Our care of the child should be governed, not by the desire to make him learn things, but by the endeavor always to keep burning within him that light which is called intelligence.
Preventing war is the work of politicians, establishing peace is the work of educationists.
To stimulate life, leaving it free, however, to unfold itself–that is the first duty of the educator.
The environment acts more strongly upon the individual life the less fixed and strong this individual life may be.
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.
Imagination does not become great until human beings, given the courage and the strength, use it to create.
What is generally known as discipline in traditional schools is not activity, but immobility and silence. It is not discipline, but something that festers inside a child, arousing his rebellious feelings.
Establishing lasting peace is the work of education all politics can do is keep us out of war.
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.
Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.
Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.
Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.
Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.
Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.
Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.
Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.
Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.
Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.
There can be no substitute for work neither affection nor physical well-being can replace it.
The respect and protection of woman and of maternity should be raised to the position of an inalienable social duty and should become one of the principles of human morality.
Establishing lasting peace is the work of education all politics can do is keep us out of war.
Now, what really makes a teacher is love for the human child; for it is love that transforms the social duty of the educator into the higher consciousness of a mission.
We all know the sense of comfort of which we are conscious when a good half of the floor space in a room is unencumbered this seems to offer us the agreeable possibility of moving about freely.
The selfsame procedure which zoology, a branch of the natural sciences, applies to the study of animals, anthropology must apply to the study of man; and by doing so, it enrolls itself as a science in the field of nature.
The greatest sign of success for a teacher… is to be able to say, ‘The children are now working as if I did not exist.’
We discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being.
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.
It is surprising to notice that even from the earliest age, man finds the greatest satisfaction in feeling independent. The exalting feeling of being sufficient to oneself comes as a revelation.
One test of the correctness of educational procedure is the happiness of the child.
Personal health is related to self-control and to the worship of life in all its natural beauty – self-control bringing with it happiness, renewed youth, and long life.
If intelligence is the triumph of life, the spoken word is the marvellous means by which this intelligence is manifested.
We cannot 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.
Dependence is not patriotism. A man does not love his mother if he hangs about her to the point of burdening her with a weak, feckless son.
There are two ‘faiths’ which can uphold humans: faith in God and faith in oneself. And these two faiths should exist side by side: the first belongs to one’s inner life, the second to one’s life in society.
The social relations which are the basis of the reproduction of the species are founded upon the continuous union of parents in marriage.
Establishing lasting peace is the work of education all politics can do is keep us out of war.
Early childhood education is the key to the betterment of society.
When you have solved the problem of controlling the attention of the child, you have solved the entire problem of its education.
If education is protection to life, you will realize that it is necessary that education accompany life during its whole course.
How can any one paint who cannot grade colors? How can any one write poetry who has not learnt to hear and see?
If the whole of mankind is to be united into one brotherhood, all obstacles must be removed so that men, all over the surface of the globe, should be as children playing in a garden.
If help and salvation are to come, they can only come from the children, for the children are the makers of men.
When the child begins to think and to make use of the written language to express his rudimentary thinking, he is ready for elementary work; and this fitness is a question not of age or other incidental circumstance but of mental maturity.