The following message was part of the invitation to attend the . . .

EIGHTH INTERNATIONAL MONTESSORI CONGRESS
San Remo, Italy, 22nd to 29th August 1949

Theme - Man's Formation in World Reconstruction

"My life has been spent in the research of truth. I have scrutinised human nature at its origins, both in the East and the West, through the study of children, and, though it is 40 years now since I began my work, childhood seems to be an inexhaustible source of revelations and - let me say it - of hope. I have seen that, as far as the child is concerned, all humanity is one. All children talk, no matter what their race or the circumstances of their family, more or less at the same age; they all walk, change their teeth etc. at certain predetermined periods of their life. In other aspects also, especially in the psychic field, they are just as similar, just as susceptible. Children are the constructors of men whom they build, taking from the environment, language, religious customs and the peculiarities, not only of race, not only of the nation, but even of the special district in which they develop.

Childhood constructs with what it finds. If this is poor, the construction is also poor. As far as civilisation is concerned the child is at the stage of the food-gatherers. In order to build himself he has to take, by chance, whatever he finds in the environment. The child is the Forgotten Citizen.

And yet, if Statesmen and Educationists once came to realise the terrific force that there is in childhood for good or for evil, I feel that they would give this priority above everything else. All problems of humanity depend on man himself and, if man is disregarded in its construction, the problems will never be solved. No child is a Bolshevist or Fascist or a Democrat; they all become what circumstances of the environment make them.

In our days, when in spite of the terrible lessons of two world wars, the times ahead loom as dark with threat as they never did in the past, I feel strongly that another tack has to be tried besides the economical and the ideological ones. It is the study of Man. Not of the adult man to whom every appeal is thrown and who, in the maelstrom of different ideas, economically insecure, remains confused, bewildered and in the span of his life, throws himself now on this side and now on that. Man must be cultivated from the beginning of his life when the great powers of nature are at work. It is then that some hope of a better construction of a better understanding can be planned.

The strength of the ideas in the adults, even if this construction is unconscious, is due to the child and not to the adult. There are societies that promote peace, societies to bring better understanding between the coloured and the white races, Committees of Nations seeking to establish a charter acceptable to all and the result is always the same. No matter how many treaties are signed, agreements reached, this disharmony bursts out here and there and threatens the world with new catastrophies. I know of course there is the economic problem which has to be solved. I know also that U.N.E.S.C.O. is seeking the material means to install a democratic type of education all over the world, but the ideological differences remain; differences of customs and so many other differences impossible to eliminate. I do not say that one should cease efforts which are all aiming at the same thing, but I feel that something else ought to be tried; that, instead of trying to eliminate differences, one should give greater attention to what is common. As I said previously, it is the child in its subconscious period who constructs the personalities which, once set, are very difficult to change, but if a scientific study of Man were made so as to take advantage of these forces, perhaps harmony could be reached more easily, than by using only the means previously mentioned.

If a scientific study were made of the child, I feel certain that it would be possible to construct a type of humanity in which the differences would be much smaller. I refer not only to small children, but to children during all periods of growth. At different ages the child constructs different items of the human personality. Anthropological study shows that for the body, there are set periods at which this or that part achieves its completion, which once set remains unaltered. Psychically speaking, the same thing is true, and just as the lack of certain vital items in the food may build a body below the average, so the lack of something which is vital to the growth of the spirit brings about a weak or inferior personality and, as the inferior bodies fall more rapidly and readily to infections, so do inferior spirits.

In my new effort to illustrate the contribution of a better humanity or society, I feel the urgency that all forces should be united and used to avert from humanity the repetition of these catastrophies which become ever more terrible.

As a step in this direction I have asked the Opera Montessori to organise a Congress in San Remo, Italy, from 22nd to 29th August, 1949, to discuss the theme "Man's Formation in World Reconstruction." I invite all those interested in Peace and Education to attend."