Montessori mother - Kamelini Montessori

A MONTESSORI MOTHER 19
woald no more leave her fascinating occupation to
go and " be naughty " than a professor of chemistry
would leave an absorbing experiment in his labora-
tory to go and rob a candy-store. In both cases it
would be leaving the best sort of a " good time " for
a much less enjoyable undertaking.
In the midst of these reflections (my first glimmer
of understanding of what it was all about), a lively
march on the piano was struck up. Not a word was
spoken by the teacher, indeed I had not yet heard her
voice raised a single time to make a collective re-
mark to the whole body of children, but at once, act-
ing on the impulse which moves us all to run down the
street towards the sound of a brass band, most of the
children stopped their work and ran towards the open
floor-space near the piano. Some of the older ones,
of five, formed a single-file line, which was rapidly
recruited by the monkey-like imitativeness of the little
ones, into a long file. The music was martial, the
older children held their heads high and stamped
loudly as they marched about, keeping time very accurately
to the strongly marked rhythm of the tune.
The little tots did their baby best to copy their big
brothers and sisters, some of them merely laughing
reference to
and stamping up and down without any
the time, others evidently noticing a difference be-
tween their actions and those of the older ones, and
trying to move their feet more regularly.
No one had suggested that they leave their work-
tables to play in this way (indeed a few too absorbed