The Italian educator and physician Dr. Maria Montessori was the first Italian woman to receive a medical degree. She was the originator of the Montessori method of education for children. 

In 1901 Dr. Maria Montessori began her own studies of educational philosophy and anthropology, lecturing and teaching students. From 1904 to 1908, she was a lecturer at the Pedagogic school of the University of Rome. This period saw a rapid development of Rome, but the speculative nature of the market led to bankruptcies. One such area was San Lorenzo, where its children were left to run amok at home as their parents worked. In an attempt to provide the children with activities during the day to fend off the destruction of property, Dr. Maria Montessori was offered the opportunity to introduce her materials and practice to “normal” children. There, in 1907, she opened the first Casa dei Bambini (Children’s House) bringing some of the educational materials she had developed at the Orthophrenic School.

Dr. Maria Montessori put many different activities and other materials into the children’s environment but kept only those that engaged them. What she came to realize was that children who were placed in an environment where activities were designed to support their natural development had the power to educate themselves. By 1909 Dr. Maria Montessori gave her first training course in her new approach to around 100 students. Her notes from this period provide the material for her first book published that same year in Italy, appearing in translation in the United States in 1912 as the Montessori method, and later translated into 20 other languages.