This then is the first duty of an educator: to stir up life but leave it free to develop.

The teacher’s first duty is to watch over the environment, and this takes precedence over all the rest. It’s influence is indirect, but unless it be well done there will be no effective and permanent results of any kind, physical, intellectual or spiritual.

A child starts from nothing and advances alone. It is the child's reason about which the sensitive periods revolve. The reason provides the initial force and energy, and a child absorbs his first images to assist the reason and act on it.

The work of education is divided between the teacher and the environment.

Let us treat them [children], therefore, with all the kindness which we would wish to help to develop in them.

Do not tell them how to do it. Show them how to do it and do not say a word. If you tell them, they will watch your lips move. If you show them, they will want to do it themselves.

Education should no longer be most imparting of knowledge, but must take a new path, seeking the release of human potentialities.