"The way you make your bed is the way your day will go." The way in which people gather is an extension of the making-the-bed analogy: "The way we gather is the way our school days go." The mindfulness people bring to the little ways they behave with one another sets the tone for the entire organization. When Montessori speaks of allowing the individual to remain independent throughout all the stages of development, she is not asking to create a pull-oneself-up-by-one's-bootstraps individual; rather, she is asking to consider the ways in which people honor the blossoming of each person, and that they do that in order to benefit society. People honor the unfolding of the personality, petal by petal, within the context of their relationship to one another and out of respect for their interdependence. Montessori addresses the big picture--the importance of the individual to the function of all humankind. When people show up as individuals within a group, they have the opportunity to see the small frame within the larger frame; they have created a microcosm of the larger society with the potential to display man's wealth--"the unity of mankind." (Contains 1 footnote.)