At a time when practical guides to the Montessori method are proliferating, here's the one Maria Montessori herself designed to "enter families", written in Spanish in 1939 (supporting an earlier 1914 version in English). Unpublished in French, this historic version has nonetheless retained all its topicality. In this manual, which is not only practical, Maria Montessori also presents the philosophy of her pedagogy, recalling its ultimate objective: to serve Peace. Indeed, she insisted that education was the best weapon for Peace, and that to achieve it, it was necessary to consider the child as the guide of his or her education. Who better than the child himself knows what is good for his own development? A unique feature of this manual is that it is the only one illustrated with personal photos by Maria Montessori. The translator has made every effort to reproduce these carefully selected photos in color. The comparison of historical black-and-white photos with contemporary ones clearly shows that, despite the century that has passed since the first "Children's House" opened, and despite all the changes in the method, which is neither static nor backward-looking, the essentials have remained the same.
