Another point which brings the _Purgatorio_, in its educational scheme, down to our own days, is the _orderly progression_ of its lessons. The tasks set for the penitents are carefully classified and, so to speak, “graded.” The very form of the Mountain, with its system of gigantic steps or terraces, signifies as much. It symbolises even more: for education even in the infant stage involves the conquest of external difficulties, and, still more, the arduous conquest of self. The prominence of this “joy of overcoming” is one of the happiest psychological phenomena of a Montessori school. And as relations with our fellows become more complex and responsibilities multiply, this “battle of life” is ever more consciously felt. The New Teaching aims at “breaking the back” of a soul’s troubles in the early stage, by inducing a habit of mind to which the appearance of difficulties, instead of depressing, at once suggests victorious effort. In this way the battle of the free will becomes, in a sense, most strenuous at the start, as Marco Lombardo says, “And freewill, which, tho’ it hath a hard struggle in its first encounter with the heavenly influences, in the end wins the day completely, if it be well supported.” E libero voler; che, se fatica Ne le prime battaglie col ciel dura Poi vince tutto, se ben si notrica.[215] And the same thought of a gradation, a succession of efforts, each of which, bravely faced, makes those that follow lighter, is symbolised in the shape of the mountain of Purgatory, which in reality would have rather the form of a rounded dome than that of the tall pyramid of the customary illustration. Says Virgil, in his comforting way, to Dante, breathless after his first steep climb: “The nature of this eminence is such, that ever at starting from below it is fatiguing, but in proportion as a man mounts, he feels it less; wherefore, when it shall appear to thee so gentle that the ascent is as easy as sailing downward with the stream, then shalt thou be at the end of this path; there mayest thou hope to rest thy weariness.” ... Questa montagna è tale Che sempre al cominciar di sotto è grave: E quant’ uom più va su, e men fa male. Però, quand’ ella ti parrà soave Tanto che il su andar ti fia leggero, Com’ a seconda giù andar per nave, Allor sarai al fin d’ esto sentiero: Quivi di riposar l’ affanno aspetta![216] There is a moral progression by which man enters gradually and by accumulation into the fulness of self-conquest, and so, of his inheritance of Freedom. But “grading” also, in the more specific sense, seems to be symbolised in the _Purgatorio_. This principle was not born with Froebel, though its emphatic recognition to-day may be an outcome of his message that each stage of the child-life has its own absolute value and rights.