The Milan 1911 Conference on Methods: a ‘node’ in the history of diffusion of the Montessori Method

Abstract

This contribution is a first attempt to look at a step of the history of the diffusion of the Montessori method in Italy. It looks at a phase between 1910 and 1911, strictly connected to the evolution of Maria Montessori’s relationships with members of secular and radical-masonic elites. In particular, in April 1911 an important conference – For an Italian Method in Kindergartens – was organised in Milan: it represented the zenith of the debate on childhood pedagogy, nurtured by the experiences (within the Froebelian approach) of Agazzi and Montessori methods of education. Originally organized – probably – to promote the knowledge and diffusion of the Montessori method, the conference – in parallel with the breakup of Montessori’s relationship with the radical political movements close to the pedagogist Luigi Credaro – then took another direction, leading subsequently to very different results from the desired ones.