SOURCE: “Maria Montessori (1870- ),” in Montessori and Her Inspirers, Longmans, Green and Co., 1924, pp. 213-85.

In the following essay, Fynne provides a detailed explanation of Montessori's theories and methods and traces major influences in the development of her thought.

“The Montessori Method” is now so well known to students of education, and so many excellent works have already been written in detailed exposition and criticism of its principles and practice, that for the purposes of this chapter it will suffice to consider in broad outline its history, fundamental conceptions, didactic apparatus and procedure, in order that its relations to, and the degree of its dependence upon, the work of Pereira, Itard, and Séguin may become clear.

Maria Montessori was born in the year preceding the consummation of Italian independence and unity under the constitutional monarchy of Victor Emmanuel. The only child of middle-class parents who were not...