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.

Children have an anxious concern for living beings, and the satisfaction of this instinct fills them with delight. It is therefore easy to interest them in taking care of plants and especially of animals. Nothing awakens foresight in a small child such as this. When he knows that animals have need of him, that little plants will dry up if he does not water them, he binds together with a new thread of love today's passing moments with those of the morrow.

The ‘absorbent mind’ welcomes everything, puts its hope in everything, accepts poverty equally with wealth, adopts any religion and the prejudices and habits of its countrymen, incarnating all in itself. This is the child!

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.

The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences.

To aid life, leaving it free, however, that is the basic task of the educator.

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.