"The mainstream Catholic Church regarded all of this as blasphemy. Children were to be understood as dangerous bundles of instincts needing to be tamed by discipline, authority and the threat (often the daily reality) of violence." #QotD

"On the one hand, some Catholic religious orders like the Ursulines and the Dominicans, as well as some non-Catholic groups like the Quakers, were highly receptive to [Maria] Montessori’s ideas that children are independent creatures with imaginations of their own that can be developed in a structured but nurturing environment.
    "On the other, the mainstream Catholic Church, speaking through Fr Timothy Corcoran, (the historian Brian Titley calls him the church’s 'watchdog' on educational matters and thus 'the most influential figure in shaping the education system which emerged in the new Irish State'), regarded all of this as blasphemy. Children were to be understood as dangerous bundles of instincts needing to be tamed by discipline, authority and the threat (often the daily reality) of violence."
          ~ Fintan O'Toole, from his article 'Ireland’s education system was rigid and violent'

[Hat tip Maria Montessori Education Foundation]
.