“The Montessori approach to education follows the lines of developmental psychology and differs sharply from education as normally understood, where the emphasis is on the ends pursued and what is felt to be important to the ultimate career or occupation.” Rather it is the process by which the child may become adapted to society and the world for optimum development, not his stock of knowledge. This is the aim of Montessori’s Developmental Education. (Montessori, Mario)

“Scientific observation, then, has established that education is not what the teacher gives, education is a natural process spontaneously carried out by the human individual and is acquired not by listening to words but by experiences upon the environment.” (Montessori, Maria, Communications, December/January, 1947, p. 1, Monthly Letter, Education for a New World, Introduction “…Education will then be clearly understood to mean the providing for the ‘needs of humanity’ in its earliest beginnings; humanity at the age when energies are unfolding, characteristics becoming fixed—when human normality is being established, or deviation from normality. By education will be meant the making it possible for the personality to develop as a real asset in human society.” (Montessori, Maria, Communications, 2011, 1-2, p. 60, “Principles and Practice in Education,” First Lecture, Institute of Medical Psychology, London, 10 November 1936)