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

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.

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 instructions of the teacher consist then merely in a hint, a touch-enough to give a start to the child. The rest develops of itself.

Character formation cannot be taught. It comes from experience and not from explanation.

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.

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