Praise, help, or even a look, may be enough to interrupt him, or destroy the activity. It seems a strange thing to say, but this can happen even if the child merely becomes aware of being watched. After all, we too sometimes feel unable to go on working if someone comes to see what we are doing. The great principle which brings success to the teacher is this: as soon as concentration has begun, act as if the child does not exist. Naturally, one can see what he is doing with a quick glance, but without his being aware of it.

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.

We especially need imagination in science. It is not all mathematics, nor all logic, but it is somewhat beauty and poetry.

There are many things which no teacher can convey to a child of three, but a child of five can do it with ease.

The hands are the instruments of man’s intelligence.

How can we speak of Democracy or Freedom when from the very beginning of life we mould the child to undergo tyranny, to obey a dictator? How can we expect democracy when we have reared slaves? Real freedom begins at the beginning of life, not at the adult stage. These people who have been diminished in their powers, made short-sighted, devitalized by mental fatigue, whose bodies have become distorted, whose wills have been broken by elders who say: "your will must disappear and mine prevail!"-how can we expect them, when school-life is finished, to accept and use the rights of freedom?

Childhood constitutes the most important element in an adult's life, for it is in his early years that a man is made.