Montessori Quotes

The Montessori Method, p.93, Schocken Books, 1964.

"Liberty is activity."  Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, p.86, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.

"In the old method, the proof of discipline...is in the immobility and silence of the child."   Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, p.84, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.

"The method of observation is established upon one fundamental base--the liberty of the pupils in their spontaneous manifestations."  Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, p.80, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.

"The transformation of the school must be contemporaneous with the preparation of the teacher," Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 2,    p.28, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.

"The fundamental principle of scientific pedagogy must be, indeed, the liberty of the pupil..." Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, p. 28, Schocken Books, 1964.

"Today we hold the pupils in school, restricted by those instruments so degrading to body and spirit, the desk-- and material prizes and punishments.  Our aim in all this is to reduce them to the discipline of immobility and silence,-- to lead them, --where?  Far too often toward no definite end."  Maria Montessori, p. 26, The Montessori Method, Schocken Books, 1964.

"The mother tongue alone is well pronounced because it was established in the period of childhood; and the adult who learns to speak a new language must bring to it the imperfections characteristic of the foreigner's speech: only children who under the age of seven years learn several languages at the same time can receive and reproduce all characteristic mannerisms of accent and pronunciation."  Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 18, p.315-16, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.

"The development of articulate language takes place in the period between the age of two and the age of seven: the age of perceptions in which the attention of the child is spontaneously turned towards external objects, and the memory is particularly tenacious...It is well known that it is only at this age that it is possible to acquire all the characteristic modulations of a language which it would be vain to attempt to establish later."  Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 18, p.315, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.

"He who does something really great and victorious, is never spurred to his task by those trifling attractions called by the name of 'prizes,' nor by the fear of those petty ills which we call 'punishments.'   Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 1, p.23, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.

"The jockey offers a piece of sugar to his horse before jumping into the saddle, the coachman beats his horse that he may respond to the signs given by the reins; and yet, neither of these runs so superbly as the free horse of the plains."  Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 1, p.21, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.

"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.

"...prizes and punishments are...the instrument of slavery for the spirit."  Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 1, p.21, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.

"Prizes and punishments are every-ready and efficient aids to the master who must force into a given attitude of mind and body those who are condemned to be his listeners."  Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 1, p.21, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.

"We know only too well the sorry spectacle of the teacher who, in the ordinary schoolroom, must pour certain cut and dried facts into the heads of scholars.  In order to succeed in this barren task, she finds it necessary to discipline her pupils into immobility and to force their attention."  Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 1, p.21, Schocken Books, Inc., 1964.

"The moral degradation of the slave is, above all things, the weight that opposes the progress of humanity-- humanity striving to rise and held back by this great burden.  The cry of redemption speaks far more clearly for the souls of men than for their bodies."  Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 1, p.20, 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 true that some pedagogues, led by Rousseau, have given voice to impracticable principles and vague aspirations for the liberty of the child, but the true concept of liberty is practically unknown to educators."  Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method, Chapter 1, p.15, 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.