"We labour under a sort of superstition that the child has nothing to learn during the first five years of its life. On the contrary the fact is that the child never learns in after-life what it does in its first five years." - Attributed to Mahatma Gandhi

Education Parenting Family

“We labour under a sort of superstition that the child has nothing to learn during the first five years of its life. On the contrary the fact is that the child never learns in after-life what it does in its first five years.”

Share this quote

Probable attribution

This saying is widely associated with Mahatma Gandhi, but the attribution is not supported by a reliable primary source.

Likely origin: Attributed to Gandhi's Autobiography (My Experiments with Truth), on early-childhood learning; not verbatim-confirmed to the primary here.

About this quote

The years before formal schooling do the deepest shaping: language, trust, curiosity, and the basic sense of how the world works all take root then. Treating that stretch as too early to matter misses the exact window when a person's foundations are actually being laid.

When to use it

A toddler read to every night grows into a child who reaches for books without being told to.
A baby whose cries are answered learns a bedrock trust that steadies them for years afterward.
A preschooler allowed to explore and ask questions keeps that curiosity long after a classroom would have.