In France, in England, and especially in America, experiments have been made...

"In France, in England, and especially in America, experiments have been made in the elementary schools, based upon a study of anthropology and psychological pedagogy, in the hope of finding in anthropometry and psychometry, the regeneration of the school.  In these attempts it has rarely been the teachers who have carried on the research; the experiments have been, in most cases, in the hands of physicians who have taken more interest in their especial science than in education.  They have usually sought to get from their experiments some contribution to psychology, or anthropology, rather than to attempt to organise their work and their results toward the formation of the long-sought Scientific Pedagogy.  To sum up the situation briefly, anthropology and psychology have never devoted themselves to the question of educating children in the schools, nor have the scientifically trained teachers ever measured up to the standards of genuine scientists.

"The truth is that the practical progress of the school demands a genuine fusion of these modern tendencies, in practice and thought; such a fusion as shall bring scientists directly into the important field of the school and at the same time raise teachers from the inferior intellectual level to which they are limited to-day." 

Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 1, p.4, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.