AZR loved childhood with an intense love ("Beautiful is childhood, the dawn of a person's life"), and saw in coercive education a corruption of God's gift:
"And this beautiful, innocent, free creation is taken and confined in the cheder, in the school, and a yoke is placed upon it… of subjugation and of suppressing the natural impulse, and above all of falsehood… And the harmful influence of this prison house, called cheder or school, is soon revealed: the spark in the child's eyes fades and dims." AZR, "The Educational Institute for the Workers' Children" (Kuntres, 5684/1924), Ben-Yehuda read/50115.
Of the new "Educational Institute for the Workers' Children" (the "labor-based" education) he writes with admiration: the child learns of his own free will, "their teacher is only a good friend… works with them and plays with them", there is a farm and a garden, "everything they do, they do out of joy". This is a non-coercive education, in the spirit of his book "Reward and Punishment in Education" (see "The One Who Bridges the Extremes"). + documented background
Contrary to the convention that the "matmid", the diligent student poring over his books, is an ideal, AZR warns that excessive passive reading is harmful:
"Abundant reading, in and of itself, dulls the emotions and numbs the moral sense… The best and most enlightening book for the child… is nature itself, direct communion with it." AZR, "On the Matter of the 'Matmid' Children", Ben-Yehuda read/28069.
His ideal: a "garden-city far from the metropolis", in which the children study for part of the day and "spend most of the day in the open air in useful labor". And the formula: "Torah and labor are what we need". (He even warned that foreign literature might sever the child from his identity, a stance of cultural preservation characteristic of his time.)
Another facet of his thought: making the sources of Judaism accessible to all. In his article on Bialik's edition of the Mishnah for children, AZR sketches a chain of "unlocking":
"Of our teacher the Malbim… it was said that he 'permitted' the yeshiva students to study the Bible… and our poet Ch. N. Bialik unlocked the Aggadah… now Ch. N. Bialik has come and unlocked the Mishnah as well. Perhaps he will unlock the Talmud for us too… If only it were so!" AZR, "Mishnah for Children", Ben-Yehuda read/44057.
He praises a short and clear commentary ("explaining only what needs explaining"), and with the parable of R. Azriel "the plugger of holes" (who plugs even where there is no need) he skewers the long-winded commentators who "lock the doors" of Maimonides before the people. His vision: a short commentary on the "Mishneh Torah", "then all the Jews would know Judaism". And in a note, the saying of A. D. Gordon to him:
"A Jew who does not know how to study a page of Gemara is not a complete Jew; he lacks the national seasoning." A. D. Gordon to AZR, ibid. (note). (See "Gordon and the Joy of Labor".)
AZR's education stands on four pillars: freedom (not coercion, "the teacher… a good friend"), love ("the presence of mutual love"), labor and nature ("Torah and labor", the garden-city), and accessibility (to open the sources to all). "Grandfather of the Working Youth" was not a sentimental epithet but a coherent philosophy, remarkably progressive for its time.