At the turn of the century, Dr. Maria Montessori was evolving a remarkably effective and entirely new method of education. This method was based on several premisesthe freedom of the child seemingly to educate himself and to go at his own speed, the basic belief that a child will be carried forward by his excitement over the discovery of new skills and knowledge; and the concept of exercising and educating all of the senses so that the child's perceptual abilities will be heightened and the basic academic skills such as reading and arithmetic will be a natural outgrowth of former "sensory education" games.