Читать книгу A Montessori Mother онлайн

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I tucked all these observations away in a corner of my mind for future reflection, and moved on to the nearest child, a little girl, perhaps a year older than the boy, who was absorbed as eagerly as he over a similar light wooden frame, covered with two pieces of cloth. But these were fastened together with pieces of ribbon which the child was tying and untying. There was no fumbling here. As rapidly, as deftly, with as careless a light-hearted ease as a pianist running over his scales, she was making a series of the flattest, most regular bow-knots, much better, I knew in my heart, than I could accomplish at anything like that speed. Although she had advanced beyond the stage of intent struggle with her material, her interest and pleasure in her own skill was manifest. She looked up at me, and then smiled proudly down at her flying fingers.

Beyond her another little boy, with a leather-covered frame, was laboriously inserting shoe-buttons into their buttonholes with the aid of an ordinary button-hook. As I looked at him, he left off, and stooping over his shoes, tried to apply the same system to their buttons. That was too much for him. After a prolonged struggle he gave it up for the time, returning, however, to the buttons on his frame with entirely undiminished ardor.