Maria Montessori

“ Usually only those wounded at heart by the difficulty of being understood by others, or discouraged by the coldness or rudeness of other people, or oppressed by disillusion, or filled with a sense of painful loneliness or need of expansion in some other way, feel in music the voice which opens the doors of the heart and causes a health-giving flood of tears or raises the spirit to a lofty sense of peace. Only they can understand how necessary a companion for humanity music is. We know, of course, to-day that music is an indispensable stimulant for soldiers rushing forth to die. ”

“ The examination in written composition has always been the most painful of all; every one knows the expression of the child who hears the title of an obligatory theme dictated; and who in a few hours must hand in a written composition, a product of the imagination; it is with anguish, with oppression of the heart, with cold hands and eyes anxiously interrogating the clock in terror of the fleeting hour, under the distrustful surveillance of a teacher who for the occasion is transformed into a spy-warder like those in penal prisons, that he undergoes his torture to the end. ”

“ The man who loses sight of the really big aim of his work is like a child who has been placed in a class below his real standing: like a slave, he is cheated of something which is his right. His dignity as a man is reduced to the limits of the dignity of a machine which must be oiled if it is to be kept going, because it does not have within itself the impulse of life. All those petty things such as the desire for decorations or medals, are but artificial stimuli, lightening for the moment the dark, barren path in which he treads. ”

“ If one only of the senses sufficed to make of Helen Keller a woman of exceptional culture and a writer, who better than she proves the potency of that method of education which builds on the senses? If Helen Keller attained through exquisite natural gifts to an elevated conception viii of the world, who better than she proves that in the inmost self of man lies the spirit ready to reveal itself? ”

“ And this is the proud work of human intelligence which creates by aiding all the forces of nature and by triumphing over its environment; thus to-day it is the man of intelligence who is superior. But it seems as though a new epoch were in preparation, a truly human epoch, and as though the end had almost come of those evolutionary periods which sum up the history of the heroic struggles of humanity; an epoch in which an assured peace will promote the brotherhood of man, while morality and love will take their place as the highest form of human superiority. ”

“ The universal development of the wondrous language of the hand will come not from a "school of design" but from a "school of the new man" which will cause this language to spring forth spontaneously like water from an inexhaustible spring. To confer the gift of drawing we must create an eye that sees, a hand that obeys, a soul that feels; and in this task the whole life must cooperate. In this sense life itself is the only preparation for drawing. Once we have lived, the inner spark of vision does the rest. ”

“ Thus we get a clearer picture of the life of a child who diligently performs all his tasks with a dread of making mistakes which may become positive anguish; who learns all his lessons, thus of necessity depriving himself of a walk, a saunter, an hour of rest. Obsessed by anxiety to be the first, or even stimulated by illusions of a future more brilliant than that of his companions, exhilarated by the praises and prizes which make him believe himself to be "one of the hopes of his country," and the "solace of his parents," he rushes forward to future impotence, as if dazed by a fairy vision. ”

“ When the teacher shall have touched, in this way, soul for soul, each one of her pupils, awakening and inspiring the life within them as if she were an invisible spirit, she will then possess each soul, and a sign, a single word from her shall suffice; for each one will feel her in a living and vital way, will recognise her and will listen to her. There will come a day when the directress herself shall be filled with wonder to see that all the children obey her with gentleness and affection, not only ready, but intent, at a sign from her. ”

“ The railway has no limits of space, it overruns the world, unresting and unconscious, and by doing so promotes the brotherhood of men, of nations, of business interests. Let us suppose that we should choose to remain silent about the work performed by our railways and their social significance in the world to-day, and should teach our children only about the accidents, after the fashion of the newspapers, and keep their sensitive minds lingering in the presence of shattered and motionless heaps of carriages, amid the cries of anguish and the bleeding limbs of the victims. ”

“ Our object must be the creation not merely of higher and higher grades of understanding but also of higher and higher grades of feeling. In this sense, we can never do too much for the children. It is a task not beneath the dignity of the greatest composers, the most accomplished technicians. Indeed, any one of such might well esteem it a privilege some day to hear it said of his work that it aroused the first love for music in the hearts of one of these little ones. For thus music would have been made a companion, a consoler, a guardian angel of man! ”

“ This quality is really the exponent of the uninterrupted concord of the inner personality. Without it, a life would be a series of episodes, a chaos; it would be like a body disintegrated into its cells, rather than an organism which persists throughout the mutations of its own material. This fundamental quality, when it embraces the sentiment of the individual and the direction of his ideation, that is to say, his whole personality, is what we have called character. The man of character is the persistent man, the man who is faithful to his own word, his own convictions, his own affections. ”

“ Life is a superb goddess, always advancing, overthrowing the obstacles which environment places in the way of her triumph. This is the basic or fundamental truth,—whether it be a question of species or of individuals, there persists always the forward march of those victorious ones in whom this mysterious life-force is strong and vital.
It is evident that in the case of humanity, and especially in the case of our civil humanity, which we call society, the important and imperative question is that of the care, or perhaps we might say, the culture of human life. ”

“ But pedagogy, no less than the other branches of learning, has disdained to accept any contribution from anthropology; it has failed to see man as the mighty wrestler, at close grips with environment, man the toiler and transmuter, man the hero of creation. Of the history of human evolution, not a single ray sheds light upon the child and adolescent, the coming generation. The schools teach the history of wars—the history of disasters and crimes—which were painful necessities in the successive passages through civilisations created by the labour and slow perfectioning of humanity ”

“ Obviously, a wonderful harmony springs up between the teacher, who plays with enthusiastic feeling and with all possible skill of hand and abundance of spirit simply because she feels the musical phenomena around her in the children, and the pupils who, little by little, are transformed under this influence, and show an understanding of the music, which becomes for them something more and more intimate, more and more complete. It is no longer a question of the step, but of the position of the whole body: arms, heads, chests are moved by the music. ”

“ In all things the scientist is humble: from the external action of descending from his professional throne to work standing at a little table, from the taking off of his robes to don the workman's blouse, from having laid aside the dignity of one who states an authoritative and indisputable truth to assume the position of one who is seeking the truth together with his pupils, and inviting them to verify it, to the end not that they should learn a doctrine but that they should be spurred to activity by the truth—from all this, down to the tasks he carries out in his laboratory. ”

“ Itard divides the education of the savage into two parts. In the first, he endeavours to lead the child from natural life to social life; and in the second, he attempts the intellectual education of the idiot. The child in his life of frightful abandonment had found one happiness; he had, so to speak, immersed himself in, and unified himself with, nature, taking delight in it—rains, snow, tempests, boundless space, had been his sources of entertainment, his companions, his love. Civil life is a renunciation of all this: but it is an acquisition beneficent to human progress. ”

“ Well, even the capacity of normal reproduction, and of begetting a strong species, is related to the normal cycle of life: whoever weakens a child and puts a strain upon the threads of its existence, starts a vibration that will be felt throughout posterity.
The parabolic cycle of stature shows us which is the most favourable period for the reproduction of the species; it is undoubtedly that period that stands at the highest apex of the curve, and at which the organism has reached an almost absolute peace, as if forgetful of itself, in order to provide for its eternity. ”

“ Our entire life is a continual exercise of decisions. When we go out of the house after having locked the door, we have a clear consciousness of this act, a certainty that the house is well protected, and we decide to step out and walk away from it.
The stronger we are in such exercises, the more independent we shall be of others. Clarity of ideas, the mechanism of the habit of decision, give us a sense of liberty. The heaviest chain, which may bind us in a humiliating form of slavery, is an incapacity to make our own decisions, and the consequent need to refer to others ”

“ We, who know our own milieu, would say to those people, "Come into our countries and you will see the splendid civilisation we have established, you will see our wonderful achievements." These jugglers would admire us infinitely, hardly able to believe their eyes, as they observed our world, so full of beauty and activity, so well regulated, so peaceful, so kindly, but all so much slower than theirs. ”

“ In the gesture we have an individual form of linguistic expression. Consequently, man reveals himself, not alone through his creative part, the head, but also through its obedient servant, the hand. "The hand is gesture, gesture is visible speech, speech is the soul, the soul is man, the soul of man is in the hand."
Furthermore, we can judge from the hand whether a man is fitted for work or not; and it is to work that the hand owes its human importance. The first traces of mankind upon earth are not remains of skeletons, but remains of work—the splintered stone. ”

“ The old comparison of a child to a flower is the reality to which we now aspire; though even this is a privilege reserved for the more fortunate children. But let us beware of so grave an error. The babe is a man. That which suffices for a plant cannot be sufficient for him. Consider the depth of misery into which a paralyzed man has sunk when we say of him: "He merely vegetates; as a man, he is dead," and lament that there is nothing but his body left.
The infant as a man—such is the figure we ought to keep in view. ”

“ They are virtuous because they exercise patience in repeating their exercises, long-suffering in yielding to the commands and desires of others, good in rejoicing in the well-being of others without jealousy or rivalry; they live, doing good in joyousness of heart and in peace, and they are eminently, marvellously industrious. But they are not proud of such righteousness because they were not conscious of acquiring it as a moral superiority. They have set their feet in the path leading to righteousness, simply because it was the only way to attain true self-development and learning ”