Great Throughts Treasury

"He who is served is limited in his independence."

"Help me do it alone."

"How does he achieve this independence? He does it by means of a continuous activity. How does he become free? By means of constant effort? we know that development results from activity. The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences."

"How easily his helplessness can cause him mental anguish, and how much our understanding of his language can help us to save him from this, and calm his mind!"

"How often is the soul of man - especially in childhood - deprived because he is not allowed to come in contact with nature."

"I don't need to teach anything to children: it is they who, placed in a favorable environment, teach me."

"I first turned my attention to the question of environment, and this, of course, included the furnishing of the schoolroom. In considering an ample playground with space for a garden as an important part of this school environment, I am not suggesting anything new."

"I have found that in his development, the child passes through certain phases, each of which has its own particular needs. The characteristics of each are so different that the passages from one phase to the other has been described by certain psychologists as 'rebirths'."

"I keep pointing at the child; they keep staring at my finger."

"I know the first objection which will present itself to the minds of persons accustomed to the old-time methods of discipline;?the children in these schools, moving about, will overturn the little tables and chairs, producing noise and disorder; but this is a prejudice which has long existed in the minds of those dealing with little children, and for which there is no real foundation."

"I succeeded in teaching a number of the idiots from the asylums both to read and to write so well that I was able to present them at a public school for an examination together with normal children. And they passed the examination successfully."

"I would not be able to cite a single example of a conversion taking place without an interesting task that concentrated the child's activities."

"I would therefore initiate teachers into the observation of the most simple forms of living things, which all those aids which science gives; I would make them microscopists; I would give them a knowledge of the cultivation of plants and train them to observe their physiology; I would direct their observation to insects, and would make them study the general laws of biology. And I would not have them concerned with theory alone, but would encourage them to work independently in laboratories and in the bosom of free Nature."

"If a child finds no stimuli for the activities which would contribute to his development, he is attracted simply to 'things' and desires to possess them."

"If a child is to be treated differently than he is today a radical change, and one upon which everything else will depend, must first be made; and that change must be made in the adult."

"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."

"If children are allowed free development and given occupation to correspond with their unfolding minds their natural goodness will shine forth."

"If during this period of social interest and mental acuteness all possibilities of culture are offered to the child, to widen his outlook and ideas of the world, this organization will be formed and will develop; the amount of light a child has acquired in the moral field, and the lofty ideals he has formed, will be used for purposes of social organization at a later stage."

"If education is always to be conceived along the same antiquated lines of a mere transmission of knowledge, there is little to behoped from it in the bettering of man's future."

"If help and salvation are to come they can only come from the children, for the children are the makers of men. The child is endowed with unknown powers, which can guide us to a radiant future. If what we really want is a new world, then education must take as its aim the development of these hidden possibilities."

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

"If I were to establish a primary principle, it would be to constantly allow the child's participation in our lives... To extend to the child this hospitality, to allow him to participate in our work can be difficult, but it costs nothing. Our time is a far more precious gift than material objects."

"If puberty is on the physical side a transition from an infantile to an adult state, there is also, on the psychological side, a transition from the child who has to live in a family, to the man who has to live in society . These two needs of the adolescent: for protection during the time of the difficult physical transition, and for an understanding of the society which he is about to enter to play his part as a man."

"If the idea of the universe be presented to the child in the right way, it will do more for him than just arouse his interest, for it will create in him admiration and wonder, a feeling loftier than any interest and more satisfying. The child?s mind will then no longer wander, but becomes fixed and can work. The knowledge he acquires is organized and systematic; his intelligence becomes whole and complete because of the vision of the whole that has been presented to him, and his interest spreads to all, for all are linked and have their place in the universe on which his mind is centerd."

"If the idea of the universe is presented to the child in the right way, it will do more for him than just arouse his interest, for it will create in him admiration and wonder, a feeling loftier than any interest and far more satisfying."

"If the teacher cannot recognize the difference between pure impulse, and the spontaneous energies which spring to life in a tranquilized spirit, then her action will bear no fruit."

"If we can, when we have established individual discipline, arrange the children, sending each one to his own place, in order, trying to make them understand the idea that thus placed they look well, and that it is a good thing to be thus placed in order, that it is a good and pleasing arrangement in the room, this ordered and tranquil adjustment of theirs -- then their remaining in their places, quiet and silent, is the result of a species of lesson, not an imposition. To make them understand the idea, without calling their attention too forcibly to the practice, to have them assimilate a principle of collective order -- that is the important thing."

"If we could say, "We are respectful and courteous in our dealing with children, we treat them as we should like to be treated ourselves," we should have mastered a great educational principle and be setting an example of good education."

"Illustrated as it must be by fascinating charts and diagrams, the creation of earth as we now know it unfolds before the child?s imagination."

"In her duty of guiding a child in using the material, a teacher must make a distinction between two different periods. In the first she puts the child in contact with the material and initiates him in its use. In the second she intervenes to enlighten a child who has already succeeded in distinguishing differences through his own spontaneous efforts. It is then that she can determine the ideas acquired by a child, if this is necessary, and provide him with words to describe the differences he has perceived."

"In point of fact, no other occupations which could be undertaken by the children at this stage (3-5) could be more important for their whole development - physical, mental, and moral - than these 'exercises of practical life' as they are called."

"In the first days of life, it is clear that something of the utmost importance is taking place?.he has ?potentialities? able to bring about his development, and these do so my making use of the outer world."

"Independence is not a static condition; it is a continuous conquest, and in order to reach not only freedom, but also strength, and the perfecting on one?s powers, it is necessary to follow this path of unremitting toil."

"Independence, in the case of the adolescents, has to be acquired on a different plane, for theirs is the economic independence in the field of society. Here, too, the principle of Help me to do it alone! ought to be applied."

"Instead of all this, we must know how to call the man which lies dormant within the soul of the child. I felt this, intuitively, and believed that not the didactic material, but my voice which called to them, awakened the children, and encouraged them to use the didactic material, and through it, to educate themselves."

"It begins with a knowledge of his surroundings. How does the child assimilate his environment? He does it solely in virtue of one of those characteristics that we now know him to have. This is an intense and specialized sensitiveness in consequence of which the things about him awaken so much interest and so much enthusiasm that they become incorporated in his very existence. The child absorbs these impressions not with his mind but with his life itself."

"It follows that at the beginning of his life the individual can accomplish wonders ? without effort and quite unconsciously."

"It follows that the child can only develop fully by means of experience on his environment. We call such experience work."

"It is after this that the child, who can now walk and feels confident of his strength, begins to notice the actions of those about him, and tries to do the same things. In this period he imitates not because someone has told him to do so, but because of a deep inner need which he feels."

"It is almost possible to say that there is a mathematical relationship between the beauty of his surroundings and the activity of the child; he will make discoveries rather more voluntarily in a gracious setting than in an ugly one."

"It is important to notice... that these are real, not make-believe activities and that they are carried out in a real and not make-believe environment. The child who is washing dusters is washing real dusters because they are dirty; the children who are laying the table are laying a real table with real knives and forks and plates etc., for a real meal - not a doll's table in a doll's house for a doll's tea party. Where you see a child swabbing up water spilt on the floor there has been a real accident, and she is reestablishing order to a real world. This is a matter of great importance..."

"It is in the encounter of the maternal guiding instincts with the sensitive periods of the newly born that conscious love develops between parent and child."

"It is indeed a form of love that gives them the faculty of observing in such an intense and meticulous manner the things in their environment that we, grown cold, pass by unseeing. Is it not a characteristic of love, that sensibility that enables a child to see what others do not see? That collects details that others do not perceive, and appreciates special qualities, which are, as it were, hidden, and which only love can discover? It is because the child's intelligence assimilates by loving, and not just indifferently, that he can see the invisible. This active, ardent, meticulous, constant absorption in love is characteristic of children."

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

"It is not enough for the teacher to love the child. She must first love and understand the universe. She must prepare herself, and truly work at it."

"It is not the child as a physical but as a psychic being that can provide a strong impetus to the betterment of mankind."

"It is self-evident that the possession of and contact with real things brings, above all, a real quantity of knowledge."

"It is the spirit of the child that can determine the course of human progress and lead it perhaps even to a higher form of civilization."

"It is through appropriate work and activities that the character of the child is transformed. Work influences his development in the same way that food revives the vigor of a starving man. We observe that a child occupied with matters that awaken his interest seems to blossom, to expand, evincing undreamed of character traits; his abilities give him great satisfaction, and he smiles with a sweet and joyous smile."

"It is well to cultivate a friendly feeling towards error, to treat it as a companion inseparable from our lives, as something having a purpose, which it truly has."