Children become like the things they love.

If we really want children to grow into independent and resourceful adults, we should stop pouring their milk as soon as they have learned to pour it themselves and stop fastening their buttons as soon as they can fasten them without help.

Education should therefore include the two forms of work, manual and intellectual, for the same person, and thus make it understood by practical experience that these two kinds complete each other and are equally essential to a civilized existence.

Little children, from the moment in which they are weaned, are making their way toward independence.

The children are now working as if I did not exist.

Plainly, the environment must be a living one, directed by a higher intelligence, arranged by an adult who is prepared for his mission.

It is necessary for the teacher to guide the child without letting him feel her presence too much, so that she may always be ready to supply the desired help, but may never be the obstacle between the child and his experience.