Maria Montessori Quotes - Page 8

No one can be free unless he is independent.

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.

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.

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.

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.

My vision of the future is no longer of people taking exams and proceeding from secondary school to University but of passing from one stage of independence to a higher, by means of their own activity and effort of will.

The hand is the prehensile organ of the mind.

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.

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

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.

All human victories, all human progress, stand upon the inner force.

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.

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.

Since it is through movement that the will realises itself, we should assist a child in his attempts to put his will into act.

The child’s parents are not his makers but his guardians.

The activity of the child has always been looked upon as an expression of his vitality.

There are many things which no teacher can convey to a child of three, but a child of five can do it with ease.

If children are allowed free development and given occupation to correspond with their unfolding minds their natural goodness will shine forth.

The study of love and its utilization will lead us to the source from which it springs, The Child.

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!

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

The child becomes a person through work.

Bring the child to the consciousness of his own dignity and he will feel free.

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.

To aid life, leaving it free, however, that is the basic task of the educator.