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Charlotte Mason in Modern English
Charlotte Mason's ideas are too important not to be understood and implemented in the 21st century, but her Victorian style of writing sometimes prevents parents from attempting to read her books. This is an imperfect attempt to make Charlotte's words accessible to modern parents. You may read these, print them out, share them freely--but they are copyrighted to me, so please don't post or publish them without asking.
~L. N. Laurio
Home Education
Preface to the Home
Education Series
The future of education looks rather bleak both at home [in England] and overseas. Experts
say that, in order to make education more effective, we should focus on
science. Foreign language and math need major reform. Nature and
vocational skills should be used as ways of training the eye and hands.
Literature and history should be used to teach students how to do their
own writing. Experts say that education should be more technical, and
should be a means of preparing students for the workplace. But there is
no one unifying goal, no specific aim, no real philosophy of education.
A river can't rise any higher than the source it comes from. In the
same way, education can't rise any higher than the foundational thought
behind it. This may be the reason why our educational system is such an
utter failure.
Those of us who have spent years studying the vague, elusive vision of
Education see that there is a law behind education, but that we haven't
yet fully grasped that law. We sense the vague outlines of that
law, but that's it. We know that it touches every part of a child's
life at home and at school, and, like an illuminating light, that law
has a way of showing what the value system is behind our educational
systems and plans. Besides being like a light, that law is also like a
yardstick, setting the standard by which our educational efforts must
be measured. The law is not strict, it admits whatever things are true
and good without limit, except where too much would be harmful. The
law seems to lay a path out before us that goes on like a continuous
and progressive road through life, with no set lines marking
where childhood stops and adulthood begins except that the student
begins to walk the path independently when his training makes him more
mature. When we look into this law, we find that the Germans Kant,
Herbart, Lotze and Froebel were right when they said that knowing God
is the most important thing a child should learn. There is something
else we'll recognize when we finally see this law of educational
freedom clearly for what it is--it is so true and wise that it will
pass every test we can think of to give it in every area of life.
Since as yet we don't have a clear print-out of this law to read, we'll have to rely on Froebel or Herbart, or, if we
subscribe to another theory of education, on Locke or Spencer. But we
still aren't fully satisfied. We are discontented with our system of
education. It could be that our discontent is from God, but it is there
and any workable solution would be hailed as a great deliverance from
our confusion. But before a great solution is found, we will probably
encounter many attempts that focus on part of the problem and seem like
an educational philosophy, having a central idea with programs putting
that idea into effect.
Such an attempt would necessarily need to go along with the worldview
of the age. It would also have to relate to every facet of life,
not segmented off from real life, but as much a part of the cycle as
birth, marriage and career. And it must result in the student being
attached to the world at many different points of contact by having
interests in many things. It's true that educationalists are determined
to cement students' interests in their own pet areas, but there is no
one line of thought to make it applicable to all of life.
The naive sometimes rush in with their own solution, unconscious of the
complexity of the problem. Many suggestions have been offered that have
gotten us closer to a full understanding of the nature of education,
and that gives me courage to offer my own suggestion. The central idea
on which my suggestion is based is
this: that children are as fully and completely persons as we are, with
all the possibilities and potential for what they might become already
in them. Some of the educational notions and practices that stem from
this idea have been used in other educational methods, and have their
roots in plain common sense. One resulting notion that might be new is
that 'education is the science of relations.' This idea, that
everything is connected, seems to solve the question of a curriculum
since it means that children need to be in touch with as many things as
possible in nature and in thought. If you add a key or two to a child's
knowledge of his own human condition, the educated student will go
forth in the world with an idea of how to control himself, some
practical skills and many life-enriching interests. I have two reasons
for offering my own educational suggestion, however humble and fleeting
that suggestion may be. First of all, I have worked ceaselessly for
30-40 years to establish a working, philosophical theory of education.
And, second, every practice that I have tried as a result of my
educational theory has come from a step-by-step process of
inductive reasoning and has had success that has been verified with
various tests. I humbly offer my suggestion because I know that many
others more qualified than I have worked hard and still not arrived at
any solutions, so why should I feel that I have a solution of my own?
I am including a short summary of my theory, which is detailed more
fully in the six volumes of the Home Education Series.
My educational method is not a system of rigid steps, but just a bit
here and there. This seems more useful to parents and teachers. The
essays included in my books were written over the years for the
National Parents Education Union in hopes of presenting a coherent body
of thought to members.
Whichcote said that the end result of truth is so great that we must be
careful to make sure that what we live by is, indeed, the truth.
1. Children are born persons--they are not blank slates or embryonic
oysters who have the potential of becoming persons. They already are
persons.
2. Although children are born with a sin nature, they are neither all
bad, nor all good. Children from all walks of life and backgrounds may
make choices for good or evil.
3. The concepts of authority and obedience are true for all people
whether they accept it or not. Submission to authority is necessary for
any society or group or family to run smoothly.
4. Authority is not a license to abuse children, or to play upon their
emotions or other desires, and adults are not free to limit a child's
education or use fear, love, power of suggestion, or their own
influence over a child to make a child learn.
5. The only three means a teacher may use to educate children are the
child's natural environment, the training of good habits and exposure
to living ideas and concepts. This is what CM's motto 'Education is an
atmosphere, a discipline, a life' means.
6. 'Education is an atmosphere' doesn't mean that we should create an
artificial environment for children, but that we use the opportunities
in the environment he already lives in to educate him. Children learn
from real things in the real world.
7. 'Education is a discipline' means that we train a child to have good
habits and self-control, both in actions and in thought.
8. 'Education is a life' means that education should apply to body,
soul and spirit. The mind needs ideas of all kinds, so the child's
curriculum should be varied and generous with many subjects included.
9. The child's mind is not a bucket to be filled with facts that bunch
up into thought-groups, as Herbart said.
10. The child's mind is also not a bag for holding knowledge. It is a
living thing and needs knowledge to grow. As the stomach was designed
to digest food, the mind is designed to digest knowledge and needs no
special training or exercises to make it ready to learn.
11. This is not just splitting hairs; Herbart's philosophy that the
mind is like an empty stage waiting for bits of information to be
inserted puts too much responsibility on the teacher to prepare
detailed lessons. Students taught this way have lots of knowledge
taught at them, without
getting much out of it.
12. Instead, we believe that children's minds are capable of digesting
real knowledge, so we provide a rich, generous curriculum that exposes
children to many interesting, living ideas and concepts. From this
principle, we can deduce that--
13. 'Education is the science of relations,' which means that children
have minds capable of making their own connections with knowledge and
experiences, so we make sure the child learns about nature, science and
art, knows how to make things, reads many living books and that they
are physically fit. Our job isn't to teach everything about everything,
but to inspire interests that will help children make connections with
the world around them.
14. Children have two guides to help them in their moral and
intellectual growth--'the way of the will,' and 'the way of reason.'
15. Children must learn the difference between 'I want' and 'I will.'
They must learn to distract their thoughts when tempted to do what they
may want but know is not right, and think of something else, or do
something else, interesting enough to occupy their mind. After a short
diversion, their mind will be refreshed and able to will with renewed
strength.
16. Children must learn not to lean too heavily on their own reasoning.
Reasoning is good for logically demonstrating mathematical truth, but
unreliable when judging ideas because our reasoning will justify all
kinds of erroneous ideas if we really want to believe them.
17. Knowing that reason is not to be trusted as the final authority in
forming opinions, children must learn that their greatest
responsibility is choosing which ideas to accept or reject. Good habits
of behavior and lots of knowledge will provide the discipline and
experience to help them do this.
Principles 15, 16 and 17 should save children from the sort of careless
thinking that causes people to exist at a lower level of life than they
need to.
18. We teach children that all truths are God's truths, and that
secular subjects are just as divine as religious ones. Children don't
go back and forth between two worlds when they focus on God and then
their school subjects; there is unity among both because both are of
God and, whatever children study or do, God is always with them.
End of Preface
Preface to the Fourth Edition
In this volume, I hope to suggest a method of education whose
foundation is Natural Law, and, with this in mind, to discuss a
mother's duties in regard to her children. In speaking to mothers, I
defer to their own final judgment, since God Himself has given mothers
insight into their own children's characters, their strengths and
weaknesses. It is her insight that mysteriously works to make education
more effective than all the rules and regulations ever devised. But
even with her God-given insight, I think all mothers will agree that
there is a need to know certain general principles that apply to
children as a whole.
This scientific side of education does not come naturally, since God
does not usually bestow as a gift that which we can get by ourselves.
I hope that teachers of young children will also find this book useful.
Between the ages of 6 and 9 are the best time to lay the foundation for
a generous, varied education and to develop the habit of reading. In
these early years, children should enter the world of learning by being
exposed to many subjects, but in a relaxed, orderly way rather than
with the stress of lectures. I hope that teachers will find this new
approach interesting and stimulating. I hope this fresh perspective
will be helpful and give teachers inspiration to find their own ways of
implementing it.
This particular volume will focus on the effects of developing good
habits upon education--why certain physical, moral and intellectual
habits are valuable and how to develop them. I am indebted to Dr.
Carpenter's book Mental Physiology
for the information I used in the two or three chapters about habits.
And I would like to thank again my medical friends who helped revise
the parts of this book that deal with physiological matters.
Much of this book was given as 'Lectures to Ladies' in 1885, and
published in a book of that name in 1886.
Lectures VII and VIII and the original appendix have been transferred
to other volumes in this series. The whole series has been carefully
revised and new material has been added, especially in Part V, 'Lessons
as Instruments of Education.' That section is now a nearly complete
introduction to methods of teaching children ages 6-9.
The remaining sections of this volume deal with education from birth to
9 years.
C. Mason
Scale How, Ambleside, 1905
End of Preface
Paraphrased by L. N. Laurio
Please direct any comments or questions to me by emailing me at cmseries-owner at yahoogroups dot com.
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