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Children Have An Anxious Concern For Living Beings, And The Satisfaction Of This Instinct Fills Them With Delight. It Is Therefore Easy To Interest Them In Taking Care Of Plants And Especially Of Animals. Nothing Awakens Foresight In A Small Child Such As This. When He Knows That Animals Have Need Of Him, That Little Plants Will Dry Up If He Does Not Water Them, He Binds Together With A New Thread Of Love Today's Passing Moments With Those Of The Morrow.

-Maria Montessori

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Children Have An Anxious

Maria Montessori

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Children Have An Anxious Concern For Living Beings, And The Satisfaction Of This Instinct Fills Them With Delight. It Is Therefore Easy To Interest Them In Taking Care Of Plants And Especially Of Animals. Nothing Awakens Foresight In A Small Child Such As This. When He Knows That Animals Have Need Of Him, That Little Plants Will Dry Up If He Does Not Water Them, He Binds Together With A New Thread Of Love Today's Passing Moments With Those Of The Morrow.

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The Child, Making Use Of All That He Finds Around Him, Shapes Himself For The Future.

Red Rodsbefore Elaborating Any System Of Education, We Must Therefore Create A Favorable Environment That Will Encourage The Flowering Of A Child's Natural Gifts. All That Is Needed Is To Remove The Obstacles. And This Should Be The Basis Of, And Point Of Departure For, All Future Education. The First Thing To Be Done, Therefore, Is To Discover The True Nature Of A Child And Then Assist Him In His Normal Development.

A Child Starts From Nothing And Advances Alone. It Is The Child's Reason About Which The Sensitive Periods Revolve. The Reason Provides The Initial Force And Energy, And A Child Absorbs His First Images To Assist The Reason And Act On It.

To Teach Details Is To Bring Confusion; To Establish The Relationship Between Things Is To Bring Knowledge.

Growth Comes From Activity, Not From Intellectual Understanding.

It Is Exactly In The Repetition Of The Exercises That The Education Of The Senses Exists; Not That The Child Shall Know Colors, Forms Or Qualities, But That He Refine His Senses Through An Exercise Of Attention, Comparison And Judgment.

A Child In His Earliest Years, When He Is Only Two Or A Little More, Is Capable Of Tremendous Achievements Simply Through His Unconscious Power Of Absorption, Though He Is Himself Still Immobile. After The Age Of Three He Is Able To Acquire A Great Number Of Concepts Through His Own Efforts In Exploring His Surroundings. In This Period He Lays Hold Of Things Through His Own Activity And Assimilates Them Into His Mind.

An Adult Who Does Not Understand That A Child Needs To Use His Hands And Does Not Recognize This As The First Manifestation Of An Instinct For Work Can Be An Obstacle To The Child's Development

A Child Is A Discoverer. He Is An Amorphous, Splendid Being In Search Of His Own Proper Form.

We Must Clearly Understand That When We Give The Child Freedom And Independence, We Are Giving Freedom To A Worker Already Braced For Action, Who Cannot Live Without Working And Being Active.

No One Can Be Free Unless He Is Independent. Therefore, The First Active Manifestations Of The Child's Individual Liberty Must Be So Guided That Through This Activity He May Arrive At Independence.

Education Should No Longer Be Most Imparting Of Knowledge, But Must Take A New Path, Seeking The Release Of Human Potentialities.

Praise, Help, Or Even A Look, May Be Enough To Interrupt Him, Or Destroy The Activity. It Seems A Strange Thing To Say, But This Can Happen Even If The Child Merely Becomes Aware Of Being Watched. After All, We Too Sometimes Feel Unable To Go On Working If Someone Comes To See What We Are Doing. The Great Principle Which Brings Success To The Teacher Is This: As Soon As Concentration Has Begun, Act As If The Child Does Not Exist. Naturally, One Can See What He Is Doing With A Quick Glance, But Without His Being Aware Of It.

The Land Is Where Our Roots Are. The Children Must Be Taught To Feel And Live In Harmony With The Earth.

Plainly, The Environment Must Be A Living One, Directed By A Higher Intelligence, Arranged By An Adult Who Is Prepared For His Mission.

Education Cannot Be Effective Unless It Helps A Child To Open Up Himself To Life.

Order Is One Of The Needs Of Life Which, When It Is Satisfied, Produces A Real Happiness

It Is Not The Child As A Physical But As A Psychic Being That Can Provide A Strong Impetus To The Betterment Of Mankind. It Is The Spirit Of The Child That Can Determine The Course Of Human Progress And Lead It Perhaps Even To A Higher Form Of Civilization.

The World Of Education Is Like An Island Where People Cut Off From The World Are Prepared For Life By Exclusion From It.

The Child Is An Enigma… He Has The Highest Potentialities, But We Do Not Know What He Will Be.

The Child Who Concentrates Is Immensely Happy

The Laws Governing The Universe Can Be Made Interesting And Wonderful To The Child, More Interesting Even That Things In Themselves, And He Begins To Ask: What Am I? What Is The Task Of Man In This Wonderful Universe? Do We Merely Live Here For Ourselves, Or Is There Something More For Us To Do? Why Do We Struggle And Fight? What Is Good And Evil? Where Will It All End?

In The Psychological Realm Of Relationship Between Teacher And Child, The Teacher's Part And Its Techniques Are Analogous To Those Of The Valet; They Are To Serve, And To Serve Well: To Serve The Spirit.

A Humankind Abandoned In Its Earlier Formative Stage Becomes Its Own Greatest Threat To Survival.

...we Discovered That Education Is Not Something Which The Teacher Does, But That It Is A Natural Process Which Develops Spontaneously In The Human Being. It Is Not Acquired By Listening To Words, But In Virtue Of Experiences In Which The Child Acts On His Environment. The Teacher's Task Is Not To Talk, But To Prepare And Arrange A Series Of Motives For Cultural Activity In A Special Environment Made For The Child.

Imitation Is The First Instinct Of The Awakening Mind.

To Stimulate Life, Leaving It Then Free To Develop, To Unfold, Herein Lies The First Task Of The Teacher.

To Consider The School As A Place Where Instruction Is Given Is One Point Of View. But, To Consider The School As A Preparation For Life Is Another. In The Latter Case, The School Must Satisfy All The Needs Of Life.

It Is Necessary, Then, To Give The Child The Possibility Of Developing According To The Laws Of His Nature, So That He Can Become Strong, And, Having Become Strong, Can Do Even More Than We Dared Hope For Him.

The More The Capacity To Concentrate Is Developed, The More Often The Profound Tranquility In Work Is Achieved, Then The Clearer Will Be The Manifestation Of Discipline Within The Child.

It Is Necessary For The Teacher To Guide The Child Without Letting Him Feel Her Presence Too Much, So That She May Always Be Ready To Supply The Desired Help, But May Never Be The Obstacle Between The Child And His Experience.

The Child Who Has Felt A Strong Love For His Surroundings And For All Living Creatures, Who Has Discovered Joy And Enthusiasm In Work, Gives Us Reason To Hope That Humanity Can Develop In A New Direction.

The Essential Thing Is To Arouse Such An Interest That It Engages The Child’s Whole Personality.

We Must Therefore Turn To The Child As To The Key To The Fate Of Our Future Life.

Little Children, From The Moment In Which They Are Weaned, Are Making Their Way Toward Independence.

One Of The Great Problems Facing Men Is Their Failure To Realize The Fact That A Child Possesses An Active Psychic Life Even When He Cannot Manifest It, And That The Child Must Secretly Perfect This Inner Life Over A Long Period Of Time.

The Child Endures All Things.

The Work Of Education Is Divided Between The Teacher And The Environment.

Children Have An Anxious Concern For Living Beings, And The Satisfaction Of This Instinct Fills Them With Delight. It Is Therefore Easy To Interest Them In Taking Care Of Plants And Especially Of Animals. Nothing Awakens Foresight In A Small Child Such As This. When He Knows That Animals Have Need Of Him, That Little Plants Will Dry Up If He Does Not Water Them, He Binds Together With A New Thread Of Love Today's Passing Moments With Those Of The Morrow.

Our Goal Is Not So Much The Imparting Of Knowledge As The Unveiling And Developing Of Spiritual Energy.

Love And The Hope Of It Are Not Things One Can Learn; They Are A Part Of Life's Heritage.

If Children Are Allowed Free Development And Given Occupation To Correspond With Their Unfolding Minds Their Natural Goodness Will Shine Forth.

Never Help A Child With A Task That They Feel They Can Complete Themselves.

Whoever Touches The Life Of The Child Touches The Most Sensitive Point Of A Whole Which Has Roots In The Most Distant Past And Climbs Toward The Infinite Future.

Rewards And Punishments, To Speak Frankly, Are The Desk Of The Soul, That Is, A Means Of Enslaving A Child's Spirit, And Better Suited To Provoke Than To Prevent Deformities.

What The Hand Does The Mind Remembers.

The Observation Of The Way In Which The Children Pass From The First Disordered Movements To Those Which Are Spontaneous And Ordered -- This Is The Book Of The Teacher; This Is The Book Which Must Inspire Her Actions . . .

Concentration Is The Key That Opens Up To The Child The Latent Treasures Within Him.

Respect All The Reasonable Forms Of Activity In Which The Child Engages And Try To Understand Them.

The Child's Conquest Of Independence Begins With His First Introduction To Life. While He Is Developing, He Perfects Himself And Overcomes Every Obstacle That He Finds In His Path. A Vital Force Is Active Within Him, And This Guides His Efforts Towards Their Goal. It Is A Force Called The 'horme', By Sir Percy Nunn.

A Teacher, Therefore, Who Would Think That He Could Prepare Himself For His Mission Through Study Alone Would Be Mistaken. The First Thing Required Of A Teacher Is That He Be Rightly Disposed For His Task.

The Greatness Of The Human Personality Begins At The Hour Of Birth. From This Almost Mystic Affirmation There Comes What May Seem A Strange Conclusion: That Education Must Start From Birth.

If Help And Salvation Are To Come They Can Only Come From The Children, For The Children Are The Makers Of Men.

The ‘absorbent Mind’ Welcomes Everything, Puts Its Hope In Everything, Accepts Poverty Equally With Wealth, Adopts Any Religion And The Prejudices And Habits Of Its Countrymen, Incarnating All In Itself. This Is The Child!

Children Become Like The Things They Love.

Watching A Child Makes It Obvious That The Development Of His Mind Comes Through His Movements.

Times Have Changed, And Science Has Made Great Progress, And So Has Our Work; But Our Principles Have Only Been Confirmed, And Along With Them Our Conviction That Mankind Can Hope For A Solution To Its Problems, Among Which The Most Urgent Are Those Of Peace And Unity, Only By Turning Its Attention And Energies To The Discovery Of The Child And To The Development Of The Great Potentialities Of The Human Personality In The Course Of Its Formation.

Times Have Changed

The Task Of The Educator Lies In Seeing That The Child Does Not Confound Good With Immobility, And Evil With Activity, As Often Happens In Old-time Discipline . . . A Room In Which All The Children Move About Usefully, Intelligently, And Voluntarily, Without Committing Any Rough Or Rude Act, Would Seem To Me A Classroom Very Well Disciplined Indeed.

When A Child Is Given A Little Leeway, He Will At Once Shout, "i Want To Do It!" But In Our Schools, Which Have An Environment Adapted To Children's Needs, They Say, "help Me To Do It Alone." And These Words Reveal Their Inner Needs.

The Needs Of Mankind Are Universal. Our Means Of Meeting Them Create The Richness And Diversity Of The Planet. The Montessori Child Should Come To Relish The Texture Of That Diversity.

Let The Children Be Free; Encourage Them; Let Them Run Outside When It Is Raining; Let Them Remove Their Shoes When They Find A Puddle Of Water; And When The Grass Of The Meadows Is Wet With Dew, Let Them Run On It And Trample It With Their Bare Feet; Let Them Rest Peacefully When A Tree Invites Them To Sleep Beneath Its Shade; Let Them Shout And Laugh When The Sun Wakes Them In The Morning.

Concentration Is A Part Of Life. It Is Not The Consequence Of A Method Of Education.

Since It Is Through Movement That The Will Realises Itself, We Should Assist A Child In His Attempts To Put His Will Into Act.

The Study Of Love And Its Utilization Will Lead Us To The Source From Which It Springs, The Child.

Every Great Cause Is Born From Repeated Failures And From Imperfect Achievements.

Discipline Must Come Through Liberty.

If I Am Going Up A Ladder, And A Dog Begins To Bite At My Ankles, I Can Do One Of Two Things - Either Turn Round And Kick Out At The It, Or Simply Go On Up The Ladder. I Prefer To Go Up The Ladder!

The Child's Conquests Of Independence Are The Basic Steps In What Is Called His 'natural Development'.

When We Want To Infuse New Ideas, To Modify Or Better The Habits And Customs Of A People, To Breathe New Vigor Into Its National Traits, We Must Use The Children As Our Vehicle; For Little Can Be Accomplished With Adults.

The Child Has A Mind Able To Absorb Knowledge. He Has The Power To Teach Himself.

The Undisciplined Child Enters Into Discipline By Working In The Company Of Others; Not Being Told He Is Naughty.” “discipline Is, Therefore, Primarily A Learning Experience And Less A Punitive Experience If Appropriately Dealt With.

If An Educational Act Is To Be Efficacious, It Will Be Only That One Which Tends To Help Toward The Complete Unfolding Of Life. To Be Thus Helpful It Is Necessary Rigorously To Avoid The Arrest Of Spontaneous Movements And The Imposition Of Arbitrary Tasks.

In Nature Nothing Creates Itself And Nothing Destroys Itself.

There Should Be Music In The Child's Environment, Just As There Does Exist In The Child's Environment Spoken Speech. In The Social Environment The Child Should Be Considered And Music Should Be Provided.

The Child’s Parents Are Not His Makers But His Guardians.

In The Vivid Description Of The Gospel, It Would Seem That We Must Help The Christ Hidden In Every Poor Man, In Every Prisioner, In Every Sufferer. But If We Paraphrased The Marvelous Scene And Applied It To The Child, We Should Find That Christ Goes To Help All Men In The Form Of The Child.

The Whole Of Mankind Is One And Only One, One Race, One Class And One Society.

Do Not Tell Them How To Do It. Show Them How To Do It And Do Not Say A Word. If You Tell Them, They Will Watch Your Lips Move. If You Show Them, They Will Want To Do It Themselves.

The Children Are Now Working As If I Did Not Exist.

We Must Support As Much As Possible The Child's Desires For Activity; Not Wait On Him, But Educate Him To Be Independent.

What Is A Scientist?... We Give The Name Scientist To The Type Of Man Who Has Felt Experiment To Be A Means Guiding Him To Search Out The Deep Truth Of Life, To Lift A Veil From Its Fascinating Secrets, And Who, In This Pursuit, Has Felt Arising Within Him A Love For The Mysteries Of Nature, So Passionate As To Annihilate The Thought Of Himself.

What Advice Can We Give To New Mothers? Their Children Need To Work At An Interesting Occupation: They Should Not Be Helped Unnecessarily, Nor Interrupted, Once They Have Begun To Do Something Intelligent.

Never Help A Child With A Task At Which He Feels He Can Succeed.

The Great Constructive Energies Of The Child ... Have Hitherto Been Concealed Beneath An Accumulation Of Ideas Concerning Motherhood. We Used To Say It Was The Mother Who Formed The Child; For It Is She Who Teaches Him To Walk, Talk, And So On. But None Of This Is Really Done By The Mother. It Is An Achievement Of The Child. What The Mother Brings Forth Is The Baby, But It Is The Baby Who Produces The Man. Should The Mother Die, The Baby Still Grows Up And Completes His Work Of Making The Man.

Peace Is What Every Human Being Is Craving For, And It Can Be Brought About By Humanity Through The Child.

It Is Easy To Substitute Our Will For That Of The Child By Means Of Suggestion Or Coercion; But When We Have Done This We Have Robbed Him Of His Greatest Right, The Right To Construct His Own Personality.

One Test Of The Correctness Of Educational Procedure Is The Happiness Of The Child.

Movement, Or Physical Activity, Is Thus An Essential Factor In Intellectual Growth, Which Depends Upon The Impressions Received From Outside. Through Movement We Come In Contact With External Reality, And It Is Through These Contacts That We Eventually Acquire Even Abstract Ideas.

We Shall Walk Together On This Path Of Life, For All Things Are A Part Of The Universe, And Are Connected With Each Other To Form One Whole Unity. This Idea Helps The Mind Of The Child To Become Fixed, To Stop Wandering In An Aimless Quest For Knowledge. He Is Satisfied, Having Found The Universal Centre Of Himself With All Things.

Freedom Without Organization Of Work Would Be Useless. The Child Left Free Without Means Of Work Would Go To Waste, Just As A New-born Baby, If Left Free Without Nourishment, Would Die Of Starvation.the Organization Of The Work, Therefore, Is The Cornerstone Of This New Structure Of Goodness [in Education], But Even That Organization Would Be In Vain Without The Liberty To Make Use Of It.

The First Essential For The Child’s Development Is Concentration. The Child Who Concentrates Is Immensely Happy.

A Child Is Mysterious And Powerful; And Contains Within Himself The Secret Of Human Nature.

Education Must Start From Birth.

Knowing What We Must Do Is Neither Fundamental Nor Difficult, But To Comprehend Which Presumptions And Vain Prejudices We Must Rid Ourselves Of In Order To Be Able To Educate Our Children Is Most Difficult.

The Child Will Reveal Himself Through Work.

Solicitous Care For Living Things Affords Satisfaction To One Of The Most Lively Instincts Of The Child's Mind. Nothing Is Better Calculated Than This To Awaken An Attitude Of Foresight.

The Hand Is The Prehensile Organ Of The Mind.

There Can Be No Substitute For Work, Neither Affection Nor Physical Well-being Can Replace It.

He Does It With His Hands, By Experience, First In Play And Then Through Work. The Hands Are The Instruments Of Man's Intelligence.

We Cannot Know The Consequences Of Suppressing A Child's Spontaneity When He Is Just Beginning To Be Active. We May Even Suffocate Life Itself. That Humanity Which Is Revealed In All Its Intellectual Splendor During The Sweet And Tender Age Of Childhood Should Be Respected With A Kind Of Religious Veneration. It Is Like The Sun Which Appears At Dawn Or A Flower Just Beginning To Bloom. Education Cannot Be Effective Unless It Helps A Child To Open Up Himself To Life.

The Word Education Must Not Be Understood In The Sense Of Teaching But Of Assisting The Psychological Development Of The Child.

The Child Is The Spiritual Builder Of Mankind, And Obstacles To His Free Development Are The Stones In The Wall By Which The Soul Of Man Has Become Imprisoned.

Adults Have Not Understood Children Or Adolescents And They Are, As A Consequence, In Continual Conflict With Them.

Whatever Is Presented To Him Must Be Made Beautiful And Clear, Striking His Imagination. Once This Love Has Been Kindled, All Problems Confronting The Educationist Will Disappear.

It Is Not Enough For The Teacher To Love The Child. She Must First Love And Understand The Universe. She Must Prepare Herself, And Truly Work At It.

Mental Development Must Be Connected With Movement And Be Dependent On It. It Is Vital That Educational Theory And Practice Should Be Informed By That Idea.

First The Education Of The Senses, Then The Education Of The Intellect.

A Child Needs Freedom Within Limits.

The Child Should Live In An Environment Of Beauty.

A Man Is Not What He Is Because Of The Teachers He Has Had, But Because Of What He Has Done

Scientific Observation Then Has Established That Education Is Not What The Teacher Gives; Education Is A Natural Process Spontaneously Carried Out By The Human Individual, And Is Acquired Not By Listening To Words But By Experiences Upon The Environment.

As Soon As Children Find Something That Interests Them They Lose Their Instability And Learn To Concentrate.

A New Education From Birth Onwards Must Be Built Up. Education Must Be Reconstructed And Based On The Law Of Nature And Not On The Preconceived Notions And Prejudices Of Adult Society.

Character Formation Cannot Be Taught. It Comes From Experience And Not From Explanation.

The Essence Of Independence Is To Be Able To Do Something For One’s Self. Adults Work To Finish A Task, But The Child Works In Order To Grow, And Is Working To Create The Adult, The Person That Is To Be. Such Experience Is Not Just Play... It Is Work He Must Do In Order To Grow Up.

We Shall Walk Together On This Path Of Life, For All Things Are Part Of The Universe And Are Connected With Each Other To Form One Whole Unity.

We Must, Therefore, Quit Our Roles As Jailers And Instead Take Care To Prepare An Environment In Which We Do As Little As Possible To Exhaust The Child With Our Surveillance And Instruction

The Development Of The Child During The First Three Years After Birth Is Unequaled In Intensity And Importance By Any Period That Precedes Or Follows In The Whole Life Of The Child.

Within The Child Lies The Fate Of The Future.

Human Dignity ... Is Derived From A Sense Of Independence.

To Assist A Child We Must Provide Him With An Environment Which Will Enable Him To Develop Freely.

By The Age Of Three, The Child Has Already Laid Down The Foundations Of His Personality As A Human Being, And Only Then Does He Need The Help Of Special Scholastic Influences. So Great Are The Conquests He Has Made That One May Well Say: The Child Who Goes To School At Three Is Already A Little Man.

Our Care Of The Child Should Be Governed, Not By The Desire To Make Him Learn Things, But By The Endeavor Always To Keep Burning Within Him That Light Which Is Called Intelligence.

With Younger Children The Greatest Reward Is To Be Able To Pass On To A New Stage In Each Subject. It Is A Punishment To A Young Child Not To Be Allowed To Use The Apparatus But To Sit Still And Do Nothing.

Nothing Is Created Or Destroyed In Nature.

The Education Of Even A Small Child, Therefore, Does Not Aim At Preparing Him For School, But For Life.

Our Aim Is Not Merely To Make The Child Understand, And Still Less To Force Him To Memorize, But So To Touch His Imagination As To Enthuse Him To His Innermost Core.

Let Us Treat Them [children], Therefore, With All The Kindness Which We Would Wish To Help To Develop In Them.

Teach By Teaching, Not By Correcting

Children Must Grow Not Only In The Body But In The Spirit, And The Mother Longs To Follow The Mysterious Spiritual Journey Of The Beloved One Who To-morrow Will Be The Intelligent, Divine Creation, Man.

The Secret Of Good Teaching Is To Regard The Child's Intelligence As A Fertile Field In Which Seeds May Be Sown, To Grow Under The Heat Of Flaming Imagination.

The Most Important Period Of Life Is Not The Age Of University Studies, But The First One, The Period From Birth To The Age Of Six.

A Child's Character Develops In Accordance With The Obstacles He Has Encountered... Or The Freedom Favoring His Development That He Has Enjoyed.

Growth Is Not Merely A Harmonious Increase In Size, But A Transformation.

It Is In The Encounter Of The Maternal Guiding Instincts With The Sensitive Periods Of The Newly Born That Conscious Love Develops Between Parent And Child.

The Teacher's Task Is Not To Talk, But To Prepare And Arrange A Series Of Motives For Cultural Activity In A Special Environment Made For The Child.

The Adult Works To Improve His Environment While The Child Works To Improve Himself.

The Greatness Of The Human Personality Begins At The Hour Of Birth.

Conventions Which Camouflage A Man's True Feelings Are A Spiritual Lie Which Help Him Adapt Himself To The Organized Deviations Of Society.

Order Is ... The True Key To Rapidity Of Reaction.

Culture And Education Have No Bounds Or Limits; Now Man Is In A Phase In Which He Must Decide For Himself How Far He Can Proceed In The Culture That Belongs To The Whole Of Humanity.

The Prize And Punishments Are Incentives Toward Unnatural Or Forced Effort, And, Therefore We Certainly Cannot Speak Of The Natural Development Of The Child In Connection With Them.

We Seek To Sow Life In The Child Rather Than Theories, To Help Him In His Growth, Mental And Emotional As Well As Physical, And For That We Must Offer Grand And Lofty Ideas To The Human Mind.

To Have A Vision Of The Cosmic Plan, In Which Every Form Of Life Depends On Directed Movements Which Have Effects Beyond Their Conscious Aim, Is To Understand The Child's Work And Be Able To Guide It Better.

The Teacher's Task Is Not A Small Easy One! She Has To Prepare A Huge Amount Of Knowledge To Satisfy The Child's Mental Hunger. She Is Not Like The Ordinary Teacher, Limited By A Syllabus. The Needs Of The Child Are Clearly More Difficult To Answer.

Adults Look Upon A Child As Something Empty That Is To Be Filled Through Their Own Efforts, As Something Inert And Helpless For Which They Must Do Everything, As Something Lacking An Inner Guide And In Constant Need Of Inner Direction. . . . An Adult Who Acts In This Way, Even Though He May Be Convinced That He Is Filled With Zeal, Love, And A Spirit Of Sacrifice On Behalf Of His Child, Unconsciously Suppresses The Development Of The Child's Own Personality.

It Is Not In Human Nature For All Men To Tread The Same Path Of Development, As Animals Do Of A Single Species.

To Let The Child Do As He Likes When He Has Not Yet Developed Any Powers Of Control Is To Betray The Idea Of Freedom.

The Activity Of The Child Has Always Been Looked Upon As An Expression Of His Vitality.

Education Today, In This Particular Social Period, Is Assuming Truly Unlimited Importance. And The Increased Emphasis On Its Practical Value Can Be Summed Up In One Sentence: Education Is The Best Weapon For Peace.

If The Idea Of The Universe Is Presented To The Child In The Right Way, It Will Do More For Him Than Just Arouse His Interest, For It Will Create In Him Admiration And Wonder, A Feeling Loftier Than Any Interest And More Satisfying.

When Dealing With Children There Is Greater Need For Observing Than Of Probing

How Often Is The Soul Of Man - Especially In Childhood - Deprived Because He Is Not Allowed To Come In Contact With Nature.

The Best Instruction Is That Which Uses The Least Words Sufficient For The Task.

One Who Has Drunk At The Fountain Of Spiritual Happiness Says Good-by Of His Own Accord To The Satisfactions That Come From A Higher Professional Status ... What Is The Greatest Sign Of Success For A Teacher Thus Transformed? It Is To Be Able To Say, "the Children Are Now Working As If I Did Not Exist.

At One Year Of Age The Child Says His First Intentional Wordhis Babbling Has A Purpose, And This Intention Is A Proof Of Conscious Intelligencehe Becomes Ever More Aware That Language Refers To His Surroundings, And His Wish To Master It Consciously Becomes Also Greater.subconsciously And Unaided, He Strains Himself To Learn, And This Effort Makes His Success All The More Astonishing.

Great Tact And Delicacy Is Necessary For The Care Of The Mind Of A Child From Three To Six Years, And An Adult Can Have Very Little Of It.

The Child Seeks For Independence By Means Of Work; An Independence Of Body And Mind.

The Adult Ought Never To Mold The Child After Himself, But Should Leave Him Alone And Work Always From The Deepest Comprehension Of The Child Himself.

If We Try To Think Back To The Dim And Distant Past... What Is It That Helps Us Reconstruct Those Times, And To Picture The Lives Of Those Who Lived In Them? It Is Their Art... It Is Thanks To The Hand, The Companion Of The Mind, That Civilization Has Arisen.

To Give A Child Liberty Is Not To Abandon Him To Himself.

Children Display A Universal Love Of Mathematics, Which Is Par Excellence The Science Of Precision, Order, And Intelligence.

The Ancient Saying, "there Is Nothing In The Intellect Which Was Not First In Some Way In The Senses," And Senses Being Explorers Of The World, Opens The Way To Knowledge.

The First Thing Required Of A Teacher Is That He Be Rightly Disposed For His Task.

The Senses, Being The Explorers Of The World, Open The Way To Knowledge.

No One Can Be Free Unless He Is Independent.

Learning To Speak, Therefore, And The Power It Brings Of Intelligent Converse With Others, Is A Most Impressive Further Step Along The Path Of Independence ... Learning To Walk Is Especially Significant, Not Only Because It Is Supremely Complex, But Because It Is Done In The First Year Of Life.

The Child Is Much More Spiritually Elevated Than Is Usually Supposed. He Often Suffers, Not From Too Much Work, But From Work That Is Unworthy Of Him.

... The First Thing His Education Demands Is The Provision Of An Environment In Which He Can Develop The Powers Given Him By Nature. This Does Not Mean Just To Amuse Him And Let Him Do What He Likes. But It Does Mean That We Have To Adjust Our Minds To Doing A Work Of Collaboration With Nature, To Being Obedient To One Of Her Laws, The Law Which Decrees That Development Comes From Environmental Experience.

This Then Is The First Duty Of An Educator: To Stir Up Life But Leave It Free To Develop.

The Real Preparation For Education Is A Study Of One's Self. The Training Of The Teacher...is Something Far More Than A Learning Of Ideas. It Includes The Training Of Character; It Is A Preparation Of The Spirit.

Education Should Therefore Include The Two Forms Of Work, Manual And Intellectual, For The Same Person, And Thus Make It Understood By Practical Experience That These Two Kinds Complete Each Other And Are Equally Essential To A Civilized Existence.

Only When The Child Is Able To Identify Its Own Center With The Center Of The Universe Does Education Really Begin.

Play Is The Work Of The Child.

Children Playing

Two Things Are Necessary, The Development Of Individuality And The Participation Of The Individual In A Truly Social Life.

The First Aim Of The Prepared Environment Is, As Far As It Is Possible, To Render The Growing Child Independent Of The Adult.

This Is The Treasure We Need Today - Helping The Child Become Independent Of Us And Make His Way By Himself, Receiving In Return His Gifts Of Hope And Light.

The Teacher, When She Begins Work In Our Schools, Must Have A Kind Of Faith That The Child Will Reveal Himself Through Work.

It Follows That At The Beginning Of His Life The Individual Can Accomplish Wonders Without Effort And Quite Unconsciously.

It Is Well To Cultivate A Friendly Feeling Towards Error, To Treat It As A Companion Inseparable From Our Lives, As Something Having A Purpose, Which It Truly Has.

The First Idea That The Child Must Acquire, In Order To Be Actively Disciplined, Is That Of The Difference Between Good And Evil.

An Education Capable Of Saving Humanity Is No Small Undertaking; It Involves The Spiritual Development Of Man, The Enhancement Of His Value As An Individual, And The Preparation Of Young People To Understand The Times In Which They Live.

The Greatest Triumph Of Our Educational Method Should Always Be This: To Bring About The Spontaneous Progress Of The Child.

The Development Of The Mind Comes Through Movement

Growth And Psychic Development Are Therefore Guided By: The Absorbent Mind, The Nebulae And The Sensitive Periods, With Their Respective Mechanisms. It Is These That Are Hereditary And Characteristic Of The Human Species. But The Promise They Hold Can Only Be Fulfilled Through The Experience Of Free Activity Conducted In The Environment.

There Are Many Things Which No Teacher Can Convey To A Child Of Three, But A Child Of Five Can Do It With Ease.

Watch The Unending Activity Of The Flowing Stream Or The Growing Tree. See The Breakers Of The Ocean, The Unceasing Movements Of The Earth, The Planets, The Sun And The Stars. All Creation Is Life, Movement, Work.

The Goal Of Early Childhood Education Should Be To Activate The Child's Own Natural Desire To Learn.

Of All Things Love Is The Most Potent.

At Birth, The Child Leaves A Person - His Mother's Womb - And This Makes Him Independent Of Her Bodily Functions. The Baby Is Next Endowed With An Urge, Or Need, To Face The Out World And To Absorb It. We Might Say That He Is Born With 'the Psychology Of World Conquest.' By Absorbing What He Finds About Him, He Forms His Own Personality.

It Is Almost Possible To Say That There Is A Mathematical Relationship Between The Beauty Of His Surroundings And The Activity Of The Child; He Will Make Discoveries Rather More Voluntarily In A Gracious Setting Than In An Ugly One.

No One Can Help Us To Achieve The Intimate Isolation By Which We Find Our Secret Worlds, So Mysterious, Rich And Full. If Others Intervene, It Is Destroyed. This Degree Of Thought, Which We Attain By Freeing Ourselves From The External World, Must Be Fed By The Inner Spirit, And Our Surroundings Cannot Influence Us In Any Way Other Than To Leave Us In Peace.

The Child Has A Different Relation To His Environment From Ours... The Child Absorbs It. The Things He Sees Are Not Just Remembered; They Form Part Of His Soul. He Incarnates In Himself All In The World About Him That His Eyes See And His Ears Hear.

The Task Of The Educator Lies In Seeing That The Child Does Not Confound Good With Immobility And Evil With Activity.

The Hands Are The Instruments Of Man’s Intelligence.

The Objects In Our System Are Instead A Help To The Child Himself, He Chooses What He Wants For His Own Use, And Works With It According To His Own Needs, Tendencies And Special Interests. In This Way, The Objects Become A Means Of Growth.

No Adult Can Bear A Child’s Burden Or Grow Up In His Stead.

The Child Is Essentially Alien To This Society Of Men And Might Express His Position In The Words Of The Gospel: My Kingdom Is Not Of This World

These Words Reveal The Child’s Inner Needs; ‘help Me To Do It Alone’.

When The Child Goes Out, It Is The World Itself That Offers Itself To Him. Let Us Take The Child Out To Show Him Real Things Instead Of Making Objects Which Represent Ideas And Closing Them Up In Cupboards.

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