Quote collection
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"The greatness of the human personality begins at the hour of birth. From this almost mystic affirmation there comes what may seem a strange conclusion: that education must start from birth."
"The task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility and evil with activity."
"We do not believe in the educative power of words and commands alone, but seek cautiously, and almost without the child's knowing it, to guide his natural activity."
"Plainly, the environment must be a living one, directed by a higher intelligence, arranged by an adult who is prepared for his mission."
"The child is essentially alien to this society of men and might express his position in the words of the Gospel: My kingdom is not of this world"
"Except when he has regressive tendencies, the child's nature is to aim directly and energetically at functional independence."
"... 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."
"Order is one of the needs of life which, when it is satisfied, produces a real happiness"
"The child seeks for independence by means of work; an independence of body and mind."
"One of the great problems facing men is their failure to realize the fact that a child possesses an active psychic life even when he cannot manifest it, and that the child must secretly perfect this inner life over a long period of time."
"A humankind abandoned in its earlier formative stage becomes its own greatest threat to survival."
"Love and the hope of it are not things one can learn; they are a part of life's heritage."
"He who is served is limited in his independence."
"Education should therefore include the two forms of work, manual and intellectual, for the same person, and thus make it understood by practical experience that these two kinds complete each other and are equally essential to a civilized existence."
"He who experiments must, while doing so, divest himself of every preconception. It is clear then that if we wish to make use of a method of experimental psychology, the first thing necessary is to renounce all former creeds and to proceed by means of the method in the search for truth."
"Adults have not understood children or adolescents and they are, as a consequence, in continual conflict with them."
"The more perfect the approximation to truth, the more perfect is art."
"An interesting piece of work, freely chosen, which has the virtue of inducing concentration rather than fatigue, adds to the child's energies and mental capacities, and leads him to self-mastery."
"The real preparation for education is the study of one's self."
"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."