When a child is given a little leeway, he will at once shout, "I want to do it!" But in our schools, which have an environment adapted to children's needs, they say, "Help me to do it alone." And these words reveal their inner needs.

Discipline must come through liberty.

We do not believe in the educative power of words and commands alone, but seek cautiously, and almost without the child's knowing it, to guide his natural activity.

To give a child liberty is not to abandon him to himself.

The environment must be rich in motives which lend interest to activity and invite the child to conduct his own experiences.

The child is endowed with unknown powers, which can guide us to a radiant future. If what we really want is a new world, then education must take as its aim the development of these hidden possibilities.

The first idea that the child must acquire, in order to be actively disciplined, is that of the difference between good and evil.