The Child - The Forgotten Citizen
Excerpts from a letter written by Dr.
Maria Montessori in 1947 and addressed to all
governments.
My life has been spent in the research of truth. Through
the study of children I have scrutinized human nature at
its origin both in the East and the West and although it
is forty years now since I began my work, childhood still
seems to me an inexhaustible source of revelations and —
let me say — hope.
Childhood has shown me that all humanity is one. All
children talk, no matter what their race or their
circumstances or their family, more or less at the same
age; they walk, change their teeth, etc. at certain fixed
periods of their life. In other aspects also, especially
in the psychical field, they are just as similar, just as
susceptible.
Children are the constructors of men whom they build,
taking from the environment language, religion, customs
and the peculiarities not only of the race, not only of
the nation, but even of a special district in which they
develop.
... The child is the forgotten citizen, and yet, if
statesmen and educationists once came to realize the
terrific force that is in childhood for good or for evil,
I feel they would give it priority above everything else.
All problems of humanity depend on man himself; if man is
disregarded in his construction, the problems will never
be solved.
... Man must be cultivated from the beginning of life when
the great powers of nature are at work. It is then that
one can hope to plan for a better international
understanding. -- Dr. Maria Montessori (1870-1952)
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