Montessori Quotes

"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.

"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.