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The desire of the child to attain an end which he knows, leads him to correct himself.
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“The desire of the child to attain an end which he knows, leads him to correct himself.”

Maria Montessori

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Source
Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook
Date
1914
Meaning

Meaning of “The desire of the child to attain an…”

A clear goal can support self-correction because the learner can compare the result with the intended end and revise without waiting for every error to be externally identified.

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Dr. Montessori's Own Handbook, discussion of self-correcting didactic material. Project Gutenberg #29635. Montessori immediately describes the child’s own intelligence, rather than the teacher, as detecting and correcting the error.

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CuriosityEducation Quotes About Teaching & Intellectual FormationEffortFailureGoalsGrowthGrowth MindsetHumilityInspirational Quotes About Hope, Courage & PossibilityLearning Quotes About Curiosity, Study & ExperienceLifeLife AdviceLife LessonsMindsetMotivation For LifeMotivational Quotes for Action, Effort & PersistenceSelf ImprovementShortSuccess
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The worth of work with the hands
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“The worth of work with the hands”

Booker T. Washington · Working With the Hands · 1904
Meaning & context

Washington opens the book by treating manual work as capable of contributing to education, dignity and practical development rather than merely supplying labor.

Source details

Working With the Hands, Chapter I, opening sentence; Project Gutenberg #64504. This deliberately short excerpt is presented with its educational context.

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education ought to do more for a boy
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“education ought to do more for a boy”

Booker T. Washington · Working With the Hands · 1904
Meaning & context

Washington rejects an overly narrow definition of schooling and asks whether education can improve the practical conditions and responsibilities of life.

Source details

Working With the Hands, Chapter I; Project Gutenberg #64504. This short excerpt precedes Washington’s discussion of poverty, family responsibility and practical education.

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We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success.
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“We learn wisdom from failure much more than from success.”

Samuel Smiles · Self-Help · 1859
Meaning & context

Failure can expose what does not work and force closer observation, turning setbacks into information that uncomplicated success may never reveal.

Source details

Self-Help, Chapter XI, “Self-Culture—Facilities and Difficulties,” Project Gutenberg #935. The passage follows Charles James Fox’s contrast between early success and perseverance after failure, then leads into examples of discoveries and learning produced through mistakes and failed attempts.

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So much patient perseverance could not but eventually succeed
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“So much patient perseverance could not but eventually succeed”

Samuel Smiles · The Life of George Stephenson and of his Son Robert Stephenson · 1868
Meaning & context

Smiles describes Stephenson’s progress in arithmetic as the cumulative result of study and patient persistence rather than easy aptitude.

Source details

The Life of George Stephenson and of his Son Robert Stephenson, Chapter IV, “The Stephensons at Killingworth—Education and Self-Education of Father and Son”; represented 1868 revised edition, Project Gutenberg #46229. The excerpt is Smiles’s narration of Stephenson’s patient arithmetic study under John Wigham.

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A pupil from whom nothing is ever demanded which he cannot do, never does all he can.
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“A pupil from whom nothing is ever demanded which he cannot do, never does all he can.”

John Stuart Mill · Autobiography · 1873
Meaning & context

The sentence argues that education needs genuine stretch: always keeping demands inside proven ability can leave capacity underused.

Source details

Autobiography, Chapter I; Mill reflects critically on his father’s demanding teaching while preserving this principle about intellectual effort.

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Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things.
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“Our errors are surely not such awfully solemn things.”

William James · The Will to Believe, and Other Essays in Popular Philosophy · 1897
Meaning & context

James resists treating every possible intellectual mistake as catastrophic, because an excessive fear of error can itself prevent inquiry, experience and the possibility of gaining truth.

Source details

The Will to Believe, essay “The Will to Believe”; Project Gutenberg #26659. James is contrasting the risk of being mistaken with the cost of refusing every uncertain intellectual venture.

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