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

Only when the child is able to identify its own center with the center of the universe does education really begin.

Social grace, inner discipline and joy. These are the birthright of the human being who has been allowed to develop essential human qualities.

The first duty of the educator, whether he is involved with the newborn infant or the older child, is to recognize the human personality of the young being and respect it.

Movement, or physical activity, is thus an essential factor in intellectual growth, which depends upon the impressions received from outside. Through movement we come in contact with external reality, and it is through these contacts that we eventually acquire even abstract ideas.

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.

To assist a child we must provide him with an environment which will enable him to develop freely.