The general nervous weakness and the wandering intelligence which preclude an interest in work make of these persons individuals incapable of production, who therefore try to live upon the productions of others. This fundamental fact, which tends to unite a dislike of productive labor with impulses towards rapine, causes them to make use of all those surrounding causes which prepare the external means for crime. These men are "bad." But if we observe more closely we see that it is not wickedness with which we have to deal but morbid conditions and social errors. If such be the case, these bad men, who from no fault of their own were born in these unhappy conditions, and who are driven to perdition by society, are really "victims." Their whole history, when closely investigated, reveals this fact. They are hunted and neglected from babyhood. Incapable of making themselves [Pg 282] beloved owing to mental deficiency, volitive disorders, to the anomaly of the affections and also to lack of physical attraction, they pass from maternal persecution to that of the school, and finally to that of society, bringing on themselves every kind of punishment.
-Maria Montessori

I think when John Breeding wrote his interesting child rearing novel, Wildest Colts, he was certainly echoing this age old wisdom, which Ms. Montessori put forth at the cusp of the century.

I had to go to wikipedia to find out what Montessori's system actually entails. It is this:

With the 1907 opening of Dr. Montessori’s first school in Rome, her surname — Montessori — became associated with schools applying her educational approach and educational materials in schooling tailored to children’s developmental needs. World-wide, many schools implement the Montessori method for educating students in a wide range of ages, about which Dr. Maria Montessori stated:

From the moment the child enters the classroom, each step in his education is seen as a progressive building block, ultimately forming the whole person, in the emergence from childhood to adult. All focus is on the needs of the child.[4]
One distinguishing feature of the Montessori method, at the pre-school age, is that children direct their own learning, choosing among the sections of a well-structured and stocked classroom, the curriculum including Practical Life (fine and gross motor skills), Sensorial (senses and brain), Language, Mathematics, Geography, Science, and Art. The teacher’s role is to introduce children to materials, and then remain a “silent presence” in the classroom. [5] Montessori schools pride themselves on seeing and meeting the student’s personality and intellectual needs, rather than viewing them as part of a classroom process. The students are encouraged to teach and to help each other. [6]


[edit] Concepts
The Montessori educational philosophy is built upon the idea that children develop and think differently from adults; that they are not merely “adults in small bodies”. Dr. Montessori advocated children's rights, children working to develop themselves into adults, and that these developments would lead to world peace.

She was probably right about the latter. Its difficult because I have studied resistance movements, and narratives of resistance, in detail; well I know the need to resist. I found a treasure trove of material on the topic of resistance in my undergraduate years. As long as there is power, people, whoever they may be, and whatever forms they will find themselves in it, will work to engage with it. Power is that which cannot be ignored. And one of the forms of engagement is trying to draw down power, to couch one's response to it. And it happens in all healthy and just societies, in all places, at all moments in the world. Resistance is wonderful and healthy and quite often an expression of people's humanity and their response to situations which violate that common cause. But if you don't provide healthy, bright, curious children with as many strictures, the need to resist is so much less transparent, and engaging with power becomes a participatory exercise. Sure, sometimes phenomenal children will bring about a shift here and there. But if you can engage with power in legitimate, sanctioned ways, the desire for massive "cultural eruptions" isn't quite there. As such, a more permissive society is actually a safer society, and a saner one.