\Mon`tes*so"ri Meth"od\ (Pedagogy)
A system of training and instruction, primarily for use with
normal children aged from three to six years, devised by Dr.
Maria Montessori while teaching in the ``Houses of
Childhood'' (schools in the poorest tenement districts of
Rome, Italy), and first fully described by her in 1909.
Leading features are freedom for physical activity (no
stationary desks and chairs), informal and individual
instruction, the very early development of writing, and an
extended sensory and motor training (with special emphasis on
vision, touch, perception of movement, and their
interconnections), mediated by a patented, standardized
system of ``didactic apparatus,'' which is declared to be
``auto-regulative.'' Most of the chief features of the method
are borrowed from current methods used in many institutions
for training feeble-minded children, and dating back
especially to the work of the French-American physician
Edouard O. Seguin (1812-80).