But how wholly different every thing is, if man, especially in boyhood, is made to observe the reflex action of his conduct, not on his outward more or less agreeable position, but on his inner, spontaneous or fettered, clear or clouded, satisfied or dissatisfied condition of spirit and mind! The experiences which proceed from this observation will necessarily more and more awaken the inner sense of man: and then true sense, the greatest treasure of boy and man, comes into his life.
I see in every child the possibility of a perfect man.
The child-soul is an ever-bubbling fountain in the world of humanity.
The plays of childhood are the heart-leaves of the whole future life.
From each object of nature and of life, there goes a path toward God.
Perfect human joy is also worship, for it is ordered by God.
The first groundwork of religious life is love--love to God and man--in the bosom of the family.
Childhood is the most important stage of the total development of man and of humanity.
Women must make of their educational calling a priestly office.
Isolation and exclusion destroy life; union and participation create life.
Without religious preparation in childhood, no true religion and no union with God is possible for men.
The tree germ bears within itself the nature of the whole tree; the human being bears in himself the nature of all humanity; and is not therefore humanity born anew in each child?
In the children lies the seed-corn of the future.
The lovingly cared for, and thereby steadily and strongly developed human life, also the cloudless child life, is of itself a Christ-like one.
In all things works one creative life, because the life of all things proceeds from one God.
Let us live with our children: so shall their lives bring peace and joy to us; so shall we begin to be and to become wise.
What boys and girls play in earliest childhood will become by-and-by a beautiful reality of serious life; for they expand into stronger and lovelier youthfulness by seeking on every side appropriate objects to verify the thoughts of their inmost souls.
This earliest age is the most important one for education, because the beginning decides the manner of progress and the end. If national order is to be recognized in later years as a benefit, childhood must first be accustomed to law and order, and therein find the means of freedom. Lawlessness and caprice must rule in no period of life, not even in that of the nursling.