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.

The education of even a small child, therefore, does not aim at preparing him for school, but for life.

There is in every child a painstaking teacher so skillful that he obtains identical results in all children in all parts of the world. The only language men ever speak perfectly is the one they learn in babyhood, when no one teaches them anything.

Nothing is created or destroyed in nature.

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.

Imitation is the first instinct of the awakening mind.

Only through freedom and environmental experience is it practically possible for human development to occur.