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.]

N  teaching, instruction, edification, education, tuition, tutorage, tutelage, direction, guidance, opsimathy, qualification, preparation, training, schooling, discipline, excitation, drill, practice, book exercise, persuasion, proselytism, propagandism, propaganda, indoctrination, inculcation, inoculation, advise, explanation, lesson, lecture, sermon, apologue, parable, discourse, prolection, preachment, chalk talk, Chautauqua, exercise, task, curriculum, course, course of study, grammar, three R's, initiation, A, B, C, elementary education, primary education, secondary education, technical education, college education, collegiate education, military education, university education, liberal education, classical education, religious education, denominational education, moral education, secular education, propaedeutics, moral tuition, gymnastics, calisthenics, physical drill, physical education, sloyd, phonics, rote, rote memorization, brute memory, cooperative learning, Montessori method, ungraded classes, test, examination, exam, final exam, mid-term exam grade, score, marks, A, B, C, D, E, F, gentleman's C, pass, fail, incomplete, homework, take-home lesson, exercise for the student, theme, project, teaching, taught, educational, scholastic, academic, doctrinal, disciplinal, instructive, instructional, didactic, propaedeutic, propaedeutical, the schoolmaster abroad, a bovi majori disscit arare minor, adeo in teneris consuecere multum est, docendo discimus, quaenocent docent, qui docet discit, sermons in stones and good in everything.

basal body temperature method, basal body temperature method of family planning, bradley method, bradley method of childbirth, calendar method, calendar method of birth control, cascade method, contraceptive method, eclectic method, experimental method, gram method, gram's method, lamaze method, lamaze method of childbirth, leboyer method, leboyer method of childbirth, maieutic method, method, method acting, method of accounting, method of choice, method of fluxions, method of least squares, montessori, ovulation method, ovulation method of family planning, powder method, read method, read method of childbirth, relaxation method, rhythm method, rhythm method of birth control, scientific method, sentence method, socratic method, statistical method, straight-line method, straight-line method of depreciation, teaching method, whole-word method, withdrawal method, word method