We all have need to be trained to see, and to have our eyes opened before we can take in the joy that is meant for us in this beautiful life.

As for literature – to introduce children to literature is to install them in a very rich and glorious kingdom, to bring a continual holiday to their doors, to lay before them a feast exquisitely served. But they must learn to know literature by being familiar with it from the very first. A child's intercourse must always be with good books, the best that we can find.

Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life

Imagination does not stir at the suggestion of the feeble, much diluted stuff that is too often put into children’s hands.

Let children alone... the education of habit is successful in so far as it enables the mother to let her children alone, not teasing them with perpetual commands and directions - a running fire of Do and Don’t ; but letting them go their own way and grow, having first secured that they will go the right way and grow to fruitful purpose.

The teacher who allows his scholars the freedom of the city of books is at liberty to be their guide, philosopher and friend; and is no longer the mere instrument of forcible intellectual feeding.

Let children feed on the good, the excellent, the great! Don't get in their way with little lectures, facts, and guided tours!