from
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48
Montessori Method \Mon`tes*so"ri Meth"od\ (Pedagogy)
A system of training and instruction, primarily for use with
normal children aged from three to six years, devised by Dr.
Maria Montessori while teaching in the "Houses of Childhood"
(schools in the poorest tenement districts of Rome, Italy),
and first fully described by her in 1909. The fundamental aim
is to create self-motivation for education, and the leading
features are freedom for physical activity (no stationary
desks and chairs), informal and individual instruction, the
very early development of reading and writing skills, and an
extended sensory and motor training (with special emphasis on
vision, touch, perception of movement, and their
interconnections), mediated by a patented, standardized
system of "didactic apparatus," which is declared to be
"auto-regulative." Most of the chief features of the method
are borrowed from current methods used in many institutions
for training feeble-minded children, and dating back
especially to the work of the French-American physician
Edouard O. Seguin (1812-80).
[Webster 1913 Suppl.] Monteth