Great Throughts Treasury

"Wait while observing. That is the motto of the educator."

"Watching a child makes it obvious that the development of his mind comes through his movements."

"We are confronted with a considerable development of consciousness that has already taken place, but now that consciousness is thrown outwards with a special direction, intelligence being extroverted, and there is an unusual demand on the part of the child to know the reasons for things."

"We are here to offer to this life, which came into the world by itself, the means necessary for its development, and having done that we must await this development with respect."

"We are not here to teach the child, we are here only to assist the child in learning."

"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 cannot know the consequences of suffocating a spontaneous action at the time when the child is just becoming active; perhaps we suffocate life itself."

"We cannot make a genius; we can only give each individual the chance to fulfill his potential possibilities to become an independent, secure, and balanced human being."

"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."

"We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry."

"We found individual activity is the one factor that stimulates and produces development."

"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 scientist is not the clever manipulator of instruments, he is the worshipper of nature and he bears the external symbols of his passion as does the follower of some religious order. To this body of real scientists belong those who, forgetting, like the Trappists of the Middle Ages, the world about them, live only in the laboratory, careless often in matters of food and dress because they no longer think of themselves; those who, through years of unwearied use of the microscope, become blind; those who in their scientific ardour inoculate themselves with tuberculosis germs; those who handle the excrement of cholera patients in their eagerness to learn the vehicle through which the diseases are transmitted; and those who, knowing that a certain chemical preparation may be an explosive, still persist in testing their theories at the risk of their lives. This is the spirit of the men of science, to whom nature freely reveals her secrets, crowning their labors with the glory of discovery. There exists, then, the "spirit" of the scientist, a thing far above his mere "mechanical skill," and the scientist is at the height of his achievement when the spirit has triumphed over the mechanism. When he has reached this point, science will receive from him not only new revelations of nature, but philosophic syntheses of pure thought."

"We habitually serve children; and this is not only an act of servility toward them, but it is dangerous, since it tends to suffocate their useful, spontaneous activity. We are inclined to believe that children are like puppets, and we wash them and feed them as if they were dolls. We do not stop to think that the child who does not do, does not know how to do. He must, nevertheless, do these things, and nature has furnished him with the physical means for carrying on these various activities, and with the intellectual means for learning how to do them. And our duty toward him is, in every case, that of helping him to make a conquest of such useful acts as nature intended he should perform for himself."

"We have in ourselves tendencies that are not good and which flourish like weeds in a field. (Original sin). These tendencies are many; they fall into seven groups, known of old as the Seven deadly sins. All deadly sins tend to separate us from the child; for the child compared to us, is not only purer but has mysterious qualities, which we adults as a rule cannot perceive, but in which we must believe with faith, for Jesus spoke to them so clearly and insistently that all the Evangelists recorded His words: Unless ye be converted and become as little children, ye shall nor enter into the Kingdom of Heaven. That which the educator must seek is to be able to see the child as Jesus saw him. It is with this endeavor, thus defined and delimited, that we wish to deal."

"We have learnt from him certain fundamental principles of psychology. One is that the child must learn by his own individual activity, being given a mental freedom to take what he needs, and not to be questioned in his choice. Our teaching must only answer the mental needs of the child, never dictate them. Just as a small child cannot be still because he is in need of coordinating his movements, so the older child, who may seem troublesome in his curiosity over the why, what and wherefore of everything he sees, is building up his mind by this mental activity, and must be given a wide field of culture on which to feed."

"We have seen children totally change as they acquire a love for things and as their sense of order, discipline and self-control develops within them as a manifestation of their total freedom."

"We may conclude with a general rule for the direction of the education of the senses. The order of procedure should be: (1) Recognition of identities (the pairing of similar objects and the insertion of solid forms into places which fit them). (2) Recognition of contrasts (the presentation of the extremes of a series of objects). (3) Discrimination between objects very similar to one another."

"We must clearly understand that when we give the child freedom and independence, we are giving freedom to a worker already braced for action, who cannot live without working and being active."

"We must help the child act, think, and will for himself. This is the art of serving the spirit, an art which can be practiced to perfection only when working with children."

"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."

"We must learn how to call upon the man which lies dormant in the soul of a child."

"We must make of the future generation, powerful men, and by that we mean men who are independent and free."

"We must not dwell on his limitations but focus on his possibilities."

"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 take into consideration that from birth the child has a power in him. We must not just see the child, but God in him. We must respect the laws of creation in him."

"We must therefore turn to the child as to the key to the fate of our future life."

"We ourselves have lost this deep and vital sensitiveness, and in the presence of children in whom we see it reviving, we feel as if we were watching a mystery being unfolded. It shows itself in the delicate act of free choice, which a teacher untrained in observation can trample on before she even discerns it, much as an elephant tramples the budding flower about to blossom in its path."

"We recognize the immense power, the unconscious forces existing in the child on the threshold of life. For many years we have been proclaiming that it is necessary to educate the child from the moment of birth. We have traced, through study and practical experience, the ideal path leading to the world of children, of these beings whose social status has as yet not been determined, whose rights have not been recognized and who nevertheless represent the men of tomorrow."

"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 see no limit to what should be offered to the child, for his will be an immense field of chosen activity."

"We shall walk together on this path of life, for all things are a part of the universe, and are connected with each other to form one whole unity. This idea helps the mind of the child to become fixed, to stop wandering in an aimless quest for knowledge. He is satisfied, having found the universal center of himself with all things."

"We teachers can only help the work going on, as servants wait upon a master. We then become witnesses to the development of the human soul; the emergence of the New Man who will no longer be the victim of events but, thanks to his clarity of vision, will become able to direct and to mold the future of mankind."

"We then become witnesses to the development of the human soul; the emergence of the New Man, who will no longer be the victim of events but, thanks to his clarity of vision, will become able to direct and to mold the future of mankind."

"We then found that individual activity is the one factor that stimulates and produces development, and that this is not more true for the little ones of preschool age than it is for the junior, middle, and upper school children."

"What is generally meant by the word peace is the cessation of war. But this negative concept is not an adequate description of genuine peace."

"What is the greatest sign of success for a teacher transformed? It is to be able to say, "The children are now working as if I did not exist.""

"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 does not depend upon doctrine but on a divine directive which guides his spirit to construction."

"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 experience pleasure not only from an activity leading towards a special goal but also in carrying it out exactly in all its details, they open up a whole new area of education for themselves."

"When dealing with children there is greater need for observing than of probing"

"When mental development is under discussion, there are many who say, 'How does movement come into it? We are talking about the mind.' And when we think of intellectual activity, we always imagine people sitting still, motionless. But 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."

"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 cycle is completed, the child detaches himself from his internal concentration; refreshed and satisfied, he experiences the higher social impulses, such as desiring to make confidences and to hold intimate communion with other souls."

"When the independent life of the child is not recognized with its own characteristics and its own ends, when the adult man interprets these characteristics and ends, which are different from his, as being errors in the child which he must make speed to correct, there arises between the strong and the weak a struggle which is fatal to mankind."

"When the teacher shall have touched, in this way, soul for soul, each one of her pupils, a sign, a single word from her shall suffice; for each one will feel her in a living and vital way, will recognize her and will listen to her."

"When these exercises have been presented to the children, in the manner indicated... the directress should, after a while, wherever possible, introduce into the action what Montessori calls a 'motive of perfection'."

"Whenever we touch the child, we touch love. It is a difficult love to define; we all feel it, but no one can describe its roots, or evaluate the immense consequences which flow from it, or gather up its potency for union between men. Despite our differences of race, religion, and of social position, we have felt, during our discussions of the child, a fraternal union growing up between us... Love, like that which we feel for the child, must exist potentially between man and man, because human unity does exist and there is no unity without love."

"While everyone was admiring the progress of my idiots, I was searching for the reasons which could keep the happy healthy children of the common schools on so low a plane that they could be equalled in tests of intelligence by my unfortunate pupils!"

"Who does not know that to teach a child to feed himself, to wash and dress himself, is a much more tedious and difficult work, calling for infinitely greater patience, than feeding, washing and dressing the child one's self ? But the former is the work of an educator, the latter is the easy and inferior work of a servant. Not only is it easier for the mother, but it is very dangerous for the child, since it closes the way and puts obstacles in the path of the life which is developing."