Quotes on Montessori

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.

The first idea that the child must acquire, in order to be actively disciplined, is that of the difference between good and evil.

If help and salvation are to come they can only come from the children, for the children are the makers of men.

The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one can teach them anything!

One test of the correctness of educational procedure is the happiness of the child.

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. For what is the use of transmitting knowledge if the individual's total development lags behind?

The task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility and evil with activity.

Play is the work of the child.

The greatness of the human personality begins at the hour of birth.

Discipline must come through liberty.

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.