contemplation peace, their highest aspiration
> peace and the impelling purpose of their lives peace. (Bahá’í Quotations 29)
> Especially in her later years, Montessori devoted much thought and energy to the question of world peace
> and the role of education in promoting peace. From the 1930s until her death in 1952, she addressed many peace
> conferences, wrote extensively on the subject, and was twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. In a 1932
> address to the Office of Education in Geneva, she said:
> What is generally meant by the word peace is the cessation of war, but this negative concept is not an adequate
> concept of genuine peace. (Education 4)
> And also:
> The fact that we mistakenly call the permanent triumph of the arms of war “peace” causes us to fail to recognize
> the way to salvation, the path that could lead us to true peace. (6)
> And to the European Congress of Peace in Brussels she said:
> Preventing conflicts is the work of politics; establishing peace is the work of education. We must convince the
> world of the need for a universal, collective effort to build the foundation for peace. (27)
> How can education promote peace? Not through the type of education that is widespread in the world.
> Montessori explains that while the weapons of war have grown more sophisticated, education has remained at the
> level of the bow and arrow. She emphasizes that education for peace does not mean merely preventing the child’s
> fascination with war, eliminating toy weapons, or ending the study of history as a series of battles, where victory on
> the battlefield is a supreme honor. She says it is not even enough to instill love and respect for all living things,
> although that is indeed important. War is a complex phenomenon she emphasizes. Humanity is overwhelmed by
> events, and society has evolved in a purely external, materialistic way and remained ignorant and disorganized with
> each individual thinking only of himself. In an address in Copenhagen, she said:
> An education capable of saving humanity is no small undertaking; it involves the spiritual development of man,
> the enhancement of his value as an individual, and the preparation of young people to understand the times in
> which they live. (34)
> She asks us to look at the characteristics produced by the type of education that has been most widespread in
> our society. Children are not allowed to work alone, to set and pursue goals, or to follow their inner guide. Rather,
> they are forced to conform to the group, in many cases their need for movement restricted by a desk and bench, with
> the opportunity to speak and question severely limited. As such, they are not allowed to become masters of their
> own forces. They become discouraged and repressed. Forced obedience restricts the opportunity for willing
> obedience to develop. There is constantly the exposure of mistakes to public scrutiny and disapproval. The child is
> punished for acts of charity in helping classmates and rewarded most for “besting” his classmates and coming out on
> top. A school lifetime of such an experience is internalized and does not foster the development of those higher
> virtues and characteristics that could foster peace. It is at this level that we must reform education to educate for
> peace. The goal must first be the development of inner qualities before the transmission of skills and culture.
> Montessori says:
> Education today causes the individual to dry up and his spiritual values to wither away. He becomes a cipher, a
> cog in the blind machine that his environment represents. Such preparation for life has been absurd in every
> age; today it is a crime, a sin. An education that represses and rejects the promptings of the moral self, that
> erects obstacles and barriers in the way of the development of intelligence, that condemns huge sectors of the
> population to ignorance is a crime. Since all our riches come from man’s labor, it is absurd not to regard man
> himself as the most fundamental of our riches. We must seek out, we must cultivate, we must enhance the
> value of man’s energies, his intelligence, his creative spirit, his moral powers so that nothing is lost. Man’s
> moral energies in particular must be turned to account. For he is not only a producer. He is called upon to
> assume and fulfill a mission in the universe. What man produces must be directed toward an end that we might
> call civilization or in other words the creation of a superstructure as the handiwork of humanity! But man must
> become aware of his own greatness; he must consciously make himself aware of the world outside him and of
> human events. (xiv)
> 
> It is striking how the words of Montessori reflect appreciation of the most fundamental Bahá’í concepts: the
> nobility of man and his purpose in life of carrying forward an ever-advancing civilization. She had a deep sense of
> the greatness of the time in which she was living and the magnitude of changes taking place in society. She had
> insight into the most basic teachings of the Bahá’í Revelation: The oneness of humanity, the unity of science and
> religion, the equality of men and women, and the spiritual aspect of humanity being its most important reality.
> Not only Montessori’s words, but her actions as well, illustrate the quality and spirit of life that the Bahá’í
> Writings urge us to achieve. From an early age she had a sense of purpose for her life, and she actively sought
> spiritual guidance and direction in order to fulfill that purpose. Obstacles in her path did not hinder her from
> continuing with her work, and pressures to align herself politically were resisted with a clear sense of detachment.
> Montessori lived her life in a spirit of service to all humanity and, even at the time of her death, offered a sacrifice
> for that goal. These words are on a commemorative tablet of the Montessori family grave in Rome:
> 
> Maria Montessori
> Famous scientist and pedagogue who dedicated her life to the spiritual renewal and to the progress of humanity
> through the Child.
> She rests in the Catholic cemetery of Noordwijk (Holland) far away from the country which she had so
> profoundly loved, far from her loved ones buried here. This she decided, to give testimony to the universality
> of her work, which made her a citizen of the world. (Maria 64)
> The work of Montessori’s productive life must be carefully considered by those who labor toward a worldwide
> civilization. Her emphasis on the spiritual basis for education and her uncovering of the prejudices commonly held
> about childhood and education orient us in a new direction. Her emphasis on studying the child through sensitive
> and detached observation gives us the key to understanding more of the human reality. Her study of normalization,
> or education as a healing process, and the factors that promote it, offers us a technique for fostering spiritual
> education. Her discovery of the spiritual qualities that were manifested in children receiving such
> an education, as well as the explosive academic learning that was its byproduct, offer us a vision of the potentialities
> of childhood. And her elucidation of the relationship between childhood and adulthood makes us conscious of the
> precious resources we have in children, properly educated, for transforming all society to a higher level of unity, a
> higher level of morality, and to the possibility of world peace.
> Always humble toward her own achievements, Montessori asks us not to honor her, but to look to the Child
> who was the object of her work. And referring to her contribution as “small and incomplete” (Formation 22), she
> calls on others to carry the work forward:
> The question is not to deliver man from some bonds, but to reconstruct; and reconstruction requires the
> elaboration of a “science of the human spirit.” It is a patient work, an endeavor based on research, to which
> thousands of people, dedicated to this aim, must contribute.
> Whoever works for this ideal must be actuated by a great ideal, much greater than those political ideals
> which have promoted social improvements, which concern only the material life of some groups of men
> oppressed by injustice or misery. This ideal is universal in its scope. It aims at the deliverance of the whole of
> humanity. Much patient work, I repeat, is needed along this road.... (19)
> Works Cited
> 
> ‘Abdu’l-Bahá. The Promulgation of Universal Peace. Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1982.
> Bahá’í Education: A Compilation. Wilmette: Bahá’í Publishing Trust, 1977.
> Bahá’í Quotations on Education. Honolulu: National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahá’ís of the Hawaiian Islands,
> 1971.
> 
> Bahá’u’lláh. Gleanings from the Writings of Bahá’u’lláh. Trans. Shoghi Effendi. 2d ed. Wilmette: Bahá’í
> Publishing Trust, 1952.
> 
> ———. Tablets of Bahá’u’lláh. Haifa: Bahá’í World Centre, 1978.
> Maria Montessori: A Centenary Anthology. Amsterdam: Association Montessori Internationale, 1970.
> Montessori, Maria. Education and Peace. Chicago: Henry Regency Co., 1972.
> 
> ———. Formation of Man, The. Madras: The Theosophical Publishing House, 1969.
> ———. Secret of Childhood, The. Notre Dame: Fides Publishers, 1966.
> Montessori, Mario, Jr. Education for Human Development. New York: Schocken Books, 1976.
> Radice, Sheila. The New Children. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1924.
> Standing, E.M. Maria Montessori: Her Life and Work. New York: Mentor Books, 1962.
>
> — *Montessori and the Baha'i Faith (Used by permission of the curator)*