Montessori-Pierson Publishing Company, p/o Koninginneweg 161, Amsterdam (2025)

05/11/2025

INTELLIGENT WORK WITH INTEREST IS NOT FATIGUING
…No such possibility was yet conceived as a happy education of children, so many still had to be sacrificed to civilization, and the best they could do was to compromise, reducing hours in instruction to the minimum, cutting out from the curriculum grammar, geometry and algebra, making outside play obligatory and postponing the age for entry into school. But however much free periods have been increased and children urged to play rather than study, strangely the children have remained mentally fatigued not- withstanding all these reforms. Montessori schools have proved that the child needs a cycle of work for which he has been mentally prepared; such intelligent work with interest is not fatiguing, and he should not be arbitrarily cut off from it by a call to play. Interest is not immediately born, and if when it has been created the work is withdrawn, it is like depriving a whetted appetite of the food that will satisfy it. Through long experimentation we have now arrived at much elimination of error, and the possession of a key, which can unlock for children the gates of a healthy and happy education. On our courage and perseverance in its use depends the future of humanity. Page 74 from the book: To educate the human potential: https://montessori-pierson.com/products/to-educate-the-human-potential-vol-6; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/la-educacion-de-las-potencialidades-humanas-vol-6; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/opvoeden-voor-een-nieuwe-wereld-en-onderwijs-en-het-menselijk-potentieel

28/10/2025

REPETITION OF THE EXERCISE
Here was a first peep into the unexplored depths of the child mind. Here was a very small child, at an age when attention flits from one thing to another and cannot be held down. Yet she had been absorbed in concentration such that her ego had withdrawn itself from reach of any external stimulus. That concentration was accompanied by a rhythmic movement of the hands, evoked by an accurately made, scientifically graduated object. Similar facts occurred on various occasions. And every time the children emerged as if rested, full of life, with the look of those who have experienced some great joy.
Though such instances of a concentration reaching insensibility to the outer world were not usual, I noticed a peculiar behaviour that was common to all, and practically the rule in all they did – the special characteristic of child work, which I later called “repetition of the exercise”…
The same thing happened on many other occasions; the more accurately an exercise was taught in all its details, the more it seemed to become a stimulus to an endless repetition of the same exercise. Page 107 from the book The Secret of Childhood: https://montessori-pierson.com/products/the-secret-of-childhood-vol-22; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/el-nino-el-secreto-de-la-infancia-vol-4

17/10/2025

WORK OFFERING THE GREATEST OPPORTUNITIES
It would be a mistake to attempt to estimate a child’s capacity for work according to his age before testing him, or to exclude any from a task to be done on the grounds that they could not be of any assistance. A teacher should always open up the way, and should never discourage a child through lack of confidence in him. Even the littlest children are anxious to do something and are more anxious to exert themselves than those who are older….
The importance of the work does not bother children, they are satisfied when they have done as much as they can and see that they are not excluded from an opportunity to exert themselves in their surroundings. The most admired work is that which offers the greatest opportunities to each one. Page 85 from the book the discovery of the child https://montessori-pierson.com/products/the-discovery-of-the-child-vol-2 ; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/el-descubrimiento-del-nino-vol-2 ; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/de-methode

06/10/2025

THE SENSE OF GEOMETRY
…The material that has the purpose of giving the child his first sensory representation of geometry figures consists of what are called plane insets…
…This…is not just an item of knowledge penetrating the mind of the very young child. Something unfolds within him, becoming part of his mental life. This sense of geometry becomes one with his psychic organ which is actively being created. The child’s eyes are now attracted by the geometric aspects of his surroundings; his eyes are attracted by the light that pe*****tes them naturally. The flat surface of a rectangular table, hexagonal floor insets, circular dishes, small chequers on napkins, the ellipses of picture frames: all these – doors, windows, decorations – take on a new meaning. It is as if the small child is assailed by these images that pe*****te within him through an intimate attraction. These mental aptitudes – spontaneous observation coupled with inner sensitivity – differ greatly from what we consider as logical learning. To attach some grounding in a discipline to the sensitive periods means preparing aptitudes in the personality that predispose the child to understand. It means sowing the permanent seeds of interest in the mind. Page 9-10 and14-15 from the book Psychogeometry https://montessori-pierson.com/products/psychogeometry-vol-16 ; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/psicogeometria-vol-16

29/09/2025

ORDER AND PRECISION
In our tiny children the evidence of a mathematical bent shows itself in many striking and spontaneous ways. In fact, if we showed them exactly how to do something, this precision itself seemed to hold their interest. To have a real purpose to which the action was directed, this was the first condition, but the exact way of doing it acted like a support which rendered the child stable in his efforts, and therefore brought him to make progress in his development. Order and precision, we found, were the keys to spontaneous work in the school. And if we look now at the sensorial apparatus which is able to evoke such deep concentration (remarkable in very small children between the ages of three and four), there is no doubt that this apparatus may be regarded not only as a help to exploring the environment, but also to the development of the mathematical mind. The results we obtain with our little ones contrast oddly with the fact that mathematics is so often held to be a scourge rather than a pleasure in school programmes. Most people have developed “mental barriers” against it. Yet all is easy if only its roots can be implanted in the absorbent mind. Page 166 from the book The Absorbent Mind: https://montessori-pierson.com/products/the-absorbent-mind-vol-1 ; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/la-mente-absorbente-del-nino ; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/het-brein-van-het-jonge-kind

21/09/2025

THE COSMIC FUNCTION
One side of evolution deals with the satisfaction of vital needs, defence, survival of the species and growth by modifications towards perfection. Another – and stronger – factor in evolutionary processes is concerned with the cosmic function of each living being, and even of inanimate natural objects, working in collaboration for the fulfilment of the Purpose of Life. All creatures work consciously for themselves, but the real purpose of their existence remains unconscious, yet claiming obedience. A coral polyp, if capable of conscious expression, would choose to live in calm and warm seas, undisturbed by river currents, and to have faithful attendants to bring it food without its having to stir in search of it. Corals never become aware that by their mode of living they preserve the purity of the water, so helping innumerable millions to live, and also build new land, to support future races. So the trees and plants might consciously exalt their desire for sunshine and vital need of carbon dioxide for their nourishment, unconscious that nature had given them these instinctual urges for the purpose of preserving the purity of the air, on which depend all higher life on earth. The bee who robs the flower of its nectar is aware only of his own need or the hive’s, not that the flower’s need of his visit is as great for its purpose of reproduction, for perpetuating the life of the species. Man too, like all beings, has the two purposes, conscious and unconscious. He is conscious of his own intellectual and physical needs, and of the claims on him of society and civilization. He believes in fighting for himself, his family and nation, but has yet to become conscious of his far deeper responsibilities to a cosmic task, his collaboration with others in work for his environment, for the whole universe…Page 24-25 from the book: To educate the human potential: https://montessori-pierson.com/products/to-educate-the-human-potential-vol-6; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/la-educacion-de-las-potencialidades-humanas-vol-6; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/opvoeden-voor-een-nieuwe-wereld-en-onderwijs-en-het-menselijk-potentieel

15/09/2025

IT IS TIME TO BRING ABOUT A GREAT REFORM
Let us therefore continue our efforts! Let us construct an environment for children and young people; the thanks we will receive for so doing will be the enlightenment we need to see all the errors inherent in the supernature that we adults have created only for ourselves. We must build something new, not offer older children the same things we offer the young ones. Miniature objects and utensils no longer satisfy seven-year-old children. They need other things. The four walls of a ‘house’ become too confining; older children need to go out and explore the world. They must have broader social horizons. Man feels a great need to make genuine efforts, so as to measure his own worth… It is time now to correct these errors, to bring about a great reform, to offer young people the means necessary for their development and the enhancement of their personalities. This task cannot be entrusted to private efforts alone; it is society as a whole that is called upon to fulfil it. It is of vital interest to the state to organize the life of young people. The child by the age of twelve should already be taking an active part in social life; he should be producing, selling, and working, not in order to learn a trade, but because working means coming into contact with life, participating in the building of supernature. These young people should engage in economic transactions, learn the value of money, and take conscious part in productive activities. Page 64 from the book Education and peace https://montessori-pierson.com/products/education-and-peace-vol-10 ; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/educacion-y-paz

06/09/2025

REFORMS THAT ARE IN RELATION WITH THE SOCIAL LIFE OF TODAY
The essential reform is this: to put the adolescent on the road to achieving economic independence. We might call it a “school of experience in the elements of social life.” This “independence” has more educational than practical value; that is to say, it has a closer connection with the psychology of the adolescent than with an eventual actual utility…Education should...include the two forms of work, manual and intellectual, for the same person, and thus make it understood by practical experience that these two kinds complete each other and are equally essential to a civilized existence. If we consider the plan from the point of view of our own method it can be regarded as a development of that principle that has already had such great success in our schools for smaller children right down to the nursery class, known as the “exercises of practical life.”…This has a truly educational, not utilitarian purpose. The reaction of the children may be described as a “burst of independence”…These children seem to be precocious in their intellectual development and they demonstrate that while working harder than other children they do so without tiring themselves. These very children reveal to us the most vital need of their development, saying: “Help me to do it alone!” Independence, in the case of the adolescents, has to be acquired on a different plane, for theirs is the economic independence in the field of society. Here, too, the principle of “Help me to do it alone!” ought to be applied. Page 61-63 from the book From Childhood to Adolescence https://montessori-pierson.com/products/from-childhood-to-adolescence-vol-12; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/de-la-infancia-a-la-adolescencia-vol-12 ; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/van-de-kinderjaren-naar-de-adolescentie

29/08/2025

EDUCATION OF MOVEMENT
The children look after the classroom. They sweep with their own small brooms and dust and scrub and polish. Then there is their own personal cleanliness. When a child’s hands are dirty, we do not take him to the basin and wash his hands or hold his face while we do the washing. The children learn to do these things for themselves as a matter of course, and even toddlers of two and three years can carry objects and wash themselves and lay a table. The children love to do these things for themselves and they learn to be careful and precise in their movements.This is both education of movement, because there is a refinement of muscular coordination when the work is carefully done, and education through movement, because these activities involve judgement and will, self-discipline, and an appreciation of orderliness. We do not teach the children these things to make little servants of them, but because we have observed that of their own accord children actually take the greatest interest in perfecting all the movements of daily life. P31 from the book: Maria Montessori speaks to parents https://montessori-pierson.com/products/maria-montessori-speaks-to-parents-vol-21 ; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/maria-montessori-le-habla-a-los-padres-vol-15 ; https://montessori-pierson.com/products/maria-montessori-in-gesprek-met-ouders

21/08/2025

IT IS THROUGH MOVEMENT THAT THE CHILD ARRIVES AT UNDERSTANDING MUSIC..We do not think that music is to prompt movement, but rather that the child can understand music through movement. By moving, his attention is directed to the music. It is movement that interests the child in music, and it is by movement that the very tiny child can arrive at understanding music with considerable delicacy.
If we see that the child is enjoying music, we must direct ourselves to the double periphery, that is, the sensorial and the motor. The child receives his impression of the music in the sensorial way and by movement. To further his enjoyment of music, we choose simple phrases in music which we repeat again and again, and the child by moving may be taken by the rhythm. In the early stages we may play music and may watch the children act in response. We merely give this fundamental idea of walking along the line which has been traced, and the child walks on the line naturally. We are not to be anxious that he should do it in a certain way.
…It is through movement that the child arrives at understanding music. It is not only by playing and singing for the child that this happens; he must understand it by his own movements. Page 31-33 from the book The montessori approach to music: https://montessori-pierson.com/products/the-montessori-approach-to-music-vol-23

12/08/2025

EDUCATION MUST BEGIN AT BIRTH
…something takes place in the subconscious which is not seen from the outside. How else would he speak with such exactness? The fact that nothing external is being shown is no proof that something very important is not happening. This is why we must understand this stage in human development; if you study psychology from the outer reactions and aspect of the child, if you judge from the external behaviour and think nothing is happening inside, then you would be making a grave mistake.The greatest mistake ever made is to isolate the child from the society of the adult, as has happened in modern times. We admit the child to the company of adults only when he has a mind similar to the adults. A child needs to be with adults when he is a tiny child. It is the reality of the results which has given us new faith that something is happening within the child at this early age. Therefore, we must always take him with us; we should talk to him – we should not relegate him to one room to sleep alone all day. He can sleep all night. He must have the opportunities to make those acquisitions which endow him with human faculties. Certainly it is a new task that confronts us, to study and take into account the needs of this absorbent mind. It is to respond to these needs that we say, ‘Education must begin at birth’. We must provide the child’s psychic powers with the nourishment they require. Page 53 from the book The 1946 London Lectures: https://montessori-pierson.com/products/the-1946-london-lectures-vol-17 ;https://montessori-pierson.com/products/las-conferencias-de-londres-en-1946-vol-17

06/08/2025

START PRIMARY SCHOOL AT THREE OR EVEN TWO YEARS OF AGE
At six they are just beginning to understand the world. They have already understood much without a teacher. We cannot begin their education at six, because they have already been through an entire life which has now finished. If a child were to receive no instruction during this life, at the age of six, he would be undernourished. If at six we make a start at teaching him from the beginning, then he would only be bored. The conclusion is that children should start primary school well before the age of six. Some are now saying that children should begin school at five years of age. But even this is too late. At three, a kind of lull sets in, a waiting for the next period. Suppose we start at three or even two years of age. It is possible for the child to gain a great deal of knowledge before the age of six, without fatigue, because nourishment does not cause fatigue. If a child becomes tired from being taught, it is a sign that we are presenting the wrong knowledge at the wrong time. The child must enjoy learning because he is an intelligent, free creature in the world. The characteristic of man is intelligence and so it certainly should be a joy to exercise one’s intelligence. It should give satisfaction and enthusiasm for work. If a school does not provide this, then the school must be wrong and apparently not base itself on the child’s true nature. Page 27 from the book The 1946 London Lectures: https://montessori-pierson.com/products/the-1946-london-lectures-vol-17 ;https://montessori-pierson.com/products/las-conferencias-de-londres-en-1946-vol-17

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