Jean Piaget (1939) notes that the Montessori educational theory represents a progressive aspect in the history of pedagogy. It falls within the framework of cognitive developmental direction, and after John Dewey, Maria Montessori can also be considered one of the founders of the corresponding trend in preschool education.

She is the first to take the romantic ideas of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Johann Pestalozzi, and Friedrich Frobel to the next stage of evolution. The Italian doctor and researcher shaped the practice of an educational program with the belief that the most critical period in human development is the first six years of life.

She developed key theoretical principles about the nature of the child, emphasizing how experience transforms cognitive structure. She believed that the educational framework should adapt to the abilities and needs of children, which led her to the creation of a special 'prepared' environment.

Her method is based on the perception that the child is naturally active and, consequently, learning is an active process. She considered that, to promote individual development, the teaching program must focus on the sensitive periods of each child, incorporating all areas and taking into account the most fundamental parameters of intelligence - among them, the ability to classify, which involves analyzing an object and extracting a specific characteristic of it.

Self-directed learning, a cornerstone of her philosophy, largely defines the role of the child within the classroom context. The Montessori method, with its strong social and humanitarian philosophy, acquires new meaning today as the dead ends of many traditional processes and the tide of political and economic upheavals raise issues of social cohesion and redefinition of roles and values.

Maria Montessori emphasized how important it is to cultivate the child's will in order to develop self-regulated morality as opposed to blind, uncritical obedience to authority. The goal of her pedagogy is that everything new, everything unknown should be manageable so that the integration of the individual into their environment is encouraged - and not hindered.

[Excerpt from the text on the back cover of the edition]