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When the child begins to think and to make use of the written language to express his rudimentary thinking, he is ready for elementary work; and this fitness is a question not of age or other incidental circumstance but of mental maturity.

Maria Montessori

Moral Education is the source of that spiritual equilibrium on which everything else depends and which may be compared to that physical equilibrium or sense of balance, without which it is impossible to stand upright or to move into any other position.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Compare Education Else Equilibrium Everything Moral Source Spend Spiritual
The acquisitions he has made are such that we can say the child who enters school at three is an old man.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Acquisition Hope Knowledge Line Little Made Such Transmission
Indeed there are powers in the small child that are far greater than is generally realized, because it is in this period that the construction, the building-up, of man takes place, for at birth, psychically speaking, there is nothing at all – zero!
MARIA MONTESSORI

Building Child Construction General Indeed Nothing Physically Power Realize Small Speak Work Zero
The hand is, in the highest degree, a human characteristic. It is man’s organ of grasp and of the sense of touch, while in animals these two functions are relegated to the mouth.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Characteristics Degree Hand Highest Human
With man, the life of the body depends on the life of the spirit.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Body Depend Life Man Spirit With
How can any one paint who cannot grade colors? How can any one write poetry who has not learnt to hear and see?
MARIA MONTESSORI

Color Grade Hear Learn Paint Poetry See Write
An unconscious mind can be full of intelligence. One will find this type of intelligence in every being, and every insect has it.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Being Every Full Insect Intelligence Mind Unconscious
The social relations which are the basis of the reproduction of the species are founded upon the continuous union of parents in marriage.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Basis Continous Marriage Ounded Parent Relation Reproduction Social Species Union Upon
We recommend for the training of teachers not only a considerable artistic education in general but special attention to the art of reading.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Art Artistic Attention Considerable Education Gemara Only Reason Recommended Space Teacher Training
The teacher, in short, can use reading to introduce her pupils to the most varied subjects; and the moment they have been thus started, they can go on to any limit guided by the single passion for reading.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Guide Passion Raed Short Single Start Subject Teacher Varied
The child’s mind is not the type of mind we adults possess. If we call our type of mind the conscious type, that of the child is an unconscious mind. Now an unconscious mind does not mean an inferior mind.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Adult Call Child Conscious Mind Out Posses Type
At three years of age, the child has already laid the foundations of the human personality and needs the special help of education in the school.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Age Already Child Education Foundation Help Human Lead Need Personality Special Three Year
It is better to treat an adolescent as if he had greater value than he actually shows than as if he had less and let him feel that his merits and self-respect are disregarded.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Actually Adolescent Disgreated Greater Less Respect Show Treat Value
The greatest development is achieved during the first years of life, and therefore it is then that the greatest care should be taken. If this is done, then the child does not become a burden; he will reveal himself as the greatest marvel of nature.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Achieve Care Development First Great Greatest Life Taken Year
We discovered that education is not something which the teacher does, but that it is a natural process which develops spontaneously in the human being.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Being Develop Discover Education Human Natural Process Something Spontaneous Teach
If an educational act is to be efficacious, it will be only that one which tends to help toward the complete unfolding of life. To be thus helpful it is necessary rigorously to avoid the arrest of spontaneous movements and the imposition of arbitrary tasks.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Act Complete Educational Efficacious Help Life One Toward Unfold
It is fortunate, I think, that nature is not bounded by human reason and by laboratory work and experimentation, for by the laws of pure reason and by microscopic investigation, it might easily have been proved, long before this, that children could not be born.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Born Bound Children Easily Experimentation Fortunate Human Investigation Laboratory Microscopic Nature Reson Think
No, the child is the builder of man. There is no man existing who has not been formed by the child he once was.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Builder Child Exist Formed Man Once
We await the successsive births in the soul of the child. We give all possible material, that nothing may lack to the groping soul, and then we watch for the perfect faculty to come, safeguarding the child from interruption so that it may carry its efforts through.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Await Birth Child Soul Successive We
The task of the educator lies in seeing that the child does not confound good with immobility and evil with activity.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Activity Child Confound Does Educator Evil Good Immobility See Task
We all know the sense of comfort of which we are conscious when a good half of the floor space in a room is unencumbered; this seems to offer us the agreeable possibility of moving about freely.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Aggressive Comfort Conscious Floor Freely Good Know Movement Sense Space Unencumbered
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.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Capacity Derive Desire Must Natural Observe Phenomena Techar
Through machinery, man can exert tremendous powers almost as fantastic as if he were the hero of a fairy tale. Through machinery, man can travel with an ever increasing velocity; he can fly through the air and go beneath the surface of the ocean.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Almost Case Exert Fairy Fantastic Hero Machinery Power Tale Through Tremendous
When you have solved the problem of controlling the attention of the child, you have solved the entire problem of its education.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Attention Child Control Education Entire Problem Solve
The respect and protection of woman and of maternity should be raised to the position of an inalienable social duty and should become one of the principles of human morality.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Duly Inalienable Maternity Position Protection Raise Respect Social Women
Joy, feeling one’s own value, being appreciated and loved by others, feeling useful and capable of production are all factors of enormous value for the human soul.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Appreciate Capable Enmourous Factor Feel Fewel Human Joy Love Other Production Soul Value
This is the age in which language and movement develop. The child must be safeguarded in order that these activities may develop freely.
MARIA MONTESSORI

Activity Age Child Develop Freely Language Movement Must Safeguard

When the child begins to think and to make use of the written language to express his rudimentary thinking, he is ready for elementary work; and this fitness is a question not of age or other incidental circumstance but of mental maturity.

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When the child begins to think and to make use of the written language to express his rudimentary thinking, he is ready for elementary work; and this fitness is a question not of age or other incidental circumstance but of mental maturity.

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Popular Authors

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