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.

Growth comes from activity, not from intellectual understanding.

It is not enough for the teacher to love the child. She must first love and understand the universe. She must prepare herself, and truly work at it.

No adult can bear a child’s burden or grow up in his stead.

The child can only develop fully by means of experience in his environment. We call such experience 'work'.

The essential thing is to arouse such an interest that it engages the child’s whole personality.

The adult ought never to mold the child after himself, but should leave him alone and work always from the deepest comprehension of the child himself.