The life of the International Montessori Centre, situated within the Italian University for foreigners, started in the summer of 1950.
  The comments of the three beautiful lessons made by Maria Montessori in that year still vibrate in the air; Perugia welcomed the Doctor, then President of the International Pedagogical Studies Center, with joy. Her center was involved in the study of educational problems of our time and in the practical realization of initiatives promoting knowledge of the world of children.
  SA study centre was formed “to raise man’s consciousness and morality—man who has something to realize for the world, not only for himself.. to identify the child’s real powers and potential through observation and study.. a centre for people who are thinking about the world and the child, who want to prepare themselves for a mission” (M. Montessori).
  Strong words that invoke human solidarity, which invite meditation, and which can seem idealistic. Speaking about mission seems out of place in a society based on selfishness, yet today many have responded to this call with a lifetime of dedication.
  Contemporaneously with the founding of the Centre for Pedagogical Study, the 1° International Course was offered in Perugia, just as, in 1909, the first National Montessori Course had also been offered in Umbria.
  At the university, the Doctor talked about childhood and she invoked its liberation; many people from different countries, religions and political ideals rallied around her in order to understand her message of peace.
  In 1950, from July to September, M.A. Paolini stayed in Perugia after the Doctor’s death and she held the second International Montessori Course to carry on Maria Montessori’s work.
  As of today the International Montessori Courses offered by the Montessori Centre have totalled fifty.
  Many young people from different countries, cultures and languages have studied here. From China to USA, from Japan to Mexico, from Korea to Brazil, from India to Australia.
  After the training courses students from the European Countries and the Countries of Mediterranean basin, from Syria to Algeria have profitable and continuous working relationships with the Centre.
  Students work together and mature a deeper understanding and a critical vision of reality in a multicultural environment.
  The very wide appeal of the courses confirms the truth of Maria Montessori’s statement “Today, we are concerned with education not only as a science, but mainly in the interest of humanity and of civilization, before which exists only one homeland: the world.”
  People come back to meet each others, to transfer experiences and sometimes to recount difficulties encountered along the path, but more often to find, here in the Centre, new energies and refresh old motivations.
  But people come back mostly to speak about the Child who “does not have anything, but promises all. He is always a miracle brimming with future …. he is a hope and a promise for humanity” as M. Montessori writes.
  People arrive at the Centre, they start again from the Centre, then they go out into the world “to do”, “to be”, “to testify”.