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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

-Maria Montessori

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We Must, Therefore, Quit

Maria Montessori

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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

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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.

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.

Giving Children The Opportunity To Stir Up Life And Leave It Free To Discover.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

No Social Problem Is As Universal As The Oppression Of The Child

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

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.

Within The Child Lies The Fate Of The Future.

Children Become Like The Things They Love.

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 . . .

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.

How Does He Achieve This Independence? He Does It By Means Of A Continuous Activity. How Does He Become Free? By Means Of Constant Effort. We Know That Development Results From Activity. The Environment Must Be Rich In Motives Which Lend Interest To Activity And Invite The Child To Conduct His Own Experiences.

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 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 Only Language Men Ever Speak Perfectly Is The One They Learn In Babyhood, When No One Can Teach Them Anything!

Nothing Is Created Or Destroyed In Nature.

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

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

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

The Unknown Energy That Can Help Humanity Is That Which Lies Hidden In The Child.

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

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.

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.

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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

The Concept Of An Education Centered Upon The Care Of The Living Being Alters All Previous Ideas. Resting No Longer On A Curriculum, Or A Timetable, Education Must Conform To The Facts Of Human Life.

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.

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 Hands Are The Instruments Of Man’s Intelligence.

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.

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.

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

How Can We Speak Of Democracy Or Freedom When From The Very Beginning Of Life We Mould The Child To Undergo Tyranny, To Obey A Dictator? How Can We Expect Democracy When We Have Reared Slaves? Real Freedom Begins At The Beginning Of Life, Not At The Adult Stage. These People Who Have Been Diminished In Their Powers, Made Short-sighted, Devitalized By Mental Fatigue, Whose Bodies Have Become Distorted, Whose Wills Have Been Broken By Elders Who Say: "your Will Must Disappear And Mine Prevail!"-how Can We Expect Them, When School-life Is Finished, To Accept And Use The Rights Of Freedom?

Happiness Is Not The Whole Aim Of Education. A Man Must Be Independent In His Powers And Character; Able To Work And Assert His Mastery Over All That Depends On Him.

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.

No One Can Be Free Unless He Is Independent... In Reality, He Who Is Served Is Limited In His Independence.

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

He Who Experiments Must, While Doing So, Divest Himself Of Every Preconception. It Is Clear Then That If We Wish To Make Use Of A Method Of Experimental Psychology, The First Thing Necessary Is To Renounce All Former Creeds And To Proceed By Means Of The Method In The Search For Truth.

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 Child Becomes A Person Through Work.

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.

What The Hand Does The Mind Remembers.

The Development Of The Mind Comes Through Movement

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.

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 Nature Nothing Creates Itself And Nothing Destroys Itself.

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.

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

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

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

Of All Things Love Is The Most Potent.

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.

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.

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.

Children Are Human Beings To Whom Respect Is Due, Superior To Us By Reason Of Their Innocence And Of The Greater Possibilities Of Their Future.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

No One Who Has Ever Done Anything Really Great Or Successful Has Ever Done It Simply Because He Was Attracted By What We Call A 'reward' Or By The Fear Of What We Call A 'punishment.'

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

Free The Child's Potential, And You Will Transform Him Into The World.

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

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

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.

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

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.

A Child Is An Eager Observer And Is Particularly Attracted By The Actions Of The Adults And Wants To Imitate Them. In This Regard An Adult Can Have A Kind Of Mission. He Can Be An Inspiration For The Child's Actions, A Kind Of Open Book Wherein A Child Can Learn How To Direct His Own Movements. But An Adult, If He Is To Afford Proper Guidance, Must Always Be Calm And Act Slowly So That The Child Who Is Watching Him Can Clearly See His Actions In All Their Particulars.

The Child Will Reveal Himself Through Work.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

The Child's True Constructive Energy, A Dynamic Power, Has Remained Unnoticed For Thousands Of Years. Just As Men Have Trodden The Earth, And Later Tilled Its Surface, Without Thought For The Immense Wealth Hidden In Its Depths, So The Men Of Our Day Make Progress After Progress In Civilized Life, Without Noticing The Treasures That Lie Hidden In The Psychic World Of Infancy.

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

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

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 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.

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

Education Must Start From Birth.

No Social Problem Is As Universal As The Oppression Of The Child ... No Slave Was Ever So Much The Property Of His Master As The Child Is Of His Parent ... Never Were The Rights Of Man Ever So Disregarded As In The Case Of The Child.

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.

A Vital Force Is Active In Every Individual And Leads It Towards Its Own Evolution.

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.

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

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.

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

The Child Who Concentrates Is Immensely Happy

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.

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."

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.

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.

Growth Comes From Activity, Not From Intellectual Understanding.

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

But An Adult If He Is To Provide Proper Guidance, Must Always Be Calm And Act Slowly So That The Child Who Is Watching Him Can Clearly See His Actions In All Their Particulars.

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

A Child Needs Freedom Within Limits.

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.

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 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.

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

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.

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.

I Have Studied The Child. I Have Taken What The Child Has Given Me And Expressed It And That Is What Is Called The Montessori Method.

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.

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.

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

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

...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.

The Work Of Education Is Divided Between The Teacher And 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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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.

In Nature Everything Is Transformed But Nothing Destroyed.

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

The Hand Is The Prehensile Organ Of The Mind.

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.

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

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

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.

The Teacher Must Derive Not Only The Capacity, But The Desire, To Observe Natural Phenomena. The Teacher Must Understand And Feel Her Position Of Observer: The Activity Must Lie In The Phenomenon.

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

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

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

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.

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

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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.

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