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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
pg 1
Chapter 1 - The Family
'The family is the unit of the nation.'--F. D. Maurice.
Rousseau
Succeeded in Waking Parents Up
I don't think any other educational thinker has affected
parents as deeply as Rousseau did. People don't read Emile much anymore, but many
current theories about what kind of routine is appropriate for children
have their origin in that book, although most people may not be aware
of it. Everybody knows--and those who lived when Rousseau lived knew it
even better than we do--that Jean Jacques Rousseau's character didn't
earn him the right to act as an authority on anything, much less
education. Even he admits that he was a pathetic person, and we don't
see any reason to doubt the truth of his Confessions. It isn't his charm or
style that carries us away. We aren't dazzled by his 'forceful
weakness.' No person can express
more than he is within
himself, and there's
a lack of grit in his philosophical theories that makes most of them
not worth including in current thought.
pg 2
Yet, in spite of his faults, the one thing he did have was the insight
to recognize the kind of evident truth that seems to take a genius to
discover. Since truth is valued even more than rubies, his recognition
of that great truth qualified him to be ranked as a great teacher.
People have asked, and still ask, is Rousseau one of the prophetic
voices? Thousands of educated European parents zealously followed him,
and his teaching has filtered down even to secluded homes in our own
era. That seems to be answer enough. In fact, no other educationalist
has had even a small percentage of the influence that Rousseau has had.
People who fell under his spell in the fashionable world, such as
Princess Galitzin of Russia, abandoned society to take their children
off to some remote area where they could devote all their time and
resources to their parental duties. Refined mothers retired from the
world and sometimes even left their husbands so that they could learn
the classics, mathematics, science, and anything else that might enable
them to teach their children themselves. 'What else am I here for?'
they asked. And the sense that raising their children was the most
important obligation for any person kept spreading.
No matter how extreme the methods Rousseau had suggested,
he still would have people following him, because he happened to touch
a nerve that affected the hearts of many people. He was one of the few
educationalists who appealed to parental instincts. He never said,
'There's no hope that we can rely on parents, so we'll have to work on
the children without them!' That's the kind of disheartening,
pessimistic thing we say today. Instead, Rousseau basically said,
'Parents, this task is yours, and
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you're the only ones who can do it. It's up to you, parents of small
children, to be the saviors of the next thousand generations of
children. Nothing else matters. All the schemes that people work so
hard at are nothing compared to this one serious business of raising
our children to be superior to ourselves.'
And, as we've seen, people listened. The response to his teaching was
as overwhelming as letting water out of a dam. Parental enthusiasm
never saw such fervor as it did then. And Rousseau, as weak and
unworthy as he was, taught one correct truth: he turned the hearts of
the fathers to the children, which helped prepare a generation for the
Lord. But, unfortunately, although he laid the right foundation, the
rest of his teaching offered nothing but wood, hay and stubble to build
with.
Rousseau was successful at awakening parents to their parental duties.
He showed them that their parental obligations were binding, profoundly
serious, and covered an extensive range. But he failed, and rightly so,
when he offered his own clumsy conceit as an educational code. Still,
his success is encouraging. He recognized that God entrusted the
training of every child to two people: a mother and a father. The
overwhelming response of parents to his ideas proved that the hearts of
parents will rise to the idea of the important task entrusted to them
in the same way that tides respond to the gravitational pull of the
moon.
Every parent is conscious that there are unwritten laws. His perception
of
how definite or how noble those laws are is in proportion to his own
status. Yet, even though every parent has this awareness, it might
still be interesting to make an attempt to define these laws, even if
the attempt is very slight.
pg 4
The
Family is Like a Commune
'The family is the unit of the nation.' This saying carries a lot of
meaning, and it suggests what some of the areas of a parent's calling
are. From time to time throughout history, communal societies have
arisen. Sometimes they're for the sake of cooperating in a great social
or religious cause. In recent times, communes have been a way of
protesting against inequalities in condition. But in every commune, the
fundamental rule is that all members share everything in common. We
tend to assume in our careless way that these attempts at communal
living are doomed to failure, but that's not always the case. In the
United States, communes seem to be flourishing, perhaps because hired
help is harder to get there than here in England. They have several
well-regulated, thriving communes. They do have many that fail
disastrously, but it seems to be for the same reason--a government
that's weakened because they tried to combine both democracy and
communal principles. In other words, they tried to live together in a
common life, while each person did what seemed right in his own eyes. A
communistic group can only thrive when it has strong absolute rule.
Before the idea of collectivism [the
idea that the people should own the means of production; this is how
Soviet communism worked] became popular, a favorite dream of
socialism was that each State of Europe would be divided into all kinds
of small, self-contained communes. Sometimes the thing we want is
something we already have, if we could only see it. The fact is, the
family unit is like a commune. In a family, the undivided property is
enjoyed by all members in common, and all have equal social status, yet
different duties. In places that still have patriarchal rule, families
merge into tribes and
pg 5
the head of the family is the tribe's chief, with absolute sovereign
rule. In England, families are usually small. Parents, their children
and dependents, and the servants and things related to their household,
form part of the family.
Because families are so small, we don't notice their character. We
don't
notice the force of the family's ruler. We don't see that this natural
commune is the unit that our country is built with, and we fail to
realize that the family, like any commune, needs to fulfill all the
duties of the government with the same kind of delicacy, exactness and
detailed thoroughness that are suitable for any small operation.
The
Family Must be Social
A communal perspective doesn't mean that the family should have a
domestic policy of isolation. In fact, a nation is only civilized in
proportion to how close and friendly it is with other nations--not one
or two nations, but many. A nation that's isolated is uncultured and
primitive. We've seen how families who keep to themselves for
generations [inbreeding?] tend
to decline in intelligence and virtue.
The
Family Must Serve Its Neighbors
A nation is probably only as healthy as how many proper outlets it
has--how many colonies and dependents that it tries to include in its
national
life. And the miniature nation--the family--is the same way. Struggling
families at the bottom of the socio-economic ladder, orphanages,
missions, people whose paths we cross who have needs, all help to
sustain the family's higher life.
pg 6
The
Family Must Serve the Nation
But it isn't enough for the family commune to be on friendly terms with
its neighbors and strangers that cross its path. The nation is
constructed of family units. The nation, like the human body, is an
organic, living whole body, made up of lots of smaller living cellular
organisms. The family life is only complete when it meets its
obligation of contributing to the health of the whole body. The family
needs to share in public interests, help with public works, and value
what's good for the public. If the family isn't participating in the
life of the nation, then it's no longer a vital part of the living
whole organism. In fact, it becomes harmful, like decayed tissue in a
human body.
The
Divine Order as it Relates to Families and Their Relationships With
Other Nations
The family's concern isn't limited to the nation. A nation needs to
have wider relations and be in touch with the whole world, always
keeping up with the changes of human progress. And every integral part
of the nation--meaning each family--needs to share this attitude. This
is the simple and natural fulfillment of the noble dream of the
brotherhood of mankind. Every person attached to a family is bound by
ties of love even where there are no ties of blood. Every family is
united with a civic bond to form the nation. Every nation is allied
with other nations in love, and doesn't want to be outdone in virtue.
Everyone, whether nation or family, fulfills their roles like little
children around the feet and under the approving smile of the Heavenly
Father. This is the divine order of things, and every family is called
to fulfill its part. A little bit of leaven leavens the whole lump of
dough. That's why it's vitally important for every family to recognize
pg 7
the nature of the family bond and its obligations. In the same way that
water can't rise any higher than its source, we can't live at a level
any higher than our concept of our place and task in life.
Families
are Obligated to Learn
Languages and to Show Courtesy When They Go Overseas
Does regarding all education, community and
social relationships from the perspective of family have any practical outcome?
Yes--in fact, so much so that there's hardly any problem in life that
can't be solved within the context of the family. Take, for example,
the question of what we should teach children. Is there one subject
that should take priority over other subjects? Yes, one group of
subjects has an imperative moral
claim on us. The nation is obligated to have relationships of brotherly
kindness with other nations. Since the family unit is an integral part
of the nation, it's the duty of every family to have brotherly dealings
and conversations with the families of other nations when the occasion
arises. Therefore, learning the languages of neighboring nations is
more than a way to gain knowledge and culture. It's an obligation of
moral duty that helps realize the goal of universal brotherhood. For
that reason, every family should try to cultivate two languages besides
its own from the time the children are tiny.
One time, a pretty young British girl was staying at a German health
spa with her mother. They were the only British people there, and they
probably forgot that Germans are better linguists than we are. The
young lady sat through the long meals with a book. She hardly even
stopped reading long enough to eat, and only spoke a few words to her
mother, like
pg 8
'What is that mishmash supposed to be?' or 'How much longer do we have
to put up with these dull people?' She should have remembered that no
family can live only for itself. She and her mother were representing
England, and were all of England that that little German community
might ever know. If she had kept that in mind, she might have returned
the kind greetings that the German ladies welcomed her with.
The
Restoration of the Family
But we can't take any more time on this broad topic. Let's conclude
with this notable quote from Mr. Morley's Appreciation of Emile. [John Morley wrote a two-volume book
about Rousseau] 'Education gradually started to be thought of as it
related to the family. Improving the ideas that education was based on
was just one phase of the great movement of restoring the family. This
movement was a striking phenomena in France in the latter half of the
1700's. Education began to include the whole system of parent/child
relationships from earliest infancy to adulthood. The wider feelings
about these relationships tended to result in more closeness, more
intimacy, and the presence of tenderness and long attachment.'
Rousseau's work in the cause of 'the restoration of the family' earned
him the respect and gratitude of mankind. It has proved to be a solid,
lasting work. Even to this day, family relationships in France have
more grace, are more tender, closer and inclusive than they are
in British families. They're also more expansive, which leads to
generally kinder and friendlier behavior. The family bond is so strong
and satisfying that their youth don't find it urgently necessary to
'fall in love.' The mother makes herself available to be
pg 9
friends with her young daughters, and they respond with complete
loyalty and devotion. With the exception of Zola, French maidens are
wonderfully pure, simple and sweet, because their affections are fully
satisfied.
'The restoration of the family' sounds so inviting to us here in
England, with each of us focused on our own little family circle around
the hearth. It seems like family ties haven't been as tight for the
last couple of generations. Yet no place has a more
lovely, idyllic family life than the best British homes. But even the
wisest people can find something new to learn. Nations and individuals
need to do what's appropriate and true to their own character. We're
mostly satisfied with the state of family life here in England. Still,
we can learn something from the way French families include everyone.
They value extended family members, like in-laws, aunts, cousins,
widows and old childless spinsters. The French are able to find all
kinds of ways to make these kinds of dependents useful members of the
household, where they would just be in the way in British homes. As a
result, the children have more opportunities to practice kindnesses and
self-control that make home life sweeter. There's undoubtedly two sides
of the coin, and there are probably some aspects of French family life
that we wouldn't like. Still, we'd be wise to study French families
because they offer us opportunities to learn a lesson or two. Even
where our British home life is at its best, the family can tend to
become self-centered and self-sufficient instead of reaching out to
other families. Extending ourselves outwards towards our neighbours is
what families are supposed to do.
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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