ABSTRACT

Erich Stern has given special consideration to group-feeling as shown by the child, and he, too, emphasizes the utter want in the very young child of the group-consciousness so strongly marked in older children. The little child does not feel united with his playfellows so strongly as to make a firm corporate whole, having its own laws, rights, secrets, by whom another child is considered as an outsider and stranger. A general need of comradeship drives the child to a group of playfellows, but his attitude is still distinctly influenced by liking for, aversion from, confidence in, or shyness of individuals. The children in the Montessori school are not arranged in groups. The Montessori class therefore remains a loosely connected and comparatively indifferent life beside one another of children intent on individual aims in the presence of a teacher who intentionally avoids the assumption of the character of a social leader.