SOURCE: “Education and Utopia in Maria Montessori,” in Canadian Journal of Italian Studies, Vol. 10, No. 34, 1987, pp. 23-42.

In the following essay, Cro analyzes the place of Montessori's Absorbent Mind in the philosophical notion of utopia, from the ideal of the Renaissance Man to the dystopic visions of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley.

Sforzinda by Filarte, Leonardo's project for Milan in the sixteenth-century and the other architectural projects of the Renaissance belong, for chronological reasons as well as for philosophical ones, to a traditional, classical view of education. That view, which prevailed until the end of the Second World War, states that, given the proper environment, the ideal man, the Renaissance man, will be able to develop to his fullest potential.¹

But after Sigmund Freud's theories on the subconscious the exploration of the potential of the human mind has opened new perspectives for a better understanding of the relation...