tinguish meditation from methods for "learning"
intellectually. We know, for example, that to read a great number of
books consecutively, dissipates our powers and our capacity for
thought; and that to learn a piece of poetry by heart means to repeat
it until it is engraven on our minds: and that all this is not
"meditation."

He who commits a verse of Dante to memory and he who meditates upon a
verse of the gospel, performs a totally different task. The canto
will "adorn" the mind on which it is impressed for a certain time,
without leaving any lasting trace upon it. The verse which has been
the subject of meditation will have a transforming and edifying
effect. He who meditates clears his mind as far as possible of every
other image, and tries to concentrate upon the subject of meditation
in such a manner that all the internal activities will be polarised
thereby: or, as the monks say, "all the powers of the mind."

The expected result of the meditation is "an internal fruit of
strength"; the soul is strengthened and unified, it becomes active; it
can then act upon the seed around which it has concentrated and cause
it to become fruitful.

Now the method chosen by our children in following their natural
development is "meditation," for in no other way would they be led to
linger so long over each individual task, and so to derive a gradual
internal maturation therefrom. The aim of the children who persevere
in their work with an object, is certainly not to "learn"; they are
drawn to it by the needs of their inner life, which must be organized
and developed by its means. In this manner they imitate and carry on
their "growth." This is the habit by which they gradually coordinate
and enrich their intelligence. As they meditate, they enter upon that
path of progress which will continue without end.

It is after an exercise of meditation on the objects that our children
become capable of enjoying "the silence exercise"; and then, having
been rendered delicately susceptible to impressions, they try to make
no noise when they move, to refrain from awkward actions, because they
are enjoying the fruit of the "concentration" of the spirit.

It is thus that their personality is unified and strengthened. The
exercise which serves as the means to this end is designed gradually
to perfect the accuracy with which they perceive the external world,
observing, reasoning, and correcting the errors of the senses in a
sustained and