"Today...has been hot and sunny...The river is very low...So Valerie, Mary, Alan, and I took rods and reels and fly lines and flies and went up to fish for trout...I thought I was going fishing with the children, that they would dabble around for a little while, then find something else more amusing to do. But that wasn't the way of it at all. They went off along the shallow water of the bar, quite independently of me, far up until they felt they could all arrange themselves in good places, then began to fish very seriously," (pages 104-105, Measure of the Year)

"[Children] are suddenly and unexpectedly independent and competent little creatures, developed beyond the recognizable cause and effect of day-to-day influences, not mere pale reflections of what they have been taught or shown," (page 106, Measure of the Year).

"A child...must strive within its strength, up to its own full realization...Let children only become themselves...Let them only be true to themselves, so that they have true selves to give." (pp 112-3, Measure of the Year)