The cosmic task of humans comes from a close relationship between living beings and their environment: their adaptation to its more rigid features and their contribution to maintaining the conditions necessary for the existence of their species. This is what Maria Montessori calls the cosmic task. Cosmic education (plan for the education of children 6-12 years of age), therefore, aims to help the learner understand the service that must be rendered by the individuals of each species to the environment on which they are dependent for their existence to maintain it in such a way that it will support their descendants, generations after generation. (Montessori, Mario, Jr.)

“…the cosmic plan of creation” is “all that has developed during the different civilizations, achieved by different groups, is a preparation for the great and supreme triumph of the human agent who has already reached dominion over all things and who must now find dominion over himself. It has prepared a united and all-powerful energy in a union which, though unconscious is real, and which consists of all human individuals in one organized body.” (Montessori, Maria, The Child, Society and the World, p109) “The task of teaching becomes easy, since we do not need to choose what we shall teach but should place all before him for the satisfaction of his mental appetite…let us give him a vision of the whole universe. For all things are part of the universe and are connected with each other to form one whole unity. This idea helps the mind of the child to become fixed, to stop wandering in an aimless quest for knowledge…it will create in him admiration and wonder…the child’s mind… becomes fixed and can work. The knowledge he then acquires is organized and systematic; his intelligence becomes whole and complete because of the vision of the whole…and his interest spreads to all; for all are linked and have their place in the universe on which his mind is centered… he will begin to ask: What am I? What is the task of man in this wonderful universe? Do we merely live here for ourselves, or is there something more for us to do? Why do we struggle and fight? What is good and evil? Where will it all end?... This plan of cosmic education is the foundation stone of the Advanced Method….” (Montessori, Maria, To Educate the Human Potential, pp. 3-4)