My system is to be considered a system leading up, in a general way, to education. It can be followed not only in the education of little children from three to six years of age, but can be extended to children up to ten years of age.
— Maria Montessori
I have for many years interested myself in the study of children from three years upwards. Many have urged me to continue my studies on the same lines with older children. But what I have felt to be most vital is the need for more careful and particularized study of the tiny child.
There can be no 'graduated exercises in drawing' leading up to an artistic creation. That goal can be attained only through the development of mechanical technique and through the freedom of the spirit.
Books are mute as far as sound is concerned. It follows that reading aloud is a combination of two distinct operations, of two 'languages.' It is something far more complex than speaking and reading taken separately by themselves.
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.
All work is noble; the only ignoble thing is to live without working. There is need to realize the value of work in all its forms whether manual or intellectual, to be called 'mate,' to have sympathetic understanding of all forms of activity.
The man of character is the persistent man, the man who is faithful to his own word, his own convictions, his own affections.
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 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.
Speech is one of the marvels that characterize man, and also one of the most difficult spontaneous creations that have been accomplished by nature.
The child, merely by going on with his life, learns to speak the language belonging to his race. It is like a mental chemistry that takes place in the child.
The child who concentrates is immensely happy.
The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one can teach them anything!
Never help a child with a task at which he feels he can succeed.
When you have solved the problem of controlling the attention of the child, you have solved the entire problem of its education.
We await the successsive births in the soul of the child. We give all possible material, that nothing may lack to the groping soul, and then we watch for the perfect faculty to come, safeguarding the child from interruption so that it may carry its efforts through.
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.
Education is a work of self-organization by which man adapts himself to the conditions of life.
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.
It is by developing the individual that he is prepared for that wonderful manifestation of the human intelligence, which drawing constitutes. The ability to see reality in form, in color, in proportion, to be master of the movements of one's own hand - that is what is necessary.
It is the children between five and seven who are the word-lovers. It is they who show a predisposition toward such study. Their undeveloped minds can not yet grasp a complete idea with distinctness. They do, however, understand words. And they may be entirely carried away by their ecstatic, their tireless interest in the parts of speech.
The ancient superficial idea of the uniform and progressive growth of the human personality has remained unaltered, and the erroneous belief has persisted that it is the duty of the adult to fashion the child according to the pattern required by society.
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.
The maternal duty of suckling her own children, prescribed to mothers by hygienists, is based on a physiological principle: the mother's milk nourishes an infant more perfectly than any other.
The hand is, in the highest degree, a human characteristic. It is man's organ of grasp and of the sense of touch, while in animals these two functions are relegated to the mouth.
Woman was always the custodian of human sentiment, morality and honour, and in these respects, man always has yielded woman the palm.
The child's mind is not the type of mind we adults possess. If we call our type of mind the conscious type, that of the child is an unconscious mind. Now an unconscious mind does not mean an inferior mind. An unconscious mind can be full of intelligence. One will find this type of intelligence in every being, and every insect has it.
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 task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility and evil with activity.
The first idea the child must acquire is that of the difference between good and evil.
How can any one paint who cannot grade colors? How can any one write poetry who has not learnt to hear and see?
In the first three years of life, the foundations of physical and also of psychic health are laid. In these years, the child not only increases in size but passes through great transformations. This is the age in which language and movement develop. The child must be safeguarded in order that these activities may develop freely.
Moral Education is the source of that spiritual equilibrium on which everything else depends and which may be compared to that physical equilibrium or sense of balance, without which it is impossible to stand upright or to move into any other position.
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.
If the ways of the Almighty are not humanly logical, it is not the fault of the Almighty but of the limitations of human logic.
We recommend for the training of teachers not only a considerable artistic education in general but special attention to the art of reading.
It is not true that I invented what is called the Montessori Method... I have studied the child; I have taken what the child has given me and expressed it, and that is what is called the Montessori Method.
Through machinery, man can exert tremendous powers almost as fantastic as if he were the hero of a fairy tale. Through machinery, man can travel with an ever increasing velocity; he can fly through the air and go beneath the surface of the ocean.
Temptation, if it is not to conquer, must not fall like a bomb against another bomb of instantaneous moral explosions, but against the strong walls of an impregnable fortress strongly built up, stone by stone, beginning at that distant day when the foundations were first laid.
All the movements of our body are not merely those dictated by impulse or weariness; they are the correct expression of what we consider decorous. Without impulses, we could take no part in social life; on the other hand, without inhibitions, we could not correct, direct, and utilize our impulses.
Man is capable of every great heroism; it was man who found a means of conquering the formidable obstacles of his environment, establishing himself lord of the earth, and laying the foundations of civilization.
If intelligence is the triumph of life, the spoken word is the marvellous means by which this intelligence is manifested.
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.
Noble ideas, great sentiments have always existed and have always been transmitted, but wars have never ceased.
If an educational act is to be efficacious, it will be only that one which tends to help toward the complete unfolding of life. To be thus helpful it is necessary rigorously to avoid the arrest of spontaneous movements and the imposition of arbitrary tasks.
Free the child's potential, and you will transform him into the world.
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.
The person who is developing freely and naturally arrives at a spiritual equilibrium in which he is master of his actions, just as one who has acquired physical poise can move freely.
Many people must have noticed the intense attention given by children to the conversation of grown-ups when they cannot possibly be understanding a word of what they hear. They are trying to get hold of words, and they often demonstrate this fact by repeating joyously some word which they have been able to grasp.
