To let the child do as he likes when he has not yet developed any powers of control is to betray the idea of freedom.

All our handling of the child will bear fruit, not only at the moment, but in the adult they are destined to become.

It is not in human nature for all men to tread the same path of development, as animals do of a single species.

How often is the soul of man - especially in childhood - deprived because he is not allowed to come in contact with nature.

The great constructive energies of the child ... have hitherto been concealed beneath an accumulation of ideas concerning motherhood. We used to say it was the mother who formed the child; for it is she who teaches him to walk, talk, and so on. But none of this is really done by the mother. It is an achievement of the child. What the mother brings forth is the baby, but it is the baby who produces the man. Should the mother die, the baby still grows up and completes his work of making the man.

We must therefore turn to the child as to the key to the fate of our future life.

The environment itself will teach the child, if every error he makes is manifest to him, without the intervention of a parent of teacher, who should remain a quiet observer of all that happens.