ABSTRACT
The subsequent fate of the Maria Montessori phenomenon in Britain has as much to do with commercial as with academic and professional interests, then the role of certain entrepreneurs need to be understood. Maria Montessori studied anthropology and worked at the university's Psychiatric Clinic, which included the care of mentally handicapped children. Increasing ease of foreign travel and communications allowed child study and psychology to flourish as an international pursuit at the turn of the century. From 1904 to 1908 a new social housing project was opened in one of the poorest parts of Rome by a group of wealthy bankers and the directors approached Maria Montessori for assistance in setting up a children's centre. Dr Montessori's medical and scientific qualifications undoubtedly lent her innovatory ideas both an authority and a very specific appeal to a particular audience in Britain. Jerome Bruner described Maria Montessori as a 'strange blend of the mystic and the pragmatist'.
