"A child is mysterious and powerful; And contains within himself the secret of human nature "
"A child needs freedom within limits."
"A child who has become a master of his acts through long, pleasant and interesting activities, in which he has engaged, is a child filled with health and joy and is remarkable for his calmness and discipline."
"A man is not what he is because of the teachers he has had, but because of what he has done."
"Above all it is to be noted that the child has a passionate love for order and work, and possesses intellectual qualities superior by far to what might have been expected."
"All that we ourselves are has been made by the child we were in the first two years of our lives
"Children are not only sensitive to silence, but also to a voice which calls them out of that silence."
"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. "
"Follow the child, but follow the child as his leader."
"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."
"Making use of his own will in his contact with his environment, he (the child) develops his various facilities and thus becomes, in a sense, his own creator. We should regard this secret effort of the child as something sacred. "
"No one can be free if he is not independent "
"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."
"So, whether we go to the origins of human life, or follow the child in his work or growth, we always find the adult not far away."
"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 who seeks to be heard and is wounded by rejection often withdraws in a far more dangerous fashion than mere submission."
"The child whom we have robbed of his own will become difficult; we believe that by doing things for him we will do him some good."
"The education of even a small child does not aim at preparing him for school, but for life."
"The greatness of the human personality begins at the hour of birth."
"The infant in arms has far greater mental energies than are usually imagined.”
"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."
"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 "
“A child is a discoverer. He is an amorphous, splendid being in search of his own proper form.”
“A child is a social entity of the highest constructive value.”
“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.”
“A child more than anyone else, is a spontaneous observer of nature.”
“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.”
“Adults may admire an environment and remember it, but the child can absorb it unconsciously and form with it, part of his psyche; he thus incarnates what he sees and hears.”
“All our handling of the child will bear fruit, not only at the moment, but in the adult they are destined to become.”
“All the infinite potentialities of man indicating an increasing progress from generation to generation are contained in the child.”
“Allowing the child to observe, to explore and to follow his normal interests is a form of respect towards the child.”
“An adult can assist in shaping the environment but it is the child that perfects his own being.”
“An adult 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.”
“An adult who does not understand that a child needs to use his hands and does not recognize this at the first manifestation of an instinct for work can be an obstacle to the child’s development.”
“An individual grows up suited to a country, climate or civilization because of an “inner construction“, which has taken place in childhood.”
“As soon as children find something that interests them, they lose their instability and; learn to concentrate.”
“Any unnecessary help given to a child is a hindrance to development.”
“As soon as children find something that interests them, they lose their instability and; learn to concentrate.”
“Be ever ready to answer the call of the child who stands in need of you and always listen and respond to the child.”
“Be humble with the little ones; there is a whole world in their souls which they cannot express.”
“Believe in the child.”
“Blessed is the child who has the joy of obeying in a manner exact, though unconscious, those divine forces which are in him.”
“Bring the child to the consciousness of his own dignity and he will feel free.”
“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.”
“Character formation cannot be taught. It comes from experience and not from explanation.”
“Children act in accordance with their natures and not because of the teacher’s exhortations. Goodness must come out of reciprocal helpfulness, from the unity derived from spiritual cohesion.”
“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.”
“Children are profoundly content if they can act, make discoveries, explore, even apart from external beauty.”
“Children decide on their actions under the prompting of natural laws. If someone usurps the function of this guide the child is prevented from developing either his will or his concentration.”
“Children need to work at an interesting occupation; they should not be helped unnecessarily, nor interrupted once they have begun to do something intelligent.”
“Children reveal to us the most vital need of their development, saying: 'Help me to do it alone!'"
“Children solve their problems peacefully; they have shown us that freedom and discipline are two faces of the same medal.”
“Children who have been prevented from developing fully often show character traits that disappear when they become normalised through work.”
“Children use a language as correctly as it is used in their environment.”
“Choice and execution are the prerogatives and conquests of a liberated soul.”
“Concentrate on strengthening and helping the development of what is good in the child so that its presence may leave less and less space for bad.”
“Conscious will is a power which develops with use and activity. We must aim at cultivating the will, not at breaking it.”
“Discipline and freedom are so co-related that if there is some lack of discipline, the cause is to be found in some lack of freedom.”
“Discipline in outward acts is the expression of an inner discipline that has crystallised round order.”
“Discipline is one of the fruits of liberty.”
“Discipline which makes freedom possible is not taught, but a spontaneous manifestation of the child.”
“Do not erase the designs the child makes in the soft wax of his inner life.”
“Education between the ages of six and twelve is not a direct continuation of that which has gone before, although it is built upon that foundation.”
“Education cannot be effective unless it helps a child to open up himself to life.”
“Education demands only this: the utilization of the inner powers of the child for his own instruction.”
“Education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being.”
“Education of little ones is important, especially from three to six years of age, because this is the embryonic period for the formation of character and of society.”
“Education is a natural process carried out by the child and is not acquired by listening to words but by experiences in the environment.”
“Education should no longer be mostly imparting knowledge, but must take a new path, seeking the release of human potentials.”
“Establishing lasting peace is the work of education, all politics can do is keep us out of war."
“Education should not limit itself to seeking new methods for an arid transmission of knowledge; its aim must be to give the necessary aid to human development.”
“Every living creature possesses the power to choose, in a complex and many-sided environment, that thing, and only that, which is conducive to its life.”
“Education in the first years of life must be alike for all, and must be dictated by nature herself, who has infused certain needs into the growing being.”
“Everyone knows that a lively teacher attracts more than a dull one, and we can all be lively if we try.”
“Everyone knows that a lively teacher attracts more than a dull one, and we can all be lively if we try.”
“Everything you say to your child is absorbed, catalogued and remembered.”
“Experience is a key for the intensification of instruction given inside the school.”
“Facility and spontaneity are the characteristics of the acquisitions of childhood.”
“Free choice is one of the highest of all the mental processes.”
“Free the child’s potential and you will transform him into the world.”
“Freedom for the child within the laws of its own development is freedom for society and mankind.”
“Freedom is a conquest and not a gift. No one can give freedom to anyone. It has to be conquered and this conquest is based on discipline.”
“Give and do what is necessary for the child to act for himself.”
“Give the child the freedom of expression, help him only to reveal himself.”
“Growth and development through self-activity is Nature’s greatest miracle.”
“Growth comes from activity, not from intellectual understanding.”
“Growth is a successive breaking of the bonds which hold the child down in dependence upon others.”
“Growth is not merely a harmonious increase in size, but a transformation.”
“He who is served is limited in his independence.”
“Help the child to liberate himself from his defects without making him feel his weakness.”
“How often is the soul of man - especially in childhood - deprived because he is not allowed to come in contact with nature?”
“Human life is not wholly instinctive like that of animals. No one can predict what a given baby will do in the world.”
“I don't need to teach anything to children: it is they who, placed in a favourable environment, teach me.”
“If a child does a piece of work with great concentration, we must keep out of the way, but if he shows a wish for our approval, we should give it generously.”
“If a child is constantly acting at the command of the teacher, his own psychic activity may fade away and disappear.”
“If a child is placed upon a path in which he can organise his conduct and construct his mental life, all will be well.”
“If an educational act is to be efficacious it will only be so if it tends to help towards the complete unfolding of life.’
“If children are allowed free development and given occupation to correspond with their unfolding minds their natural goodness will shine forth.”
“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.”
“If education is to be reformed it must be based upon the children.”
“If help and salvation are to come, they can only come from the children, for the children are the makers of men.”
“If teaching is to be effective with young children, it must assist them to advance on the way to independence.”
“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.”
“If we could say, "We are respectful and courteous in our dealing with children, we treat them as we should like to be treated ourselves, and we should have mastered a great educational principle and be setting an example of good education.”
“If what we want is a new world, then education must take as its aim the development of the hidden possibilities in a child.”
“Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create.”
“Imitation is the first instinct of the awakening mind.”
“In a class of normalised children mutual aid naturally takes the place of competition.”
“In giving freedom and independence to the child, we free the worker who has been impelled to act and who cannot live except by activity.”
“In man it is the psychic development which creates movement, whereas with animals the instincts seem to awaken at birth, as soon as contact is made with the environment.”
“In order to become great, the grown-up must become humble and learn from the child.”
“In order to help the child it is not necessary to develop extraordinary powers of observation; it is enough to have a mind prepared to assist the hidden mind of the child.”
“Inner discipline is innate; it cannot and need not be taught. But it can and must be helped and guided.”
“Intelligence is what distinguishes man from all other animals; therefore the first act of man in life must be the creation of intelligence.”
“It follows that the child can only develop fully by means of experience on his environment. We call such experience “work"
“It happens that if a child is prevented from using his powers of movement as soon as they are ready, this child’s mental development is obstructed.”
“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.”
“It is because the child’s intelligence assimilates by loving and not just indifferently, that he can see the invisible.”
“It is characteristic of man to think and act with his hands, and from the earliest time he has left traces of his work, rough or fine according to the type civilisation.”
“It is clear that nature includes among the missions she has entrusted to the child, the mission of arousing us adults to reach a higher level.”
“It is difficult to make social relations real if one uses only the imagination; practical experience is necessary.”
“It is essential for the child, to have the possibility of activities carried out by himself in order to preserve the equilibrium between acting and thinking.”
“It is essential for the child, to have the possibility of activities carried out by himself in order to preserve the equilibrium between acting and thinking.”
“It is joy that nature always grants as the accompaniment to the right use of our faculties.”
“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.”
“It is not in human nature for all men to tread the same path of development, as animals do of a single species.”
“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 often required of children that they should adjust themselves to the world, practised and alert. But it would be more to the purpose that the world should adjust itself to children in all its dealings with them.”
“It is our duty to prevent the child from doing anything which may offend or hurt others and to check behavior which is unbecoming or impolite.”
“It is self-evident that the possession of and contact with real things brings, above all, a real quantity of knowledge.”
“It is the child who makes the man, and no man exists who was not made by the child he once was.”
“It is true that we cannot make a genius, we can only give to each individual the chance to fulfil his potential possibilities.”
“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.”
“It often happens that when children are abandoned to their own devices, they are unable to find the path which brings together these two elements (the psychic and the physical).”
“Knowledge can be best given where there is eagerness to learn.”
“Let children experience nature and the world first hand.”
“Let us have endless patience with his slow progress and show enthusiasm and gladness at his successes.”
“Let us leave the life free to develop within the limits of the good, and let us observe this inner life developing. This is the whole of our mission.”
“Let us treat the children with all the kindness which we would wish to help to develop in them.”
“Let us wait and always be ready to share in both the joys and the difficulties which the child experiences.”
“Life should be a single whole, especially in the earliest years, when the child is forming himself in accordance with the laws of his growth.”
“Little children, from the moment they are weaned, are making their way toward independence.”
“Man is an intelligent being and needs mental food almost more than physical food.”
“Man, unlike the animals, is not born with movements already co-ordinated; he has to shape and co-ordinate his own movements.”
“Man’s mind does not spring from nothing; it is built up on the foundations laid by the child in his sensitive periods.”
“Montessori method is based fairly and squarely on the spontaneous activity of the intellect.”
“Nature imposes on the child the task of growing up, and his will leads him to make progress and to develop his powers.”
“Nature offers an interior guidance, but to develop anything in the field, continuous effort and experience are required.”
“Naughtiness is the expression of an inner disturbance, an unsatisfied need, a state of tension; the child’s soul is crying out for what it needs, seeking to defend itself.”
“Needless intervention by the adult represents an aggression on the soul of the child, oppresses it and impedes the development of inner life.”
“Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.”
“Never speak ill of the child in his presence or absence.”
“Never touch the child unless invited by him (in some form or the other).”
“No adult can bear a child’s burden or grow up in his stead.”
“No amount of higher education can cancel what has once been formed in infancy.”
“No social problem is as universal as the oppression of the child.”
“Not upon the ability of the teacher does education rest, but upon the didactic system. When the control and correction of errors is yielded to the materials, there remains for the teacher nothing but to observe.”
“One does not need to threaten or cajole, but only to “normalise the conditions” under which a child lives.”
“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.”
“One test of the correctness of education procedure is the happiness of the child.”
“Only in the child do we see reflected the majesty of nature which, in giving freedom and independence, gives life itself.”
“Only the child can bring revelation of the natural pattern of man.”
“Only through freedom and environmental experience is it practically possible for human development to occur.”
“Only work and concentration, bringing knowledge and love, can induce a transformation which discloses the spiritual man previously lying hidden.’
“Our aim is not only 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.”
"Our care of the children should be governed not by the desire to ‘make them learn things’, but by the endeavour always to keep burning within them the light called intelligence.”
“Our concept of education may be figuratively described by saying that the educator stands behind the child and allows him to go forward as far as he can.”
“Our duty is to discipline for activity, for work, for well-doing; not for immobility, for passivity.”
“Our duty towards the child is, without expectation to help him to perform useful acts.”
“Our teaching must only answer the mental needs of the child, never dictate them.”
“Our work as adults does not consist in teaching, but in helping the infant mind in its work of development.”
“Peace is what every human being is craving for and it can be brought about by humanity through the child.”
“Perfection attracts children because it is in their nature. Their search for it is not sacrificial, but is pursued as if it satisfied their deepest longings.”
“Plainly, the environment must be a living one, directed by a higher intelligence, arranged by an adult who is prepared for his mission.”
“Play is the work of the child.”
“Real freedom begins at the beginning of life not at adult stage.”
“Real freedom is a consequence of development.”
“Respect all the reasonable forms of activity in which the child engages and try to understand them.”
“Respect the child who takes rest or watches others working or ponders over what he himself has done or will do.”
“Scientific observation shows that intelligence is developed through movement.”
“Since adults have no concept of the importance of physical activity for the child, they put a damper on it as a cause of disturbance.”
“Since it is through movement that the will realises itself, we should assist a child in his attempts to put his will into act.”
“Society does not rest on personal wishes, but on a combination of activities which have to be harmonised.”
“Spontaneous acquisition is the characteristic of childhood.”
“Spontaneous games of children are valuable in indications of their fundamental needs.”
“Sweetness, severity, medicine do not help if the child is mentally hungry.”
“Teach less and observe more.”
“Teach the child to teach himself.”
“Teaching, if it is to benefit the tender children, must be such that it will help them advance along the road to independence.”
“The adult is capable of defending his country and guarding its frontier, but it is the child who maintains its spiritual unity through language.”
“The adult works to perfect his environment, whereas the child works to perfect himself, using the environment as the means.”
“The chief characteristics of ordinary psychic life are purposeful activity and the power of reasoning.”
“The child achieves perfect results without fatigue. The adult achieves them imperfectly and with laborious efforts.”
“The child adopts with simplicity an attitude of deep seclusion, and there forms in him also a strong and calm character radiating love to those about him.”
“The child and the adult are two distinct parts of humanity which must work together and interpenetrate with reciprocal aid.”
“The child becomes a person through work.”
“The child builds his inmost self out of the deeply held impressions he receives.”
“The child can develop fully by means of experience in his environment. We call such experiences ‘work’.”
“The child does not grow because he is nourished; because he breathes....he grows because the potential life within him pursues its course.”
“The child gathers impressions of the outer world by means of his senses.”
“The child goes about with the same ease and the same tranquillity no matter at what level of civilisation he is born.”
“The child has a method of approach which the adult cannot imitate.”
“The child has a mind able to absorb knowledge. He has the power to teach himself."
“The child is a 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.”
“The child is both a hope and a promise for mankind.”
“The child is capable of the tremendous efforts involved in mastering a language in a short period of time.”
“The child is continually growing, and all that has to do with the means of his development fascinate him and makes him forget idle occupations.”
“The child is endowed with unknown powers which can guide us to a radiant future.”
“The child is in a continual state of growth and metamorphosis, whereas the adult has reached the norm of the species.”
“The child is much more spiritually elevated than usually supposed. He often suffers not from too much work but work that is unworthy of him.”
“The child is the driving force which is manifested in our time, bringing new hope to men in nations wrapt in obscurity.”
“The child is the father of man”
“The child is truly a miraculous being and this should be felt deeply by the educator.”
“The child learns more from his surroundings than he does from us, but we need psychological insight to help him as much as we could.”
"The child led by nature goes into all the details of a task undertaken.”
“The child making use of all that he finds around him shapes himself for the future.”
“The child needs to be aroused by outside stimuli. Light and sound, smell and taste and touch, form and figure and landscape, appear to call and invite the child.”
“The child not only acquires all the human faculties, but also has to adapt the being that he constructs to the climatic and other conditions in which he will have to live.”
“The child passes little by little from the unconscious to the conscious treading always on the paths of joy and love.”
“The child seeks for independence by means of work; an independence of body and mind.”
“The child should live in an environment of beauty.”
“The child unlike the adult is not on his way to death. He is on his way to life.”
“The child will grow in stature and psychological capacity, as the programme laid by nature has ordained.”
“The child, in fact, once he feels sure of himself, will no longer seek the approval of authority after every step.”
“The child, owing to his characteristic helplessness when born and his position as a social individual, is fettered by many bonds which restricts his activity.”
“The child, who was born normally and is growing normally, goes towards independence.”
“The child’s conquests of independence are the basic steps in what is called his ‘natural development’.”
“The child’s intellect does not work in isolation, but is everywhere and always intimately bound up with his body, particularly with his nervous and muscular systems.”
“The child’s parents are not his makers but his guardians.”
“The child’s progress does not depend only on his age, but also on being free to look around him.”
“The child’s psychic manifestations are impulses of enthusiasm and efforts of meticulous, constant patience.”
“The child’s way of doing things has been for us an inexhaustible fountain of revelations.”
“The children must be free to choose their own occupations, just as they must never be interrupted in their spontaneous activity.”
“The children take us to a higher plane of the spirit and material problems are thereby solved.”
“The child's development follows a path of successive stages of independence, and our knowledge of this must guide us in our behaviour towards him.”
“The deadly sin that arises within us and prevents us from understanding the child is Anger.”
“The development of every organism has to be accomplished within the precise space of time allotted to it.”
“The didactic materials control every error. It is precisely in these errors that the educational importance of the material lies.”
“The education of the senses makes men observers.”
“The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences.”
“The essence of independence is to be able to do something for one’s self.”
“The essential thing is to arouse such an interest that it engages the child’s whole personality.”
“The first duty of an educator is to stir up life but leave it free to develop.”
“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.”
“The foundation of development and growth lies in progressive and ever more intimate relations between the individual and his environment.”
“The fundamental principle in education is the correlation of all subjects and their centralization in the cosmic plan.”
“The goal of early childhood education should be to activate the child’s own natural desire to learn.”
“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.”
“The greatest triumph of our educational method will always be – to obtain the spontaneous progress of the child.”
“The greatest value a teacher can ascribe to her own contribution is – ‘I have helped this life to fulfil the tasks set for it by creation’.”
“The higher levels of perfection all come through social life.”
“The human hand allows the mind to reveal itself.”
“The independent mental development of the child continues indefinitely in direct dependence on the mental powers of the child himself and not on the teacher’s work.”
“The joy of the child is the joy of achievement.”
“The land is where our roots are. The children must be taught to feel and live in harmony with the Earth.”
“The liberty of the child ought to have as its limit the collective interest of the community in which he moves; its form is expressed in what we call manners and good behaviour.”
“The life of a child is oppressed and held down by the superfluous intervention of the adult.”
“The love for his environment makes the child treat it with great care and handle everything in it with utmost delicacy.”
“The materials, in fact, do not offer to the child the content of the mind, but the order for that content.”
“The mind is not a passive thing, but a devouring flame, never in repose, always in action.”
"The more the capacity to concentrate is developed, the more often the profound tranquillity in work is achieved, and then clearer will be the manifestation of discipline within the child.”
“The most curious fact is that all children have the facility of learning languages within the same period of life all over the world.”
“The muscular energy of the children, of even the smallest, is greater than we imagine, but in order that this is revealed to us it must have free play.”
“The need for social life, the need to go out and see people and converse with them, is a great part of the need of the child to have communion with the outer world.”
“The period of life, which lies between three and six years is a period of rapid psychical growth and of building up the sensorial mental faculties.”
“The phenomenon of natural and serene quiet and order is indeed characteristic of a genuine Montessori House of Children.”
“The practice of education should start with the construction of the environment which protects the child from the hard and dangerous obstacles the adult world might put across his path.”
“The purpose of education must be to prevent defects and faults and to remove in advance the possibility of their occurrence.”
“The qualities to be encouraged in a child are those formed in the creative period, and if at that time they have no chance to establish themselves, they will not appear later.”
“The real preparation for education is the study of one's self.”
“The real reason for survival, the principle factor in the ‘struggle for existence’, is the love of adults for their young.”
“The role of education is to interest the child profoundly in an external activity to which he will give all of this potential.”
“The senses, being explorers of our world, open the way to knowledge.”
“The small child cannot live in disorder; order is for him a need of life; and if this order is upset it disturbs him to the point of illness.”
“The solution for the mental hunger of the child is to feed the mind and spirit of the child.”
“The study of love and its utilization will lead us to the source from which it springs, The Child.”
“The task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility and evil with activity.”
“The teacher becomes a director of the spontaneous work of the children; she is the “patient one”, “the silent one”.”
“The teacher must have faith that the child will reveal himself through work.”
“The teacher must understand and feel her position as an observer. She ought to fill a passive role in a much higher degree than an active one.”
“The teacher’s happy task is to show the child the path to perfection, furnishing the means and removing the obstacles.”
“The teacher’s task is first to nourish and assist, to watch, encourage, guide, and induce rather than to interfere, prescribe or restrict.”
“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 things the child sees are not just remembered; they form a part of his soul.”
“The training of the teacher is far more than learning ideas. It includes training of character. It is the preparation of the spirit.”
“The true educator is the man who rids himself of the inner obstacles which make the child incomprehensible to him.”
“The unknown energy that can help humanity is that which lies hidden in the child.”
“The word education must not be understood in the sense of teaching but of assisting the psychological development of the child.”
“The world of education is like an island where people cut off from the world, are prepared for life by exclusion from it.”
“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.”
“The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences.”
“There is a mysterious urge towards the self – activity involved in the acquisition of language by the child.”
“There is born in the child a peacefulness, which characterises and almost illumines all his doings.”
“There is in the soul of a child an impenetrable secret that is gradually revealed as it develops.”
“There is much that we teachers can do to bring humanity to a deeper understanding, to a higher well-being and to a greater spirituality.”
“There is no competition in childhood, because no one can do for the child the work he has to do to build the man he is making.”
“There is no description, no image in the book capable of replacing the sight of real trees and all the life to be found around it, than in the real forest.”
“These words reveal the child’s inner needs; ‘Help me to do it alone’.”
“To aid life, leaving it free, however, to unfold itself, that is the basic task of the educator.”
“To animals perfection of movement is given by nature; in man this mechanism is not there at birth, so has to be created, and this is done by practical experiences on the environment.”
“To give a child liberty is not to abandon him to himself.”(To give a child liberty is not to abandon him to himself.”
“To give a child liberty is not to abandon him to himself.”(
“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.”
“Treat the child with the best of good manners and offer him the best you have in yourself at your disposal.”
“True obedience must elevate a child and not enslave him.”(
“Watching a child makes it obvious that the development of his mind comes through his movements.”
“Watching a child makes it obvious that the development of his mind comes through his movements.”
“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.”
“We claim that an individual is disciplined, when he is master of himself, and therefore is capable of controlling himself.”(
“We found individual activity is the one factor that stimulates and produces development.”
“We found individual activity is the one factor that stimulates and produces development.” found individual activity is the one factor that stimulates and produces development.”
“We have to help the child to act, will and think for himself. This is the art of serving the spirit, an art which can be practised to perfection only when working among children.”(
“We must learn how to call upon the man which lies dormant in the soul of a child.”(
“We must offer the child the help he needs, and be at his service so that he does not have to walk alone.”(
“We must support as much as possible the child's desires for activity; not wait on him, but educate him to be independent.”
"We must turn to the child as to the key to the fate of our future life lies with him.”(177)“We see no limit to what should be offered to the child, for his will be an immense field of chosen activity.”
“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.”
“We should aim at helping children to help themselves; enabling them in every emergency to act independently of the adult.”
“We teachers can only help the work going on, as servants who wait upon a master.”
“We try to adapt the activity of children to our own ideas instead of following the child in order to interpret his real tastes and needs.”
“What goes on in the mysterious centre of the child’s creative intelligence is his secret, and we must respect that secret.”
“What matters is not physics, or botany, or the works of the hand, but the will and the components of the human spirit which construct themselves through work.”(
“What the child achieves between three and six years of age does not depend on doctrine but on a divine directive which guides his spirit to construction.”
“What the child has absorbed remains the final ingredient of his personality.”(
“What the mother brings forth is the baby, but it is the baby who produces the man.”(332)
326. “What we call comfort is a lever of the soul of man. The more we spend ourselves on its behalf, the more we renew and strengthen life around us.”(
“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."
“When children are placed in natural surroundings, then there is the revelation of their strength.”(
“When dealing with children there is greater need for observing than of probing.”
“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.”
“When the child goes out, it is the world itself that offers itself to him.”
“When the children observe the adult, they should find the manner they have been led to expect and that is known to them. She should not act unexpectedly or startlingly.”
“Whoever touches the life of a child touches the most sensitive part of a whole which has roots in most distant past and climbs toward the infinite future.”
“Within the child is the work of a creator much more exalted than the teacher, the mother or the father.”
