We must therefore turn to the child as to the key to the fate of our future life.
Interpretation
Children hold the potential to shape our future through their education and development.
Maria Montessori emphasizes the importance of focusing on children's education and development, suggesting that nurturing and properly educating children today is essential for ensuring a positive future for society. The quote highlights the idea that the key to our future lies in how we treat and educate the younger generation.
In practice
In a speech on education policy, one might quote this to emphasize the importance of early childhood education.
... the first thing his education demands is the provision of an environment in which he can develop the powers given him by nature. This does not mean just to amuse him and let him do what he likes. But it does mean that we have to adjust our minds to doing a work of collaboration with nature, to being obedient to one of her laws, the law which decrees that development comes from environmental experience.
When we want to infuse new ideas, _x000D_ to modify or better the habits and customs of a people, _x000D_ to breathe new vigor into its national traits, _x000D_ we must use the children as our vehicle; for little can be accomplished with adults.
Noble ideas, great sentiments have always existed and have always been transmitted, but wars have never ceased.
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.
To aid life, leaving it free, however, that is the basic task of the educator.
It is fortunate, I think, that nature is not bounded by human reason and by laboratory work and experimentation, for by the laws of pure reason and by microscopic investigation, it might easily have been proved, long before this, that children could not be born.
Education is not filling the mind with a lot of facts. Perfecting the instrument and getting complete mastery of my own mind [is the ideal of education].
Perhaps a modern society can remain stable only by eliminating adolescence, by giving its young, from the age of ten, the skills, responsibilities, and rewards of grownups, and opportunities for action in all spheres of life. Adolescence should be a time of useful action, while book learning and scholarship should be a preoccupation of adults.
Free curiosity is of more value in learning than harsh discipline.
Let us in education dream of an aristocracy of achievement arising out of a democracy of opportunity
One book calls to another unexpectedly, creating alliances across different cultures and centuries.
Perfect health, sincerity, honesty, straightforwardness, courage, disinterestedness, unselfishness, patience, endurance, perseverance, peace, calm, self control are all things that are taught infinitely better by example than by beautiful speeches.
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