In Montessori education, the teacher is ideally very caring, but not in the customary way. In most traditional schools, teachers try to help children by taking charge and giving them lots of instructions. The Montessori teacher is much less directive. She or he wants to help children by providing tasks that enable them to develop their powers on their own. Maria Montessori spoke of the teacher as humbly "serving" children in their own self-construction. In one passage, she even likened the teacher to a valet who lays out objects of use and then steps aside (1949/1982, pp. 281-284). Montessori believed that nature provides children with an inner sense of the tasks they need, and Montessori schools give children free choice among tasks and materials. But the teachers are not completely hands-off. They pay careful attention to each child's unique interests and emerging capacities, and sometimes introduce a task to a child. This article discusses how Montessori educators both care for children and foster caring behavior in them, and devotes special attention to Montessori's (and others') view that children can develop caring through contact with animals.