When we want to infuse new ideas, _x000D_ to modify or better the habits and customs of a people, _x000D_ to breathe new vigor into its national traits, _x000D_ we must use the children as our vehicle; for little can be accomplished with adults.
Interpretation
Children are the key to instilling new ideas and improvements in society.
Maria Montessori emphasizes the importance of focusing on children as the primary agents of change in society. She argues that adults are often set in their ways and resistant to change, therefore to cultivate new ideas and enhance the customs of a community, one must work with the younger generation who are more open to learning and transformation.
In practice
In a speech about educational reform, a politician could use this quote to highlight the need for early childhood education.
... the first thing his education demands is the provision of an environment in which he can develop the powers given him by nature. This does not mean just to amuse him and let him do what he likes. But it does mean that we have to adjust our minds to doing a work of collaboration with nature, to being obedient to one of her laws, the law which decrees that development comes from environmental experience.
Noble ideas, great sentiments have always existed and have always been transmitted, but wars have never ceased.
What we need is a world full of miracles, like the miracle of seeing the young child seeking work and independence, and manifesting a wealth of enthusiasm and love.
To aid life, leaving it free, however, that is the basic task of the educator.
It is fortunate, I think, that nature is not bounded by human reason and by laboratory work and experimentation, for by the laws of pure reason and by microscopic investigation, it might easily have been proved, long before this, that children could not be born.
If the idea of the universe is presented to the child in the right way, it will do more for him than just arouse his interest, for it will create in him admiration and wonder, a feeling loftier than any interest and more satisfying.
I had great mentors in my parents who always sought to understand the world around them. And they would push me to really think things through.
When I was growing up, I knew I wanted to be a mathematician, but I had no idea what that entailed.
Then I celebrated my Wall of Books. I counted the volumes on my twenty-foot-long modernist bookshelf to make sure none had been misplaced or used as kindling by my subtenant. “You’re my sacred ones,” I told the books. “No one but me still cares about you. But I’m going to keep you with me forever. And one day I’ll make you important again.” I thought about that terrible calumny of the new generation: that books smell.
Better guide the young than reclaim them when old For the voice of true wisdom is calling "To rescue the fallen is good, but tis best To prevent other people from falling" Better close up the source of temptation and crime Than deliver from dungeon or gallery Better put a strong fence round the top of the cliff Than an ambulance down in the valley.
When I'm documenting, for example, a story on women in Afghanistan, I will do a huge amount of research and a lot of time on the ground just getting to know the women before I even start shooting.
Ours is an age of pedagogy. Anxious parents instruct their children more and more, at younger and younger ages, until they're reading books to babies in the womb.
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