Montessori Quotations

Education for a New World (ABC – Clio, 1-85109-095-9)

The Development and Importance of Movement

1. “it is logical that if there are in this period of three to six natural aptitudes to easy
acquisition of culture, we should take advantage of them, and surround the child with
things to handle which in themselves convey steps in culture.” (p. 10)
2. “humanity has not had allotted to it a special kind of movement, or a special kind of
residence. Of all animals man is most capable of adapting himself to any climate,
tropical or arctic, desert or jungle; man alone is free to go wherever he likes. Man is
also capable of the most varied movements, and can do things with his hands which no
other animals has ever been able to do. There seem to be no limits in man’s behaviour;
he is free…in movements he can walk, run, jump and crawl; he is capable of articficial
movements in dancing, and can swim like a fish. In the child, however, none of these
abilities are present at birth; each has to be conquered by the human being during early
childhood. He who is born without power of movement, almost paralysed, can learn by
means of exercise to walk, run and climb like other animals, but it must be by his own
effort.” (p. 22)
3. “This being which is born powerless, motionless, must be endowed with a behaviour
that leads it towards movement. Those instincts which in other animals seem to
awaken at birth, as soon as the animal comes into contact with its environment, in man
must be built by the psychic embryo at the same time as it builds the faculties to which
the movements correspond. While this goes on, the physical part of the embryo is
finishing its development, the nerves becoming unified and the cranium ossified.” (p.
24-25)
4. “at the age of one year, the child begins to walk, thus freeing himself from a second
prison. By these successive steps, man becomes free but it is not as yet a matter of
will; independence is a gift of nature, leading him to freedom.” (p. 27)
5. “The conquest of walking is a very important one, highly complex, and yet made in
the first year of life, together with the other conquests of language and orientation.
Inferior animals walk as soon as they are born, but the construction of man is more
refined and needs more time. The power to stand on two legs and to walk erect
depends on the development of the part of the brain called the cerebellum, which
begins very rapid growth at six months, and continues to develop rapidly until the child
is fourteen or fifteen months old. In exact accordance with this growth the child sits up
at six months, starts to crawl at nine months, stands at ten and walks between twelve
and thirteen months, while at fifteen months he walks with security. A second factor in
this conquest of walking is the completion of certain spinal nerves, through which
messages from the cerebellum pass to the muscles; and yet a third is the completion of
the bony structure of the feet, and of the cranium, so that the brain may be protected
from injury in a fall.” (p. 27-28)
6. “Independence is revealed as not a static thing but a continuous conquest, the
acquisition by untiring work not only of freedom, but of strength and self-perfection. In
giving freedom and independence to the child, we free a worker who is impelled to act
and who cannot live except by his activity.” (p. 29)
7. “If we have a brain, senses and organs of movement, these must function, and if
every part is not exercised, we cannot even be sure of understanding them. Movement

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is the last part that completes the cycle of thought, and spiritual uplift is attained through
action or work…By considering physical life on the one side and mental on the other we
break the cycle of relation, and the actions of man remain generally separated from the
brain. Man’s actions are directed to aid eating and breathing, whereas movement
should be the servant of the whole life, and of the spiritual economy of the world.” (p.
38-39)
8. “It is logical that movement should be a higher expression of the psyche, for those
muscles which depend on the brain are called voluntary muscles, being moved by the
will of the individual, and will is that primal energy without which psychic life cannot
exist." (p. 39)
9. “A human characteristic is that he can do all movements, and extend them further
than any animal, making some of them his own. He has universal skill in action, but
only on one condition, that he first make himself, creating by will at first subconsciously,
and then voluntarily repeating the exercises for coordination.” (p. 40)
10. “It is characteristic of man to think and to act with his hands.” (p. 41)
11. “Movement is the conclusion and purpose of the nervous system; without it there
can be no individual. The nervous system, along with brain, senses, nerves and
muscles, puts man into relationship with the world.” (p. 38)
12. “Without movement there is no progress and no mental health” (p. 39)

The Newborn
1. “The greatness of human personality begins at birth, an affirmation full of practical
reality, however strikingly mystic.” (p. 1)
2. “psychologists who have observed small children from their first year have
announced the discovery that it is in this period that the construction, the building up, of
man takes place. Psychically speaking, at birth there is nothing at all – zero! Indeed,
not only psychically, for at birth the child is almost paralytic, unable to do anything; and
behold him after a while, talking, walking, passing from conquest to conquest until he
has built up Man in all his greatness, in all his intelligence!” (p. 11)
3. “the new-born babe is a psychic embryo, so that at birth all children are alike, and
need the same treatment or education during the stage of embryonic growth, of mental
incarnation. No matter what type of man may result from the work of the child…each
must pass through these phases of incarnation. Accordingly education in the first years
of life must be alike for all, and must be dictated by nature herself, who has infused
certain needs into the growing being.” (p. 19)
4. “The new-born child is far from full development; even physically he is incomplete.
The feet destined to walk the earth, and perhaps invade the whole world, are yet without
bones, cartilaginous; the cranium, that encloses the brain and should be its strong
defence, has only a few of its bones developed. More important still, the nerves are not
completed, so that there is a lack of central direction and of unification between the
organs, and therefore no movement…In fact the child must be considered as
possessing an embryonic life that extends before and after birth.” (p. 24)
5. “the first period of life has been fixed for the storing of impressions from the
environment, and is therefore the period of the greatest psychic activity; it is the activity
of absorbing everything that there is in the environment. In the second year the
physical being nears completion, and movement begins to become determined.

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Formerly it was thought that the small child had no psychic life, whereas now we realize
that the only part of him which is active during the first year is the brain! The chief
characteristic of the human babe is intelligence.” (p. 25)
6. “At birth he frees himself from a prison, the mother’s body, and achieves
independence of the functions of the mother; he is endowed with the urge to face and
conquer the environment, but for this the environment must be attractive to him. What
he feels may not inappropriately be called a love for his environment. The first organs
which begin to function are the sensory organs, and the normal child takes in
everything, not yet distinguishing sound from sound, object from object; first it takes the
world, and then analyses it.” (p. 27)
7. “The baby should remain as much as possible with the mother directly after birth,
and the environment must not present obstacles to his adaptation; such obstacles are
change of temperature from that to which he has been accustomed before birth, too
much light and too much noise, for he has come from a place of perfect silence and
darkness. The child must be carefully handled and moved, not lowered suddenly to be
plunged into a bath, and rapidly and roughly dressed – roughly in the sense that any
handling of a new-born child is rough because he is so exquisitely delicate, psychically
as well as physically. It is best of all if the newborn child is not dressed, but rather kept
in a room sufficiently heated and free from draughts, and carried on a soft mattress, so
that he remains in a position similar to the prenatal one.” (p. 29)
8. “Besides hygienic care and protection, the mother and child should be looked on as
two organs of one body, still vitally connected by animal magnetism; they need
seclusion for some time and very careful consideration in every way. Relatives and
friends should not kiss and fondle the infant, nor nurses remove him from his mother’s
side.” (p. 30)
9. “Only the child under three can construct the mechanism of language, and he can
speak any number of languages, if they are in his environment at birth. He begins this
work in the darkness of the subconscious mind, and here it develops and fixes itself
permanently. Changes take place in the depths not readily accessible to adult
observation; but some external manifestations may be seen and checked, and these
are significant and clear, common to all humanity.” (p. 32)
10. “Observations patiently carried out and accurately recorded day by day after birth
have established certain facts which are like milestones. There is a mysterious inner
development which is very great, while the corresponding outer sign of it is very little,
showing great disproportion between the inner activity and its manifestations. Progress
is found to be not regular and graphically linear, but in jerks.” (p. 32-3)
11. “those muscles which depend on the brain are called voluntary muscles…if one
muscle functions in a particular direction, another always functions in the opposite
direction, and the refinement of movement depends on this opposition…In man this
mechanism is not there at birth, so has to be created, and this is done by practical
experiments on the environment. It is not so much exercise of movement, but of co-
ordination. The co-ordination is not fixed for the human child, but has to be created and
perfected through the psyche.” (p. 39-40)

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The Absorbent Mind (Henry Holt and Company, 0-8050-4156-7)

The Development and Importance of Movement

1. “All movement thus has a most intricate and delicate machinery. But in man none of
it is established at birth. It has to be formed and perfected by the child’s activity in the
world.” (p. 143)
2. “it is a question of the child co-ordinating those movements which play a necessary
part in his mental life, so as to enrich the practical and executive sides of it. Without this
companionship of movement, the brain develops on its own account, as if estranged
from the results of its work. Movements not directed by the mind occur haphazardly,
and do harm. But movement is so essential to the life of any individual in touch with his
surroundings and forming relationships with other people, that it must be developed on
this plane. Its place is to serve the whole man and his life in relation to the outside
world.” (p. 145)
3. “we have found it reasonable to suppose that the child, at birth, bears within him
constructive possibilities, which must unfold by activity in his environment. He comes
from nothing, in the sense that he has no psychic qualities, nor pre-established powers
of movement, but he has in himself potentialities which determine his development, and
this will take its characteristics from the world around him.” (p. 57)
4. “it is only by movement that the personality can express itself” (p. 136)
5. “mental development must be connected with movement and be dependent on it…
Both mental and spiritual growth are fostered by this, without which neither maximum
progress nor maximum health (speaking of the mind) can exist.” (p. 141-2)
6. “Watching a child makes it obvious that the development of his mind comes about
through his movements. In the development of speech, for example, we see a growing
use of those muscles by which he forms sounds and words. Observations made on
children the world over confirm that the child uses his movements to extend his
understanding. Movement helps the development of mind, and this finds renewed
expression in further movement and activity. It follows that we are dealing with a cycle,
because mind and movement are parts of the same entity. The senses also take part,
and the child who has less opportunity for sensorial activity remains at a lower mental
level.” (p. 142)
7. “The child has an internal power to bring about co-ordinations, which he thus creates
himself, and once these have begun to exist he goes on perfecting them by practice.
He himself is clearly one of the principal creative factors in their production.” (p. 143-4)
8. “Everyone, whatever he may want to do, has such a wide range of muscular powers
that he can choose and set himself a course. His mind can propose and direct his
development. Nothing is preordained but everything is possible.” (p. 144)
9. “Work is inseparable from movement. The life of man, and of the great human
society, is bound up with movement.” (p. 146)
10. “The hand is in direct connection with man’s soul, and not only with the individual’s
soul, but also with the different ways of life that men have adopted on the earth in
different places and at different times. The skill of man’s hand is bound up with the
development of his mind…The hands of man express his thought.” (p. 150)
11. “The child’s intelligence can develop to a certain level without the help of his hand.
But if it develops with his hand, then the level it reaches is higher, and the child’s

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character is stronger.” (p. 152)

12. “we must not carry the child about, but let him walk, and if his hand wishes to work
we must provide him with things on which he can exercise an intelligent activity. His
own actions are what take the little one along the road to independence.” (p. 155)

The Newborn
1. “Infancy is a period of true importance, because, when we want to infuse new ideas,
to modify or better the habits and customs of a people, to breathe new vigor into its
national traits, we must use the child as our vehicle; for little can be accomplished with
adults. If we really aspire to better things, at spreading the light of civilization more
widely in a given populace, it is to the children we must turn to achieve these ends.” (p.
66)
2. “The immense influence that education can exert through children, has the
environment for its instrument, for the child absorbs his environment, takes everything
from it, and incarnates it in himself. With his unlimited possibilities, he can well be the
transformer of humanity, just as he is its creator. The child brings us a great hope and a
new vision.” (p. 66)
3. “the child, from birth, must be regarded as a being possessed of an important mental
life, and we must treat him accordingly.” (p. 66-67)
4. “If what we have to do is to help man’s mental life, then the first lesson we must learn
is that the tiny child’s absorbent mind finds all its nutriment in its surroundings. Here it
has to locate itself, and build itself up from what it takes in. Especially at the beginning
of life must we, therefore, make the environment as interesting and attractive as we
can.” (p. 97)
5. “man has no behavior foreordained at birth, and that for a child the question is not
one of mental awakening, but of mental creation, we see at once how much greater is
the role which environment must play in his life. Its value and importance are
magnified gigantically, just as are the dangers it may contain. Hence the care we must
take of all the conditions surrounding the newborn babe, so that he will not be repelled
and develop regressive tendencies, but feel attracted to the new world into which he
has come. This will aid his great task of absorption, on which his progress, growth and
development all depend.” (p. 98)
6. [just after birth] “mother and child are treated as if they were organs of the same
body communicating with one another. The child’s adaptation to the world is thus
favored on natural lines, because there is a special bond uniting mother and child,
almost like a magnetic attraction. The mother radiated invisible forces to which the child
is accustomed, and they are a help to him in the difficult days of adjustment. We may
say that the child has merely changed his position in regard to her: he is now outside
her body instead of inside. But everything else remains the same and the communion
between them still exists.” (p. 99)
7. “the child adapts himself serenely to his surroundings without reluctance. He sets
out on the path of independence we have described, and opens his arms to the
environment. He absorbs and makes his own the customs of the world around him.
The first of his activities on this path, which may well be called a conquest, is the use of
his senses. Because his bony tissues are incomplete, he lies inert and his limbs are
motionless. So his life cannot be one of movement. His mind alone is active, absorbing

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the impressions of his senses.” (p. 100)

8. “To care for, and keep awake, the guide within every child is therefore a matter of the
first importance. The comparison we have already made helps us to understand this
power the child has of absorbing from his surroundings. There are some insects which
look like leaves and other which look like stalks. They pass their lives on leaves and
stalks, which they resemble so perfectly as to seem completely one with them.
Something like this happens in the child. He absorbs the life going on about him and
becomes one with it, just as these insects become one with the vegetation on which
they live. The child’s impressions are so profound that a biological or psychochemical
change takes place, by which his mind ends by resembling the environment itself.
Children become like the things they love. In every type of life it has been discovered
that this power exists, of absorbing the environment and coming to resemble it.” (p. 101)
9. “How can we be the judge of what will interest the little child? We must put
ourselves at his disposal. All past ideas are thus reversed, and the knowledge of this
revolution must be spread among adults. It is necessary for us all to become convinced
that the child constructs in himself a vital adaptation to his environment, and that he
must therefore have full and complete contact with it. For if the child fails in this, we
shall find ourselves faced by very grave social problems. How many social questions of
today are not known to arise from the individual’s failure to adapt himself, either in the
moral field or in others? It is a basic problem, and this brings us to see how the science
of child care must ultimately become the most permanent and deeply felt concern of
every civilized society.” (p. 104)
10. “the mother has to feed her child, and therefore she cannot leave him at home
when she goes out. To this need for food is added their mutual fondness and love. In
this way, the child’s need for nutrition, and the love that unites these two beings, both
combine in solving the problem of the child’s adaptation to the world, and this happens
in the most natural way possible. Mother and child are one.” (p. 105)
11. “No one can predict what a given baby will do in the world. But without mutual
comprehension with others, it is pretty clear that he would not be able to do very much!”
(p. 108)

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The Child in the Family (Kalakshetra Press, 71-105115)

The Development and Importance of Movement

1. “Because the adult suffocates the child’s natural impulse to act, he impedes the
child’s ability to live, to do anything useful, to exert great energy; in a word, he becomes
an obstacle in the way of the child’s natural developing according to his own natural
laws. As a consequence, the child travels the wrong road and he turns to a thousand
useless objects, toys, and such frivolities, which serve no purpose whatsoever. A
paralyzed unconscious has reduced his being, which should be capable of surmounting
every obstacle, to decay in resigned inertia and sloth.” (p. 84)
2. “Physical movement ought to come from within and be organized by the inner life of
the child…Muscles do not develop correctly unless they do so at the service of the will,
for physical movement is the expression of an operative will.” (p. 35)
3. “The delight that children find in working impels them to attack everything with an
enthusiasm that is almost excessive.” (p. 49)
4. “there exists a strict relationship between manual labor and deep concentration of
the spirit. At first glance these might appear to be opposed, but they are profoundly
compatible, for the one is the source of the other. The life of the spirit prepares the
dynamic power for daily life, and, on its side, daily life encourages thought by means of
ordinary work. The physical energy expended is continually renewed through the spirit.”
(p. 52-3)
5. “A single instance will form the discipline of a child, and self-disciplined children are
on the way to a natural psychic development. Children who reach this stage become
very work oriented, so much so that they do not know how to be without something to
do, and they will not even remain idle when they are waiting for someone; they are
thoroughly disposed to activity.” (p. 64)
6. “How much has the child developed who has exercised to a degree the essential
function of his spirit (concentration) in peace and freedom! All the rest comes as a
consequence – he has acquired the mastery of his body, he can move as he wills and
he knows how to watch himself. We can see he has arrived at this mastery by the fact
that he is capable of being perfectly quiet.” (p. 66)
7. “Children do not move in a very orderly fashion and they do not know how to control
their movements very well; in contrast to ours, their muscles produce disordered
movement precisely because they have not yet learned physical order and economy. In
the ‘house of the child’ every abrupt motion reveals itself by the noise of the chair and
the table, and finally the child becomes aware of his body.” (p. 71)
8. “in a house that is truly his, a child tends to be as well behaved as possible and
seeks to control his movements; in this fashion, he starts on the road to perfection
without external prodding…we must do everything to help him perfect himself. In other
words, we must exercise him in the things he must do, for exercise gives rise to
development.” (p. 72)
9. “When we watch a child in an environment that is his and that evokes response in
him, we see that he works by himself toward his own self-perfection. The right way is
not only indicated by the objects he picks up, but by the possibility of his recognizing his
own errors by means of these objects…Now we must learn to take ourselves in hand
and watch from the sidelines, following him at a distance, neither tiring him with our

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intervention nor abandoning him.” (p. 74)

10. “the rules for spiritual hygiene extend into a larger realm and are yet to be
understood. The child not only feels the need for food. His joy at achieving certain
given movements with which no one interferes is for us a sign of his vast inner
necessities. Instead of inhibiting his activity, we must create the means for him to
develop it.” (p. 86)
11. “respect all the reasonable forms of activity in which the child engages and…try to
understand them.” (p. 88)
12. “We must support as much as possible the child’s desires for activity; not wait on
him, but educate him to be independent.” (p. 92)
13. “walking and speaking are rather difficult accomplishments. It requires a great
effort before the child succeeds in keeping that tiny body with the oversized head in
balance and in standing up on those short, little legs.” (p. 93)

The Newborn
1. “experience has revealed a terrible truth to us: we carry the wrongs of early infancy
with us for the rest of our lives.” (p. 14)
2. “We must come to a full understanding of the state of being of the newborn child.
Only then will the absolute necessity of rendering easy his initiation into life become
evident. The newborn child must become the object of knowledgeable care. Even
holding him requires the utmost gentleness, and he should not be moved except with
great tenderness. We must understand that in the first moment, and even in the first
month, the child should be kept very quiet. The infant ought to be left naked, warmed
only by the air in the room itself, not clothed or wrapped in blankets, for he has little
body heat with which to resist temperature change and clothing is of little help.” (p. 17)
3. “The newborn child should be seen as a ‘spiritual embryo’ – a spirit enclosed in flesh
in order to come into the world. Science, on the other hand, assumes that the new
being comes with nothing. He is flesh but not spirit, for all that can be verified is the
growth of tissues and organs that ultimately form a living whole. But this too is a
mystery; is it possible that a complex, living body comes out of nothing?” (p. 22)
4. “growth is essentially a mysterious process in which a form of energy animates the
inert body of the newborn child and gives to it the use of its limbs, the faculty of speech,
the power to act and to express its own will: thus is man incarnate.” (p. 22-23)
5. “The process by which the human personality is formed is the hidden work of
incarnation. The helpless infant is an enigma. The only thing we know about him is that
he could be anything, but nobody knows what he will be or what he will do. His helpless
body contains the most complex mechanism of any living creature, but it is distinctly his
own. Man belongs to himself, and his special will furthers the work of incarnation.” (p.
24-25)
6. “a hidden, imprisoned spirit is born and grows, animating little by little the passive
flesh, calling forth the voice of the will, coming into the light of consciousness with the
force of a living creature being born into the world. But in the new environment another
being of enormous power awaits it and ultimately dominates it. In the new environment
there is no awareness or acceptance of the fact of the human incarnation. No
protection is provided for the fragile newcomer, nor is any aid offered him in his difficult
undertaking. Everything becomes an obstacle. The child thus incarnate is a spiritual

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embryo which must come to live for itself in the environment. But like the physical
embryo, the spiritual embryo must be protected by an external environment animated by
the warmth of love and the richness of value, where it is wholly accepted and never
inhibited.” (p. 27)
7. “An error is much more deleterious when it affects an individual in the process of his
development than when it is committed upon someone who has already completed his
inner development. In this sense, anything that inhibits the growth of the child is
particularly grave because it can influence the entire construct of the personality that
must ultimately emerge.” (p. 35)
8. “The small child, and also one who is a few years old, is defined by educators as a
cera molle (‘soft wax’), which can be shaped in the appropriate way. Now the concept
inherent in the definition of cera molle is correct: the error lies in the fact that the
educator believes that he must shape the child. On the contrary, the child must shape
himself.” (p. 36)
9. “the child, like all human beings, has a personality of his own. He carries within
himself the beauty and dignity of a creativity that can never be erased and for which his
spirit, pure and sensitive, exacts from us a most delicate kind of care.” (p. 44)
10. “today doctors are beginning to understand that the immediate causes of many
emotional maladies is repression during infancy. Often during infancy there appear
such dangerous symptoms as insomnia, nightmares, digestive disturbances, and
stammering, and all these have a single cause.” (p. 85)
11. “The child is not merely a little animal to feed, but from the time of his birth, a
creature with a spirit. If we must look after his welfare, then it is not enough to content
ourselves with his physical needs: we must open the way for his spiritual development.
We must, from the very first day, respect the impulses of his spirit and know how to
support them.” (p. 86)

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The Discovery of the Child (ABC – Clio, 1-85109-086-X)

The Development and Importance of Movement

1. “It is imperative that a school allow a child’s activities to freely develop.” (p. 11)
2. “The concept of liberty which should inspire teaching is, on the other hand, universal:
it is the liberation of a life repressed by an infinite number of obstacles which oppose its
harmonious development, both physical and spiritual. This is a matter of the utmost
importance, although up until now it has escaped the notice of most men!” (p. 11-12)
3. “There is only one basis for observation: the children must be free to express
themselves and thus reveal those needs and attitudes which would otherwise remain
hidden or repressed in an environment that did not permit them to act spontaneously.”
(p. 48)
4. [the child] “can make himself comfortable rather than sit in his place, and this is at
once an indication of his inner freedom and a further means of education. If a child’s
awkward movements make a chair fall over with a crash, he has an obvious proof of his
own incapacity…A child thus has a means of correcting himself, and when he has done
so he has proof positive of it: the chairs and tables remain silent and unmoved where
they are. When this happens one can say that a child has learned how to move about.”
(p. 50)
5. “We cannot know the consequences of suppressing a child’s spontaneity when he is
just beginning to be active. We may even suffocate life itself…Education cannot be
effective unless it helps a child to open up himself to life. In order to achieve this it is
essential that a child’s spontaneous movements should not be checked or that he be
compelled to act according to the will of another. But he should not, of course, be
allowed to indulge in useless or harmful activities. These must be checked and
repressed.” (p. 52)
6. “The training and sharpening of the senses has the obvious advantage of enlarging
the field of perception and of offering an ever more solid foundation for intellectual
growth. The intellect builds up its store of practical ideas through contact with, and
exploration of, its environment. Without such concepts the intellect would lack precision
and inspiration in its abstract operations. It is true that there are only certain
professions that require great precision in the use of the various senses. Nevertheless,
if they can be trained and refined, even if this is only a temporary achievement in the
lives of many, this will be of great value since it is at this period of development that
basic ideas are conceived and intellectual habits are formed.” (p. 101-102)
7. “Let the children be free; encourage them; let them run outside when it is raining; let
them remove their shoes when they find a puddle of water; and, when the grass of the
meadows is damp with dew, let them run on it and trample it with their bare feet; let
them rest peacefully when a tree invites them to sleep beneath its shade; let them shout
and laugh when the sun wakes them in the morning as it wakes every living creature
that divides its day between waking and sleeping.” (p. 71)
8. “By a habit of work a child learns how to move his hands and arms and to strengthen
his muscles more than he does through ordinary gymnastic exercises.” (p. 83)
9. “When children experience pleasure not only from an activity leading towards a
special goal but also in carrying it out exactly in all its details, they open up a whole new
area of education for themselves. In other words, preference should be given to an

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education of movement: practical activities are simply an external incentive to the

educational process, they provide a motive and urge the child on to organize his
movements.” (p. 86)
10. “An analysis and economy of movement are bound together: to carry out no
superfluous movements in the attainment of a goal is, in brief, the highest degree of
perfection.” (p. 89)
11. “there is an age when movements possess a fascinating interest, when muscles
and nerves respond to exercise, and when a person acquires those habits which will
mark him in future life as a cultured or uncultured individual. And this is the period of
childhood.” (p. 90)
12. “A child who has become master of his acts through long and repeated exercises,
and who has been encouraged by the pleasant and interesting activities in which he has
been engaged, is a child filled with health and joy and remarkable for his calmness and
discipline.” (p. 93)
13. “The education of the hand is particularly important since the hand is an organ of the
mind, the means which the human intelligence uses to express itself.” (p. 284)
14. “The movements which he must perfect are those which become a man. A child
must acquire the customs prevailing in his environment. This is why he must have an
opportunity to exercise himself in them. It is not enough that he sees what others do.”
(p. 305)

The Newborn
1. “A child is by his nature an avid explorer of his surroundings because he has not yet
had the time or means of knowing them precisely.” (p. 104)
2. “Nothing in nature is sweeter than the silent breathing of the newly born…even
children feel the poetry of the silence of a tranquil, newborn human life.” (p. 143)
3. “It is the spiritual part of that fatal intervention of an adult who wants to substitute
herself for a child and to act for him, and who, in so doing, erects the most serious
obstacle to his development. The beauties which a child discovers on his own in the
world about him could bring him frequent joy and satisfaction, but instead, because of
this teaching by an adult they become a source of tedium and mental inertia.” (p. 168)
4. “We should expect normal children to spontaneously investigate their external
surroundings, or, as I say, ‘willingly explore their environment.’ When they are so
disposed, children experience a new happiness at every discovery they make.” (p. 169)
5. “A child has the natural inclination to explore his environment however great it may
be, just as he has a similar tendency to listen to speech.” (p. 177)
6. “In early infancy the hand assists the intelligence to develop, and in a mature man it
is the instrument which controls his destiny on earth.” (p. 285)
7. “Children, thus, it may be said, live in the Church from their earliest infancy and
acquire almost imperceptibly a knowledge of religious things that is truly remarkable
considering their tender age.” (p. 298)
8. “If physical care enables a child to enjoy the pleasures of a healthy body, intellectual
and moral care introduces him to the higher pleasures of the spirit and urges him on to
new insights and discoveries both in his external environment and in the intimacy of his
own soul. These are the joys which prepare a man for life and which are the only ones
that are really suitable for the education of children.” (p. 320)

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9. “The secret of all nature is to be found in the soul of a child.” (p. 321)
10. “it is certain that the things acquired in the absorbent period are those which remain
fixed, not in the memory, but in the living organism, becoming as they do the guide for
the formation of the mind and character of the individual. Consequently, if a child is to
be educated at this age, this must be done by the environment and not through oral
instruction. The culture absorbed by a child kindles within him a blaze of enthusiasm.
He is as it were suddenly on fire and moves on to further growth and other victories.
This is the age when a man works without becoming tired and when he draws food for
his life from his knowledge” (p. 325)

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The Formation of Man (ABC – Clio, 1-85109-097-5)

The Development and Importance of Movement

1. “Those feelings which could be called ‘bad’ do not therefore appear. The
naughtiness of small children is a manifestation of defence or of unconscious despair at
not being able to ‘function’ during that period on which the whole future depends and
every hour of which brings its progress. Naughtiness can also be a form of agitation
caused by mental hunger when the child is deprived of the stimuli of the environment or
by a sense of frustration experienced when he is prevented from acting in the
environment. The ‘unconscious aim’ then moving ever farther from its realization
creates a kind of hell in the life of the child who becomes separated from a leading
source and its creative energies.” (p. 35)
2. “Children left free in their prepared environment…revealed original techniques which
we could not have suspected. The child really learns only when he can exercise his
own energies according to the mental procedure of nature, and this sometimes works
very differently from what is ordinarily supposed…The precocious and extensive cultural
progress revealed by our children which called forth such admiration but also such
opposition based on misunderstanding, and a lack of understanding, rests on a principle
referring to the psychology of the child. This is, that the child learns by his own activity,
taking culture from the environment and not from the teacher, and further, as can now
be satisfactorily proved, by putting into action also the powers of the subconscious
which remain free to absorb and express according to the natural processes of the
absorbent mind.” (p. 38-39)
3. “it is assumed in the physical order that the child cannot control his movements and
is incapable of taking care of himself, and so the adult hurries to do everything for him
without bothering to consider that the child can very well manage alone. The child is
then said to be a heavy burden and a great responsibility as he requires this constant
care. The attitude of the adult to the child is that he must ‘create’ in him a grown-up
man and that the intelligence, the socially useful activity, the character of this human
being, who has entered his home, are all his work.” (p. 46)
4. “The personality of the child has remained buried under the prejudices of order and
justice…The small child…should not be let to do any form of work. He must be
abandoned to a life of intellectual inertia. He should only play in a certain well-
established way. If, therefore, one day it is discovered that the child is a great worker,
who can apply himself to his work with concentration, who can learn by himself, teach
himself and who possesses discipline within himself, this seems to be like a fairy tale. It
does not evoke surprise, it just appears utterly absurd. No attention is paid to this
reality, and hence no conclusion is reached to the effect that in this apparent
contradiction may be hidden an error on the part of the adult. It is simply impossible, it
cannot exist – or as it is said, it is not serious. The greatest difficulty in the way of an
attempt to give freedom to the child and to bring its powers to light does not lie in finding
a form of education which realizes these aims. It lies rather in overcoming the
prejudices which the adult has formed in his regard.” (p. 48)
5. “Only since the first decade of our century has the child begun to be studied. All
those who have studied him have reached the conclusion that the first two years of life
are the most important because during that period the fundamental features of

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development which characterize the human personality are established. Whilst the
newly-born possesses nothing – not even the power of voluntary movement – the child
of two talks, runs, understands and recognizes things in the environment.” (p. 66)
6. “Man is not a vegetating body which lives only on material nourishment, nor is he
destined to sensual emotions alone. Man is that superior being who is endowed with
intelligence, and is destined to do a great task on earth. He must transform it, conquer
it, utilize it and construct a new world full of marvels which surpasses and overrules the
wonders of nature. It is man who creates civilization. This work is unlimited and it is the
aim of his physical limbs. From his first appearance on earth, man has been a worker.”
(p. 69)
7. “Only a few people, so far, have discovered that the evident psychic abnormalities of
modern childhood, which reveal themselves from the first years of life, are due to two
things: ‘mental malnutrition’ and ‘a lack of intelligent and spontaneous activity’. (p. 70)
8. “The hand is a kind of living machine, the movements of which have to be prepared
so that they may render service to the intelligence.” (p. 90)
9. “The hand is an external organ the movements of which can be influenced directly by
education.” (p. 91)
10. “Culture…has to be taken in through activity with the help of apparatus which
permits the child to acquire culture by himself, urged onwards by the nature of his mind
which seeks and is guided by the laws of his development. These laws prove that
culture is absorbed by the child through individual experience, by the repetition of
interesting exercises which always require the contribution of the activity of the hand,
the organ which co-operates with the development of the intelligence.” (p. 99)

The Newborn
1. “Man appearing in this world in the form of a child develops rapidly by a veritable
miracle of creation. The new-born possesses neither the language nor any other
characteristics which reflect the customs of his kind. He has neither intelligence,
memory nor will, not even the power of moving about or keeping himself upright. Yet,
this new-born realizes a real psychic creation. At two years of age he speaks, walks,
recognizes people and objects in his environment, and at five, he acquires sufficient
psychic development to be admitted to a school and start his formal education.” (p. 7)
2. “the life of childhood was not and is not democratic and … its human dignity is not
respected. From the most ancient times a barrier has been raised in the heart even
more than in the mind of the adult. The inner powers of the child have never been
realized, neither from the intellectual nor from the moral point of view.” (p. 30)
3. “Our social mentality has not grasped the idea that we can receive help from the
child, that the child can give us a light and a lesson, a new vision and a solution for
inextricable problems. Even psychologists do not see in him an open door through
which they may enter the subconscious. They still try to discover and decipher it
through the ills of the adult only.” (p. 31)
4. “no young of a mammal is born as inert, as incapable of actualizing the
characteristics of the adults, of its species, as is the newly-born human being…The
human child, instead, is inert for a long time. He does not speak, whereas all other
young creatures at once begin to chirp or bark or reproduce the sound peculiar to their
species…The long inertia and incapacity of the child belong truly to the human species

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alone.” (p. 55)

5. “if the newly-born child of man is so evidently and greatly inferior to that of the
mammals, he must have a special function which the others do not share…This
character cannot be recognized by observing the adult human being, but it is clearly
seen by observing the child. Something new occurred during the evolutionary process
which led to the development of man.” (p. 56)
6. “The child must have a special function besides being merely smaller and weaker
than the adult. He does not possess ‘by birth’ all the attributes which are destined to
increase and grow within him as a means to attain adulthood. Actually, if he already
possessed such fixed features, as happens in other species, man could never adapt
himself to such different places and habits, nor evolve in his social manners, nor take up
such different forms of work.” (p. 57)
7. “Man does not ‘speak a language’ merely because he grows…Language is
developed gradually, precisely during that epoch of inertia and unconsciousness of
early infancy. At two years or two years and three months, the child speaks distinctly
and reproduces precisely the language spoken in the environment. He does not by
heredity reproduce the language of his father and mother. In fact, if a child is taken
from his parents and people and reared in another country where another language is
spoken he will reproduce the language of the place where he lives.” (p. 57-58)
8. “Children absorb language, unconsciously of course, in a grammatical way. Whilst
they remain apparently inert for a long time, all of a sudden, within about two years and
three months, they reveal a phenomenon – the explosion of a language already wholly
formed. There was, therefore, an inner development during the long period when the
baby was unable to express himself. He was actually elaborating in the mysterious
recesses of his unconscious mind a whole language with the grammatical order of
words necessary to express thought. This children achieve with regard to all possible
languages.” (p. 58)
9. “Could we not call the child, who in appearance only is psychically inert, an embryo,
in whom the psychical powers and organs of man are being developed? He is an
embryo in whom exists nothing by nebulae which have the power to develop
spontaneously certainly, but only at the expense of the environment – an environment
rich in greatly different forms of civilization. That is why the human embryo must be
born before completing itself and why it can reach further development only after birth.
Its potentialities, in fact, must be stimulated by the environment.” (p. 60)
10. “There exists in the small child an unconscious mental state which is of a creative
nature. We have called it the ‘Absorbent Mind.’ This absorbent mind does not
construct with a voluntary effort, but according to the lead of ‘inner sensitivities’ which
we call ‘sensitive periods’ as the sensitivity lasts only for a definite period, i.e. until the
acquisition to be made according to natural development has been achieved.” (p. 61)
11. “It is clear that there must be a secret fact in the psychic ‘creation’ of man. If we
learn everything through attention, volition and intelligence, how then can the child
undertake his great construction as he is not yet endowed with intelligence, will-power
or attention? It is evident that in him there acts a mind totally different from ours and
that, therefore, a psychic functioning different from that of the conscious mind can exist
in the unconscious.” (p. 61)
12. “ The child really builds up something. He reproduces in himself, as by a form of

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psychic mimesis, the characteristics of the people in his environment. Thus while
growing up, he does not merely become a man – he becomes a man of his race.” (p.
64)
13. “If the child, from birth onwards, has to create his personality at the expense of his
environment, he must be brought into contact with the world, with the outward life of
man. He ought to take part in, or better still, he out to be in touch with the life of adults.
If the child has to incarnate the language of his people he ought to hear them talk and
be present at their conversation. If he is to adapt himself to the environment he ought to
take part in public life and be a witness of the customs which characterize his race.” (p.
67)

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The Secret of Childhood (Ballantine Books, 0-345-30583-3)

The Development and Importance of Movement

1. “childhood sufferings of a purely psychic order are slow and persistent, and they
have never been recognized as potential causes of psychic illness in adults. They
sprang from the repressions of a child’s spontaneous activity by a dominating adult.” (p.
10)
2. “That which is commonly called ‘flesh’ is a complex of ‘voluntary muscles,’ which, as
their name would indicate, are moved by the will. Without these muscles, so intimately
connected with man’s psychic life, the will could do nothing.” (p. 32)
3. “The child’s psychic life is independent of, precedes, and vitalizes every exterior
activity.” (p. 32)
4. “It is a mistake to believe that a child is muscularly weak simply because it cannot
stand or that it is naturally incapable of coordinating its movements. A newborn baby
shows the strength of its muscles in the way it moves its limbs. Sucking and swallowing
are complex operations involving a great deal of coordination of the muscles, and yet
infants at birth, like other animals, can perform these actions. But in his other
movements a child is left free by nature from the exacting demands of instincts. In the
case of the child these are not predominant. The muscles, as they grow strong, await a
command of the will to coordinate them... Making use of his own will in his contact with
his environment, he develops his various faculties and thus becomes in a sense his own
creator.” (p. 32-33)
5. “No other creature experiences this tiring sensation of willing that which does not yet
exist, of being obliged to give commands to inert faculties in order to make them active
and disciplined. A delicate and uncertain life that is barely conscious makes contact
with its environment through its senses and reaches out to it through its muscles in an
unending attempt at self-realization.” (p. 35)
6. “…appreciate a crucial factor in the development of a child. There is within it a vital
impulse which leads it to perform stupendous acts. Failure to follow out these impulses
means that they become helpless and inept…if a child has not been able to act
according to the directives of his sensitive period, the opportunity of a natural conquest
is lost, and is lost for good.” (p. 39)
7. “man learns to walk through personal, voluntary effort…A child develops the ability to
walk not merely by waiting for it to come but by walking…Learning to walk is for a child
a kind of second birth, when he passes from a helpless to an active being.” (p. 77)
8. “A child between the ages of a year and a half and two can walk several miles and
clamber up such difficult objects as ramps and stairs, but he has an entirely different
purpose in walking than we do. An adult walks to reach some external goal and he
consequently heads straight for it. He has a steady gait which carries him along almost
mechanically. An infant, on the other hand, walks to perfect his own proper functions,
and consequently his goal is something creative within himself. He is slow, he does not
as yet have a rhythmical pace nor does he direct his steps toward some ultimate
external goal. He moves on attracted by the objects he sees immediately about him.”
(p. 78)
9. “The human hand, so delicate and so complicated, not only allows the mind to reveal
itself but it enables the whole being to enter into special relationships with its

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environment. We might even say that man ‘takes possession of his environment with
his hands.’ His hands under the guidance of his intellect transform this environment
and thus enable him to fulfill his mission in the world.” (p. 81)
10. “In order to develop his mind a child must have objects in his environment which he
can hear and see. Since he must develop himself through his movements, through the
work of his hands, he has need of objects with which he can work that provide
motivation for his activity.” (p. 82)

The Newborn
1. “At no other period in his life does a man experience such a violent conflict and
struggle, and consequent suffering as at the time of birth.” (p. 21)
2. “At birth the child is clothed at once…the tiny body which had been folded within its
mother’s womb was stretched out immobile as if it were set in plaster. And yet clothes
are not necessary for a newborn child, nor even during its first month of existence.” (p.
22)
3. “A newborn child should not simply be shielded from harm, but measures should
also be taken to provide for psychic adjustment to the world around it.” (p. 23)
4. “The needs of a newborn child are not those of one who is sick but of one who is
striving to adjust oneself physically and psychologically to new and strange
surroundings.” (p. 24)
5. “Our attitude towards the newborn child should not be one of compassion but rather
of reverence before the mystery of creation, that a spiritual being has been confined
within limits perceptible to us.” (p. 24)
6. “Hardships and privations in the first months of a child’s existence can, as we now
know, influence the whole course of his future development. But if in the child are to be
found the makings of the man, it is in the child also that the future welfare of the race is
to be found.” (p. 25)
7. “When he [the newborn] appears in our midst, we hardly know how to receive him,
even though he bears within himself a power to create a better world than that in which
we live ourselves.” (p. 25)
8. “over and above the delicate care that is lavished upon the physical welfare of a
newborn child, attention should be paid to its psychic needs as well.” (p. 28)
9. “Special care should be shown for the psychic life of the newborn child. If it already
has such a life at birth, how much greater will this be as it grows older? If we
understand by ‘education’ a child’s psychic rather than its intellectual development, we
may truly say, as it is said today, that a child’s education should begin at birth.” (p. 29)
10. “The fashioning of the human personality is a secret work of ‘incarnation.’ The child
is an enigma. All that we know is that he has the highest potentialities, but we do not
know what he will be. He must ‘become incarnate’ with the help of his own will.” (p. 32)
11. “We can no longer remain blind to the psychic development of the child. We must
assist him from his earliest moments. Such assistance will not consist of forming the
child since this task belongs to nature herself, but in a delicate respect for the outward
manifestations of this development and in providing those means necessary for his
formation which he cannot obtain by his own efforts alone.” (p. 46)

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