Taxonomy and the Animal Kingdom: Arthropods- Part Five

"The new woman, like the butterfly come forth from the chrysalis, shall be liberated from all those attributes which once made her desirable to man only as the source of material blessings of existence. She shall be, like man, an individual, a free human being, a social worker...She shall wish to be loved for herself and not as a giver of comfort and repose. She shall wish a love free from every form of servile labor. The goal of human love is not the egotistical end of ensuring its own satisfaction- it is the sublime goal of multiplying the forces of the free spirit, making it almost Divine, and, within such beauty and light, perpetuating the species."

-Maria Montessori, The Montessori Method

This afternoon, the children convened in the yard to release the Painted Lady Butterflies they reared from microscopic butterfly eggs into beautiful adults. Although they were visibly stirred by the sunlight and fresh air, the butterflies choose to cooperate with our plan of allowing each child to carefully remove one from the cage and hold it on their palm for a few seconds before watching it flutter away into the warm spring breeze.