Maria Montessori

“The child is a body which grows, and a soul which develops.”

“The child who wrote a word for the first time was full of excited joy.”

“Every great cause is born from repeated failures and from imperfect achievements.”

“The children learn from one another and throw themselves into the work with enthusiasm and delight.”

“This atmosphere of quiet activity develops a fellow-feeling, an attitude of mutual aid, and, most wonderful of all, an intelligent interest on the part of the older children in the progress of their little companions.”

“Gardening is already well known as a feature of infant education, and it is recognized by all that plants and animals attract the children’s care and attention.”

“It is necessary for the teacher to guide the child without letting him feel her presence too much, so that she may be always ready to supply the desired help, but may never be the obstacle between the child and his experience.”

“To keep alive that enthusiasm is the secret of real guidance, and it will not prove a difficult task, provided that the attitude towards the child’s acts be that of respect, calm and waiting, and provided that he be left free in his movements and in his experiences.”

“In fact, our little ones have the impression of continually “making discoveries” in the world about them; and in this they find the greatest joy.”

“The child’s mind is not prepared for number “by certain preliminary ideas,” given in haste by the teacher, but has been prepared for it by a process of formation, by a slow building up of itself.”

“But the importance of my method does not lie in the organization itself, but in the effects which it produces on the child.”

“For this reason, an educational method, which cultivates and protects the inner activities of the child, is not a question which concerns merely the school or the teachers; it is a universal question which concerns the family, and is of vital interest to mothers.”

“It is the perfect organization of work, permitting the possibility of self-development and giving outlet for the energies, which procures for each child the beneficial and calming satisfaction.”

““Wait while observing.” That is the motto for the educator.”

“Let us have endless patience with his slow progress, and show enthusiasm and gladness at his successes.”

“Let us wait, and be always ready to share in both the joys and the difficulties which the child experiences.”

“Let us treat them, therefore, with all the kindness which we would wish to help to develop in them.”

“Our intervention in this marvelous process is indirect; 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.”

“Our task is to offer the child the instruments of education, to keep pure within him the springs of his intellectual growth, of his life of feeling. The rest follows as a matter of course.”

“We must, therefore, desist from the useless attempt to reduce the child to a state of immobility. We should rather give “order” to his movements, leading them to those actions towards which his efforts are actually tending.”

“We see the smallest children wanting to dress themselves and their companions. They go in search of amusement of this kind, and defend themselves with all their might against the adult who would try to help them.”

“In the same way for the teaching of the other and larger movements, such as washing, setting the table, etc., the directress must at the beginning intervene, teaching the child with few or no words at all, but with very precise actions.”

“In classes where there are many children it is necessary to arrange for the children to take turns in the various household duties, such as housework, serving at table, and washing dishes. The children readily respect such a system of turns.”

“In these exercises the teacher may, in the first instance, intervene, merely taking out the cylinders, mixing them carefully on the table and then showing the child that he is to put them back, but without performing the action herself. Such intervention, however, is almost always found to be unnecessary, for the children see their companions at work, and thus are encouraged to imitate them.”

“The educative process is based on this: that the control of the error lies in the material itself, and the child has concrete evidence of it.”

“The desire of the child to attain an end which he knows, leads him to correct himself. It is not a teacher who makes him notice his mistake and shows him how to correct it, but it is a complex work of the child’s own intelligence which leads to such a result.”

“The aim is an inner one, namely, that the child train himself to observe; that he be led to make comparisons between objects, to form judgments, to reason and to decide; and it is in the indefinite repetition of this exercise of attention and of intelligence that a real development ensues.”

“As usual, the teacher, by doing the exercises herself, first shows the child how the pieces of each set should be arranged, but it will often happen that the child learns, not directly from her, but by watching his companions.”

“As the aim of the exercise, however, is not that the rods be arranged in the right order of gradation, but that the child should practise by himself, there is no need to intervene.”

“When initiating the child into the education of the sense of touch, the teacher must always take an active part the first time; not only must she show the child “how it is done,” her interference is a little more definite still, for she takes hold of his hand and guides it to touch the surfaces with the finger-tips in the lightest possible way. She will make no explanations; her words will be rather to encourage the child with his hand to perceive the different sensations.”

“This exercise in touching and feeling is peculiarly attractive to the child, and induces him to seek similar experiences in his surroundings. A little one, attracted by the pretty stuff of a visitor’s dress, will be seen to go and wash his hands, then to come and touch the stuff of the garment again and again with infinite delicacy, his face meanwhile expressing his pleasure and interest.”

“It is very advisable for those who wish to guide the children in these sensory exercises to begin themselves by working with the didactic material. The experience will give them some idea of what the children must feel, of the difficulties which they must overcome, etc., and, up to a certain point, it will give them some conception of the interest which these exercises can arouse in them.”

“It is quite plain to see that the children take a great interest in the “Silence”; they seem to give themselves up to a kind of spell: they might be said to be wrapped in meditation. Little by little, as each child, watching himself, becomes more and more still, the silence deepens till it becomes absolute and can be felt, just as the twilight gradually deepens whilst the sun is setting.”

“The world becomes full of imperceptible sounds which invade that deep silence without disturbing it, just as the stars shine out in the dark sky without banishing the darkness of the night. It is almost the discovery of a new world where there is rest.”

“When the children have become acquainted with silence, their hearing is in a manner refined for the perception of sounds. Those sounds which are too loud become gradually displeasing to the ear of one who has known the pleasure of silence, and has discovered the world of delicate sounds.”

“The teacher must be careful to pronounce clearly and completely the sounds of the word when she speaks to a child, even though she may be speaking in a low voice, almost as if telling him a secret. The children’s songs are also a good means for obtaining exact pronunciation.”

“In fact, the name is given after a long exercise, in which the child, concentrating his attention on different qualities of objects, has made comparisons, reasoned, and formed judgments, until he has acquired a power of discrimination which he did not possess before. In a word, he has refined his senses; his observation of things has been thorough and fundamental; he has changed himself.”

“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.”

“They have coordinated their movements in various kinds of manual work about the house, and so have acquired a characteristic independence of action, and initiative in the adaptation of their actions to their environment. Out of all this emerges a personality, for the children have become little men, who are self-reliant.”

“The didactic material, in fact, does not offer to the child the “content” of the mind, but the order for that “content.” It causes him to distinguish identities from differences, extreme differences from fine gradations, and to classify, under conceptions of quality and of quantity, the most varying sensations appertaining to surfaces, colors, dimensions, forms and sounds. The mind has formed itself by a special exercise of attention, observing, comparing, and classifying.”

“The mental attitude acquired by such an exercise leads the child to make ordered observations in his environment, observations which prove as interesting to him as discoveries, and so stimulate him to multiply them indefinitely and to form in his mind a rich “content” of clear ideas.”

“In this way the children are able to “find themselves,” alike in the world of natural things and in the world of objects and of words which surround them, for they have an inner guide which leads them to become active and intelligent explorers instead of wandering wayfarers in an unknown land.”

“It is not a fact that children in general can do it, as many have believed. It is not a case of giving my material for writing to unprepared children and of awaiting the “miracle.””

“In writing and arithmetic we have gathered the fruits of a laborious education which consisted in coordinating the movements and gaining a first knowledge of the world. This culture comes as a natural consequence of man’s first efforts to put himself into intelligent communication with the world.”

“As is well known, we leave the children free in their work, and in all actions which are not of a disturbing kind. That is, we eliminate disorder, which is “bad,” but allow to that which is orderly and “good” the most complete liberty of manifestation.”

“The results obtained are surprising, for the children have shown a love of work which no one suspected to be in them, and a calm and an orderliness in their movements which, surpassing the limits of correctness have entered into those of “grace.” The spontaneous discipline, and the obedience which is seen in the whole class, constitute the most striking result of our method.”

“The tendencies which we stigmatize as evil in little children of three to six years of age are often merely those which cause annoyance to us adults when, not understanding their needs, we try to prevent their every movement, their every attempt to gain experience for themselves in the world (by touching everything, etc.).”

“It is we who provoked the children to the violent manifestations of a real struggle for existence. In order to exist according to the needs of their psychic development they were often obliged to snatch from us the things which seemed necessary to them for the purpose. They had to move contrary to our laws, or sometimes to struggle with other children to wrest from them the objects of their desire.”

“On the other hand, if we give children the means of existence, the struggle for it disappears, and a vigorous expansion of life takes its place.”

“We have already obtained a most interesting result, in that we have found it possible to present new means of enabling children to reach a higher level of calm and goodness, and we have been able to establish these means by experience. The whole foundation of our results rests upon these means which we have discovered, and which may be divided under two heads––the organization of work, and liberty.”

“Yet, on the other hand, I would not say that the goodness of our little ones in their freedom will solve the problem of the absolute goodness or wickedness of man. We can only say that we have made a contribution to the cause of goodness by removing obstacles which were the cause of violence and of rebellion.”

“The pedagogical method of observation has for its base the liberty of the child; and liberty is activity.”

“A special technique is necessary to the teacher who is to lead the child along such a path of discipline, if she is to make it possible for him to continue in this way all his life, advancing indefinitely toward perfect self-mastery.”

“Since the child now learns to move rather than to sit still, he prepares himself not for the school, but for life; for he becomes able, through habit and through practice, to perform easily and correctly the simple acts of social or community life.”

“The discipline to which the child habituates himself here is, in its character, not limited to the school environment but extends to society.”

“The liberty of the child should have as its limit the collective interest; as its form, what we universally consider good breeding.”

“Here lies the essential point; from her scientific preparation, the teacher must bring not only the capacity, but the desire, to observe natural phenomena.”

“In our system, she must become a passive, much more than an active, influence, and her passivity shall be composed of anxious scientific curiosity, and of absolute respect for the phenomenon which she wishes to observe.”

“The teacher must understand and feel her position of observer: the activity must lie in the phenomenon.”

“If any educational act is to be efficacious, it will be only that which tends to help toward the complete unfolding of this life.”

“Actual training and practice are necessary to fit for this method teachers who have not been prepared for scientific observation, and such training is especially necessary to those who have been accustomed to the old domineering methods of the common school.”

“Even an intelligent teacher, who understands the principle, finds much difficulty in putting it into practice.”

“This idea, that life acts of itself, and that in order to study it, to divine its secrets or to direct its activity, it is necessary to observe it and to understand it without intervening—this idea, I say, is very difficult for anyone to assimilate and to put into practice.”

“The first idea that the child must acquire, in order to be actively disciplined, is that of the difference between good and evil; and the task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility, and evil with activity, as often happens in the case of the old-time discipline.”

“A room in which all the children move about usefully, intelligently, and voluntarily, without committing any rough or rude act, would seem to me a classroom very well disciplined indeed.”

“The movements of the children from the state of order become always more co-ordinated and perfect with the passing of the days; in fact, they learn to reflect upon their own acts.”

“Now (with the idea of order understood by the children) the observation of the way in which the children pass from the first disordered movements to those which are spontaneous and ordered—this is the book of the teacher; this is the book which must inspire her actions; it is the only one in which she must read and study if she is to become a real educator.”

“It is remarkable how clearly individual differences show themselves, if we proceed in this way; the child, conscious and free, reveals himself.”

“For all these reasons, the first form of educational intervention must tend to lead the child toward independence.”

“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.”

“Any pedagogical action, if it is to be efficacious in the training of little children, must tend to help the children to advance upon this road of independence.”

“We must help them to learn to walk without assistance, to run, to go up and down stairs, to lift up fallen objects, to dress and undress themselves, to bathe themselves, to speak distinctly, and to express their own needs clearly.”

“We must give such help as shall make it possible for children to achieve the satisfaction of their own individual aims and desires.”

“We do not stop to think that the child who does not do, does not know how to do.”

“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?”

“From a biological point of view, the concept of liberty in the education of the child in his earliest years must be understood as demanding those conditions adapted to the most favourable development of his entire individuality.”

“The educator must be as one inspired by a deep worship of life, and must, through this reverence, respect, while he observes with human interest, the development of the child life.”

“Now, child life is not an abstraction; it is the life of individual children.”

“There exists only one real biological manifestation: the living individual; and toward single individuals, one by one observed, education must direct itself.”

“By education must be understood the active help given to the normal expansion of the life of the child.”

“Given the fact that, through the régime of liberty the pupils can manifest their natural tendencies in the school, and that with this in view we have prepared the environment and the materials (the objects with which the child is to work), the teacher must not limit her action to observation, but must proceed to experiment.”

“The more fully the teacher is acquainted with the methods of experimental psychology, the better will she understand how to give the lesson.”

“The teacher must at least have attended the training classes in the "Children's Houses," in order to acquire a knowledge of the fundamental principles of the method and to understand their application.”

“And in preparing the lessons which she is to give, the teacher must pay special attention to this point, counting and weighing the value of the words which she is to speak.”

“Another characteristic quality of the lesson in the "Children's Houses" is its simplicity.”

“That the teacher must not lose herself in vain words, is included in the first quality of conciseness; this second, then, is closely related to the first: that is, the carefully chosen words must be the most simple it is possible to find, and must refer to the truth.”

“The lesson must be presented in such a way that the personality of the teacher shall disappear.”

“This brief and simple lesson must be considered by the teacher as an explanation of the object and of the use which the child can make of it.”

“In the giving of such lessons the fundamental guide must be the method of observation, in which is included and understood the liberty of the child.”

“So the teacher shall observe whether the child interests himself in the object, how he is interested in it, for how long, etc., even noticing the expression of his face.”

“For, if she provokes the child to make an unnatural effort, she will no longer know what is the spontaneous activity of the child.”

“And such is our duty toward the child: to give a ray of light and to go on our way.”

“In regard to infant psychology, we are more richly endowed with prejudices than with actual knowledge bearing upon the subject.”

“But if we cut away the artificiality with which we have enwrapped them, and the violence through which we have foolishly thought to discipline them, they will reveal themselves to us in all the truth of child nature.”

“The directress must intervene to lead the child from sensations to ideas—from the concrete to the abstract, and to the association of ideas.”

“The teacher, in other words, when she gives a lesson must seek to limit the field of the child's consciousness to the object of the lesson, as, for example, during sense education she isolated the sense which she wished the child to exercise.”

“A definite and undoubted part of the teacher's work is that of teaching an exact nomenclature.”

“The teacher must always test whether or not her lesson has attained the end she had in view, and her tests must be made to come within the restricted field of consciousness, provoked by the lesson on nomenclature.”

“But when the child has failed, we should know that he was not at that instant ready for the psychic association which we wished to provoke in him, and we must therefore choose another moment.”

“In fact, by revealing the error we may lead the child to make an undue effort to remember, or we may discourage him, and it is our duty to avoid as much as possible all unnatural effort and all depression.”

“In such cases, the children experience a joy at each fresh discovery.”

“The teacher should watch with the most solicitous care to see when and how the child arrives at this generalisation of ideas.”

“The greatest triumph of our educational method should always be this: to bring about the spontaneous progress of the child.”

“We can not 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.”

“Once we have aroused such activity, auto-education is assured, for refined well-trained senses lead us to a closer observation of the environment, and this, with its infinite variety, attracts the attention and continues the psychosensory education.”

“So the spontaneous psychic development of the child continues indefinitely and is in direct relation to the psychic potentiality of the child himself, and not with the work of the teacher.”

“Our educational aim with very young children must be to aid the spontaneous development of the mental, spiritual, and physical personality, and not to make of the child a cultured individual in the commonly accepted sense of the term.”

“So, after we have offered to the child such didactic material as is adapted to provoke the development of his senses, we must wait until the activity known as observation develops.”

“And herein lies the art of the educator; in knowing how to measure the action by which we help the young child's personality to develop.”

“To one whose attitude is right, little children soon reveal profound individual differences which call for very different kinds of help from the teacher.”

“It is necessary, therefore, that the teaching shall be rigorously guided by the principle of limiting to the greatest possible point the active intervention of the educator.”

“Indeed, nomenclature prepares for an exactness in the use of language which is not always met with in our schools.”

“We should reflect upon the fact that many times a child, left to himself, makes an undue effort to comprehend the language of the adults and the meaning of the things about him.”

“Opportune and rational instruction prevents such an effort, and therefore does not weary, but relieves, the child and satisfies his desire for knowledge.”

“The instruction given to little children should be so directed as to lessen this expenditure of poorly directed effort, converting it instead into the enjoyment of conquest made easy and infinitely broadened.”

“Thus the knowledge of the forms given him in the plane geometric insets will be for him a species of magic key, opening the external world, and making him feel that he knows its secrets.”

“For this reason, I have wished to make my work broad, leading the child, not only to observe the forms about him, but to distinguish the work of man from that of nature, and to appreciate the fruits of human labour.”

“And, since the child draws what he wishes, he reveals to us which are the objects that most strongly attract his attention.”

“These clay models are undoubtedly very valuable material for the teacher, and make clear many individual differences, thus helping her to understand her children more fully.”

“The children select the colours and are left entirely free in their work.”

“The fact that the child must remember the colour of the objects represented in the design encourages him to observe those things which are about him.”

“The teacher moves quietly about, goes to any child who calls her, supervising operations in such a way that any one who needs her finds her at his elbow, and whoever does not need her is not reminded of her existence.”

“At a given moment it happens that a child becomes keenly interested in a piece of work, showing it by the expression of his face, by his intense attention, by his perseverance in the same exercise.”

“In the case of the little child it is a question of aiding the natural evolution of voluntary action.”

“In our efforts with the child, external acts are the means which stimulate internal development, and they again appear as its manifestation, the two elements being inextricably intertwined.”

“Work develops the child spiritually; but the child with a fuller spiritual development works better, and his improved work delights him,—hence he continues to develop spiritually.”

“Discipline is, therefore, not a fact but a path, a path in following which the child grasps the abstract conception of goodness with an exactitude which is fairly scientific.”

“In that long preparation, the child experiences joys, spiritual awakenings and pleasures which form his inner treasure-house—the treasure-house in which he is steadily storing up the sweetness and strength which will be the sources of righteousness.”

“The child's unconscious aim was his own self-development; not the external fact of a pail full of little stones.”

“To have learned something is for the child only a point of departure.”

“When a child has attained this stage, of repeating an exercise, he is on the way to self-development, and the external sign of this condition is his self-discipline.”

“Children, who are undertaking something for the first time are extremely slow.”

“It is exactly in the repetition of the exercises that the education of the senses consists; their aim is not that the child shall know colours, forms and the different qualities of objects, but that he refine his senses through an exercise of attention, of comparison, of judgment.”

“However, as a calm man and a self-disciplined man are not one and the same, so here the fact which manifests itself externally by the calm of the children is in reality a phenomenon merely physical and partial compared to the real self-discipline which is being developed in them.”

“Often (and this is another misconception) we think all we need to do, to obtain a voluntary action from a child, is to order him to do it.”

“Since, when a command to do a certain thing is given, we presuppose a corresponding active or inhibitive power of the child, it is plain that obedience must follow the formation of the will and of the mind.”

“The method which is the subject of this book contains in every part an exercise for the will-power, when the child completes co-ordinated actions directed towards a given end, when he achieves something he set out to do, when he repeats patiently his exercises, he is training his positive will-power.”

“To the casual onlooker the child seems to be learning exactitude and grace of action, to be refining his senses, to be learning how to read and write; but much more profoundly he is learning how to become his own master, how to be a man of prompt and resolute will.”

“These are the first outlines of an experiment which shows a form of indirect discipline in which there is substituted for the critical and sermonizing teacher a rational organisation of work and of liberty for the child.”

“Discipline must come through liberty.”

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