By the age of three, the child has already laid down the foundations of his personality as a human being, and only then does he need the help of special scholastic influences. So great are the conquests he has made that one may well say: the child who goes to school at three is already a little man.

A child's character develops in accordance with the obstacles he has encountered... or the freedom favoring his development that he has enjoyed.

A humankind abandoned in its earlier formative stage becomes its own greatest threat to survival.

An educational method that shall have liberty as its basis must intervene to help the child to a conquest of liberty. That is to say, his training must be such as shall help him to diminish as much as possible the social bonds which limit his activity.

It is necessary, then, to give the child the possibility of developing according to the laws of his nature, so that he can become strong, and, having become strong, can do even more than we dared hope for him.

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

Children are human beings to whom respect is due, superior to us by reason of their innocence and of the greater possibilities of their future.