We must clearly understand that when we give the child freedom and independence, we are giving freedom to a worker already braced for action, who cannot live without working and being active.

At one year of age the child says his first intentional wordhis babbling has a purpose, and this intention is a proof of conscious intelligenceHe becomes ever more aware that language refers to his surroundings, and his wish to master it consciously becomes also greater.Subconsciously and unaided, he strains himself to learn, and this effort makes his success all the more astonishing.

The objects in our system are instead a help to the child himself, he chooses what he wants for his own use, and works with it according to his own needs, tendencies and special interests. In this way, the objects become a means of growth.

It follows that at the beginning of his life the individual can accomplish wonders without effort and quite unconsciously.

At birth, the child leaves a person - his mother's womb - and this makes him independent of her bodily functions. The baby is next endowed with an urge, or need, to face the out world and to absorb it. We might say that he is born with 'the psychology of world conquest.' By absorbing what he finds about him, he forms his own personality.

I have studied the child. I have taken what the child has given me and expressed it and that is what is called the Montessori method.

Education should no longer be most imparting of knowledge, but must take a new path, seeking the release of human potentialities.