Who has not seen a child riding upon and whipping his father’s walking-stick, as if he were mounted upon a real horse? There we have a proof of “imagination” in the child! What pleasure it gives to children to construct a splendid coach with chairs and armchairs; and while some recline inside, looking out with delight at an imaginary landscape, or bowing to an applauding crowd, other children, perched on the backs of chairs, beat the air as if they were whipping fiery horses. Here is another proof of “imagination.”

But if we observe rich children, who own quiet ponies, and drive out habitually in carriages and motor-cars, we shall find that they look with a touch of contempt at the child who is running about whipping a stick in great excitement; they would be astonished to see the delight of children who imagine themselves to be drawn along by stationary armchairs. They would say of such children: “They are very poor; they act thus because they have no horses or carriages.” An adult resigns himself to his lot; a child creates an illusion. But this is not a proof of imagination, it is a proof of an unsatisfied desire; it is not an activity bound up with gifts of nature; it is a manifestation of conscious, sensitive poverty. No one, we may be sure, will say that in order to educate a rich child we should take away his pony and give him a stick. Nor is it necessary to prevent the poor child from being content with his stick. If a poor man, a beggar, had nothing but dry bread to eat, and if he placed himself by the grated window of a rich underground kitchen because when he smelt its savory odors he imagined himself to be eating excellent dishes together with his bread, who could prevent him? But no one would say that in order to develop the imaginative activity of the fortunate persons for whom the actual dishes were destined, it would be well to take away their meat and give them bread and fragrance.

A poor mother who was devoted to her little child offered him the piece of bread which was all she had to give in this manner: she divided it into two portions, and gave them to him in succession, saying: “This is the bread, this is the meat.” The child was quite content. But no mother would deprive her child of food in order to develop his imagination in this way.

And yet I was once seriously asked by some one if it would be injurious to give a piano to a child who was continually practising with his fingers upon the table, as if he were playing the piano. “And why should it be injurious?” I asked. “Because, if I do so, he will learn music, it is true, but his imagination will no longer be exercised, and I do not know which would be best for him.”

Some of Froebel’s games are based upon similar beliefs. A wooden brick is given to a child with the words: “This is a horse.” Bricks are then arranged in a certain order, and he is told: “This is the stable; now let us put the horse into the stable.” Then the bricks are differently arranged: “This is a tower, this is the village church, etc.” In such exercises the objects (bricks) lend themselves to illusion less readily than a stick used as a horse, which the child can at least bestride and beat, moving along the while. The building of towers and churches with horses brings the mental confusion of the child to its culmination. Moreover, in this case it is not the child who “imagines spontaneously” and works with his brains, for at the moment he is required to see that which the teacher suggests. And it is impossible to know whether the child really thinks that the stable has become a church, or whether his attention has wandered elsewhere. He would, of course, like to move, but he cannot, because he is obliged to contemplate the kind of cinematograph of which the teacher speaks in the series of images she suggests, though they exist only in the shape of pieces of wood all of the same size.

What is it that is thus being cultivated in these immature minds? What do we find akin to this in the adult world which will enable us to understand for what definitive forms we prepare the mind by such a method of education? There are, indeed, men who really take a tree for a throne, and issue royal commands: some believe themselves to be God, for “false perceptions,” or the graver form, “illusions,” are the beginning of false reasoning, and the concomitants of delirium. The insane produce nothing, nor can those children, condemned to the immobility of an education which tends to develop their innocent manifestations of unsatisfied desires into mania, produce anything either for themselves or others.

We, however, suppose that we are developing the imagination of children by making them accept fantastic things as realities. Thus, for instance, in Latin countries, Christmas is personified by an ugly woman, the Befana, who comes through the walls and down the chimneys, bringing toys for the good children, and leaving only lumps of coal for the naughty ones. In Anglo-Saxon countries, on the other hand, Christmas is an old man covered with snow who carries a huge basket containing toys for children, and who really enters their houses by night. But how can the imagination of children be developed by what is, on the contrary, the fruit of our imagination? It is we who imagine, not they; they believe, they do not imagine. Credulity is, indeed, a characteristic of immature minds which lack experience and knowledge of realities, and are as yet devoid of that intelligence which distinguishes the true from the false, the beautiful from the ugly, the possible from the impossible.

Is it, then, credulity we wish to develop in our children, merely because they show themselves to be credulous at an age when they are naturally ignorant and immature? Of course, credulity may exist in adults; but it exists in contrast with intelligence, and is neither its foundation nor its fruit. It is in periods of intellectual darkness that credulity germinates; and we are proud to have outlived these epochs. We speak of credulity as a mark of the uncivilized.

Here is a piquant anecdote of the seventeenth century. The Pont Neuf in Paris was the main highway for foot-passengers, and a meeting-place for loungers. Many mountebanks and charlatans mingled with the crowd. There was one of these charlatans who was making a fortune; he sold an ointment from China which enlarged the eyes, decreased the size of the mouth, lengthened noses that were too short, and shortened those that were too long, De Sartine, Chief of the Police, called up this charlatan to have him imprisoned, and said to him:

“Mariolo, how do you manage to attract so many people and gain so much money?”

“Sir,” replied the other, “how many persons, do you suppose, cross the bridge in one day?”

“From ten to twelve thousand,” replied de Sartine.

“Well, sir, how many intelligent persons do you suppose there are among them?”

“A hundred,” replied the official.

“That’s a liberal allowance,” said the charlatan, “but let us leave it at that. I will rely on the other nine thousand nine hundred for my living.”

Excerpted from Pg 116 – 117 ‘Spontaneous Activity in Education’ by Maria Montessori