Obedience is the gateway through which knowledge, yes, and love, too, enter the mind of the child.

A strenuous effort must be made to train young people to think for themselves and take independent charge of their lives.

Our material eye cannot see that a stupid chauvinism is driving us from one noisy, destructive, futile agitation to another.

The truth is not wonderful enough to suit the newspapers; so they enlarge upon it, and invent ridiculous embellishments.

Language grows out of life, out of its needs and experiences...Language and knowledge are indissolubly connected; they are interdependent. Good work in language presupposes and depends on a real knowledge of things.

I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think. Whereas if the child is left to himself, he will think more and better , if less "showily." Let him come and go freely, let him touch real things and combine his impressions for himself... Teaching fills the mind with artificial associations that must be got rid of before the child can develop independent ideas out of actual experiences.

Children require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction.