Montessori Quotes

"The prize and the punishment are incentives toward unnatural or forced effort, and therefore we certainly cannot speak of the natural development of the child in connection with them."  Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 1, p.21, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.

"...desks are constructed in such a way as to render the child visible in all his immobility."  Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 1, p.16, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.

"The principle of slavery still pervades pedagogy, and therefore, the same principle pervades the school.  I need only give one proof-- the stationary desks and chairs."  Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 1, p.15-16, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.

"It is not enough, then, to prepare in our Masters the scientific spirit.  We must also make ready the school for their observation.  The school must permit free, natural manifestations of the child if in the school scientific pedagogy is to be born. This is the essential reform."  Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 1, p.15, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.

"The master is to study man in the awakening of his intellectual life."  Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 1, p.12, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.

"...we wish to awaken in the mind and heart of the educator an interest in natural phenomena to such an extent that, loving nature, he shall understand the anxious and expectant attitude of one who has prepared an experiment and who awaits a revelation from it."  Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 1, p.9, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.

"It is my belief that the thing which we should cultivate in our teachers is more the spirit than the mechanical skill of the scientist; that is, the direction of the preparation should be toward the spirit rather than toward the mechanism."  Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 1, p.9, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.

"There exists, then, the "spirit" of the scientist, a thing far above his mere "mechanical skill," and the scientist is at the height of his achievement when the spirit has triumphed over the mechanism.  When he has reached this point, science will receive from him not only new revelations of nature, but philosophic syntheses of pure thought."  Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 1, p.9, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.

"This is the spirit of the men in science, to whom nature freely reveals her secrets, crowning their labours with the glory of discovery."  Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 1, p.9, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.

"The scientist is not the clever manipulator of instruments, he is the worshipper of nature and he bears the external symbols of his passion as does the follower of some religious order."  Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 1, p.8, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.

"To-day, however, those things which occupy us in the field of education are the interests of humanity at large, and of civilisation, and before such great forces we can recognise only one country--the entire world.  And in a cause of such great importance, all those who have given any contribution, even though it be only an attempt not crowned with success, are worthy of the respect of humanity throughout the civilised world." Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 1, p.5-6, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.