From February to August 1926, a national training course for Children’s House and primary school teachers took place in Milan at the Società Umanitaria. The course was directed by Maria Montessori and it was the first to be authorised by decree by the Ministry of Education.
The booklet Note sul metodo Montessori. Applicazione – Diffusione – Immagine e vita infantile was published to document and celebrate this event. It was edited by the Milan Committee of the Opera Nazionale Montessori, chaired by Giuseppe Gallavresi, Councillor for Public Education of Milan, and ladies of the aristocracy supporters of the method such as the Countesses Orietta and Ludovica Borromeo d’Adda. It is probably to this booklet that Montessori refers in a letter to Ludovica Borromeo, written from Berlin at Christmas 1926, when she expresses words of appreciation for the production of the “magnificent Italian pamphlet”.
On the cover is the image of the child who - like a victorious charioteer of antiquity - drives the chariot drawn by four strength-filled horses representing four intellectual achievements: drawing, writing, reading and arithmetic. The image of the “triumphal chariot”, the child leading himself with impetus and joy to the conquest of culture is introduced in the third Italian edition of Il metodo della pedagogia scientifica, published in 1926.
The booklet contains texts by Maria Montessori and Giuliana Sorge outlining the principles of the method, extensive photographic documentation testifying to the many dimensions of educational life in the Children’s House, an account of the international spread of Montessori pedagogy and a summary of the main speeches given at the opening and conclusion of the course. The illustrations depict the Children’s House of the Società Umanitaria directed by Lola Condulmari, who had trained at the Course in Scientific Pedagogy held in Città di Castello in 1909.
