It is not the child as a physical but as a psychic being that can provide a strong impetus to the betterment of mankind. It is the spirit of the child that can determine the course of human progress and lead it perhaps even to a higher form of civilization.

Supposing I said there was a planet without schools or teachers, where study was unknown, and yet the inhabitants -- doing nothing but live and walk about -- came to know all things, to carry in their minds the whole of learning; would you not think I was romancing? Well, just this, which seems so fanciful as to be nothing but the invention of a fertile imagination, is a reality. It is the child's way of learning.

Nothing is created or destroyed in nature.

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.

A great deal of time and intellectual force are lost in the world, because the false seems great and the truth so small and insignificant.

The greatest triumph of our educational method should always be this: to bring about the spontaneous progress of the child.

The teacher must derive not only the capacity, but the desire, to observe natural phenomena. The teacher must understand and feel her position of observer: the activity must lie in the phenomenon.