No adult can bear a child’s burden or grow up in his stead.
This then is the first duty of an educator: to stir up life but leave it free to develop.
The senses, being the explorers of the world, open the way to knowledge.
Scientific observation then has established that education is not what the teacher gives; education is a natural process spontaneously carried out by the human individual, and is acquired not by listening to words but by experiences upon the environment.
We must therefore turn to the child as to the key to the fate of our future life.
The child is the spiritual builder of mankind, and obstacles to his free development are the stones in the wall by which the soul of man has become imprisoned.