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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.

-Maria Montessori

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In The Vivid Description

Maria Montessori

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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.

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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

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.

All Human Victories, All Human Progress, Stand Upon The Inner Force.

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

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

Childhood Constitutes The Most Important Element In An Adult's Life, For It Is In His Early Years That A Man Is Made.

Children Become Like The Things They Love.

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

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.

Preventing War Is The Work Of Politicians, Establishing Peace Is The Work Of Educationists.

The Development Of The Individual Can Be Described As A Succession Of New Births At Consecutively Higher Levels.

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.

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

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

The Child Is Both A Hope And A Promise For Mankind.

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

Discipline Must Come Through Liberty.

There Is In Every Child A Painstaking Teacher So Skillful That He Obtains Identical Results In All Children In All Parts Of The World. The Only Language Men Ever Speak Perfectly Is The One They Learn In Babyhood, When No One Teaches Them Anything.

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 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.

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.

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.

There Are Many Who Hold, As I Do, That The Most Important Part Of Life Is Not The Age Of University Studies, But The First One, The Period From Birth To The Age Of Six. For That Is The Time When A Man's Intelligence Itself, His Greatest Implement, Is Being Formed. But Not Only His Intelligence; The Full Totality Of His Psychic Powers.

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.

We Especially Need Imagination In Science. It Is Not All Mathematics, Nor All Logic, But It Is Somewhat Beauty And Poetry.

The Teacher’s First Duty Is To Watch Over The Environment, And This Takes Precedence Over All The Rest. It’s Influence Is Indirect, But Unless It Be Well Done There Will Be No Effective And Permanent Results Of Any Kind, Physical, Intellectual Or Spiritual.

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

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.

At A Given Moment A Child Becomes Interested In A Piece Of Work, Showing It By The Expression Of His Face, By His Intense Attention, By His Perseverance In The Same Exercise. That Child Has Set Foot Upon The Road Leading To Discipline.

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.

The First Duty Of The Educator, Whether He Is Involved With The Newborn Infant Or The Older Child, Is To Recognize The Human Personality Of The Young Being And Respect It.

It Is The Child Who Makes The Man, And No Man Exists Who Was Not Made By The Child He Once Was.

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

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

Education Demands, Then, Only This: The Utilization Of The Inner Powers Of The Child For His Own Instruction.

We Teachers Can Only Help The Work Going On, As Servants Wait Upon A Master.

Work Is Necessary; It Can Be Nothing Less Than A Passion; A Person Is Happy In Accomplishment.

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 Truly A Miraculous Being, And This Should Be Felt Deeply By The Educator.

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 Greatest Source Of Discouragement Is The Conviction That One Is Unable To Do Something

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 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.

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

The Essence Of Independence Is To Be Able To Do Something For One’s Self.

What We Need Is A World Full Of Miracles, Like The Miracle Of Seeing The Young Child Seeking Work And Independence, And Manifesting A Wealth Of Enthusiasm And Love.

Deceit Is A Kind Of Garment That Conceals The Soul. It Might Even Be Compared To A Whole Wardrobe, So Many Are Its Guises.

There Is No Description, No Image In Any Book That Is Capable Of Replacing The Sight Of Real Trees, And All Of The Life To Be Found Around Them In A Real Forest.

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.

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

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.

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.

The Principal Agent Is The Object Itself And Not The Instruction Given By The Teacher. It Is The Child Who Uses The Objects; It Is The Child Who Is Active, And Not The Teacher.

The Social Rights Of Children Must Be Recognized So That A World Suited To Their Needs May Be Constructed For Them. The Greatest Crime That Society Commits Is That Of Wasting The Money Which It Should Use For Children On Things That Will Destroy Them And Society Itself As Well.

Social Grace, Inner Discipline And Joy. These Are The Birthright Of The Human Being Who Has Been Allowed To Develop Essential Human Qualities.

The Child Is Endowed With Unknown Powers, Which Can Guide Us To A Radiant Future. If What We Really Want Is A New World, Then Education Must Take As Its Aim The Development Of These Hidden Possibilities.

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

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

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

For What Is The Use Of Transmitting Knowledge If The Individual's Total Development Lags Behind?

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

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

A Child's Work Is To Create The Person She/he Will Become.

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!

Beauty Lies In Harmony, Not In Contrast; And Harmony Is Refinement; Therefore, There Must Be A Fineness Of The Senses If We Are To Appreciate Harmony.

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.

When Children Come Into Contact With Nature, They Reveal Their Strength.

Within The Child Lies The Fate Of The Future. Whoever Wishes To Confer Some Benefit On Society Must Preserve Him From Deviations And Observe His Natural Ways Of Acting. A Child Is Mysterious And Powerful And Contains Within Himself The Secret Of Human Nature.

He Who Is Served Is Limited In His Independence.

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

Teach By Teaching, Not By Correcting

The Child Can Only Develop Fully By Means Of Experience In His Environment. We Call Such Experience 'work'.

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.

To Aid Life, Leaving It Free, However, That Is The Basic Task Of The Educator.

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.

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.

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 We Really Want Children To Grow Into Independent And Resourceful Adults, We Should Stop Pouring Their Milk As Soon As They Have Learned To Pour It Themselves And Stop Fastening Their Buttons As Soon As They Can Fasten Them Without Help.

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

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

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.

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.

Except When He Has Regressive Tendencies, The Child's Nature Is To Aim Directly And Energetically At Functional Independence.

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

Bring The Child To The Consciousness Of His Own Dignity And He Will Feel Free.

Education Must Start From Birth.

We Are The Sowers - Our Children Are Those Who Reap. We Labor So That Future Generations Will Be Better And Nobler Than We Are.

Independence Is Not A Static Condition; It Is A Continuous Conquest, And In Order To Reach Not Only Freedom, But Also Strength, And The Perfecting On One's Powers, It Is Necessary To Follow This Path Of Unremitting Toil.

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

At About A Year And A Half, The Child Discovers Another Fact, And That Is That Each Thing Has Its Own Name.

A Great Deal Of Time And Intellectual Force Are Lost In The World, Because The False Seems Great And The Truth So Small And Insignificant.

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 Hand Is The Prehensile Organ Of The Mind.

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.

The Greatest Sign Of Success For A Teacher...is To Be Able To Say, "the Children Are Now Working As If I Did Not Exist."

Environment Is Undoubtedly A Secondary Factor In The Phenomena Of Life; It Can Modify In That It Can Help Or Hinder, But It Can Never Create.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

Imagination Does Not Become Great Until Human Beings, Given The Courage And The Strength, Use It To Create.

The Instructions Of The Teacher Consist Then Merely In A Hint, A Touch-enough To Give A Start To The Child. The Rest Develops Of Itself.

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.

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

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

Order Is Not Goodness; But Perhaps It Is The Indispensable Road To Arrive At It.

Bring The Child To The Consciousness Of His Own Dignity, And He Will Be Free. We See No Limit To What Should Be Offered To The Child, For His Will Be An Immense Field Of Chosen Activity.

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.

This System In Which A Child Is Constantly Moving Objects With His Hands And Actively Exercising His Senses, Also Takes Into Account A Child's Special Aptitude For Mathematics. When They Leave The Material, The Children Very Easily Reach The Point Where They Wish To Write Out The Operation. They Can Thus Carryout An Abstract Mental Operation And Acquire A Kind Of Natural And Spontaneous Inclination For Mental Calculations.

If A Child Finds No Stimuli For The Activities Which Would Contribute To His Development, He Is Attracted Simply To 'things' And Desires To Posses Them.

All Our Handling Of The Child Will Bear Fruit, Not Only At The Moment, But In The Adult They Are Destined To Become.

Of All Things Love Is The Most Potent.

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

Any Child Who Is Self-sufficient, Who Can Tie His Shoes, Dress Or Undress Himself, Reflects In His Joy And Sense Of Achievement The Image Of Human Dignity Which Is Derived From A Sense Of Independence.

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

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

If Education Is Always To Be Conceived Along The Same Antiquated Lines Of A Mere Transmission Of Knowledge, There Is Little To Be Hoped From It In The Bettering Of Man's Future. For What Is The Use Of Transmitting Knowledge If The Individual's Total Development Lags Behind?

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 Child Endures All Things.

A Child Needs Freedom Within Limits.

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

The Child, In Fact, Once He Feels Sure Of Himself, Will No Longer Seek The Approval Of Authority After Every Step.

Under The Urge Of Nature And According To The Laws Of Development, Though Not Understood By The Adult, The Child Is Obliged To Be Serious About Two Fundamental Things ... The First Is The Love Of Activity... The Second Fundamental Thing Is Independence.

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

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.

Discipline Must Come Through Liberty. . . . We Do Not Consider An Individual Disciplined Only When He Has Been Rendered As Artificially Silent As A Mute And As Immovable As A Paralytic. He Is An Individual Annihilated, Not Disciplined.

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

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.

Imitation Is The First Instinct Of The Awakening Mind.

We Cannot Create Observers By Saying 'observe,' But By Giving Them The Power And The Means For This Observation And These Means Are Procured Through Education Of The Senses.

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

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.

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

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

What The Hand Does The Mind Remembers.

The Environment Must Be Rich In Motives Which Lend Interest To Activity And Invite The Child To Conduct His Own Experiences.

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.

Education, As Conceived Today, Is Something Separated Both From Biological And Social Life.

An Educational Method That Shall Have Liberty As Its Basis Must Intervene To Help The Child To A Conquest Of Liberty. That Is To Say, His Training Must Be Such As Shall Help Him To Diminish As Much As Possible The Social Bonds Which Limit His Activity.

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

No One Can Be Free Unless He Is Independent.

The More Perfect The Approximation To Truth, The More Perfect Is Art.

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

We Must Help The Child To Act For Himself, Will For Himself, Think For Himself; This Is The Art Of Those Who Aspire To Serve The Spirit.

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

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.

Establishing Lasting Peace Is The Work Of Education; All Politics Can Do Is Keep Us Out Of War.

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!

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

The Child Builds His Inmost Self Out Of The Deeply Held Impressions He Receives.

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

Free Choice Is One Of The Highest Of All The Mental Processes.

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

In Nature Everything Is Transformed But Nothing Destroyed.

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

Today, However, Those Things Which Occupy Us In The Field Of Education Are The Interests Of Humanity At Large And Of Civilization, And Before Such Great Forces We Can Recognize Only One Country-the Entire World.

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.

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.

But If For The Physical Life It Is Necessary To Have The Child Exposed To The Vivifying Forces Of Nature, It Is Also Necessary For His Psychical Life To Place The Soul Of The Child In Contact With Creation.

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.

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

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

The Fundamental Basis Of Education Must Always Remain That One Must Act For Oneself. That Is Clear. One Must Act For Him Or Herself.

If Education Recognizes The Intrinsic Value Of The Child's Personality And Provides An Environment Suited To Spiritual Growth, We Have The Revelation Of An Entirely New Child Whose Astonishing Characteristics Can Eventually Contribute To The Betterment Of The World.

When The Children Had Completed An Absorbing Bit Of Work, They Appeared Rested And Deeply Pleased. It Almost Seemed As If A Road Had Opened Up Within Their Souls That Led To All Their Latent Powers, Revealing The Better Part Of Themselves. They Exhibited A Great Affability To Everyone, Put Themselves Out To Help Others And Seemed Full Of Good Will.

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

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

Children Are Not Only Sensitive To Silence, But Also To A Voice Which Calls Them ... Out Of That Silence.

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

The Role Of Education Is To Interest The Child Profoundly In An External Activity To Which He Will Give All His Potential

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.

It Is True That We Cannot Make A Genius. We Can Only Give To Teach Child The Chance To Fulfil His Potential Possibilities.

Sometimes Very Small Children In A Proper Environment Develop A Skill And Exactness In Their Work That Can Only Surprise Us.

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

Supposing I Said There Was A Planet Without Schools Or Teachers, Where Study Was Unknown, And Yet The Inhabitants -- Doing Nothing But Live And Walk About -- Came To Know All Things, To Carry In Their Minds The Whole Of Learning; Would You Not Think I Was Romancing? Well, Just This, Which Seems So Fanciful As To Be Nothing But The Invention Of A Fertile Imagination, Is A Reality. It Is The Child's Way Of Learning.

Only Through Freedom And Environmental Experience Is It Practically Possible For Human Development To Occur.

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

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

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

The Aim Of Education Should Not Be To Teach How To Use Human Energies To Improve The Environment, For We Are Finally Beginning To Realize That The Cornerstone Of Education Is The Development Of The Human Personality, And That In This Regard Education Is Of Immediate Importance For The Salvation Of Mankind.

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 Exercises Of Practical Life Are Formative Activities, A Work Of Adaptation To The Environment. Such Adaptation To The Environment And Efficient Functioning Therein Is The Very Essence Of A Useful Education.

In Nature Nothing Creates Itself And Nothing Destroys Itself.

Freedom In Intellectual Work Is Found To Be The Basis Of Internal Discipline.

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.

There Is In The Child A Special Kind Of Sensitivity Which Leads Him To Absorb Everything About Him, And It Is This Work Of Observing And Absorbing That Alone Enables Him To Adapt Himself To Life

The Greatest Step Forward In Human Evolution Was Made When Society Began To Help The Weak And The Poor, Instead Of Oppressing And Despising Them.

Do Not Offer The Child The Content Of The Mind, But The Order For That Content.

Do Not Erase The Designs The Child Makes In The Soft Wax Of His Inner Life.

The Environment Itself Will Teach The Child, If Every Error He Makes Is Manifest To Him, Without The Intervention Of A Parent Of Teacher, Who Should Remain A Quiet Observer Of All That Happens.

Play Is The Work Of The Child.

Children Playing

The Child Has Other Powers Than Ours, And The Creation He Achieves Is No Small One; It Is Everything.

The Child Who Concentrates Is Immensely Happy

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.

There Is A Great Sense Of Community Within The Montessori Classroom, Where Children Of Differing Ages Work Together In An Atmosphere Of Cooperation Rather Than Competitiveness. There Is Respect For The Environment And For The Individuals Within It, Which Comes Through Experience Of Freedom Within The Community.

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.

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