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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 249
Chapter 23 - Where Have We Come From? And
Where Are We Going?
A Question for Parents--I. Where Have
We Come From?
The
PNEU's Progress [PNEU =
Parents National Educational Union]
One observer noted that, 'The PNEU continues to move along on its own
steam without any fanfare or fuss,' and it's making unusually rapid
progress. Even
now, there are thousands of children with thinking, educated parents
being raised pretty much conscientiously and with a definite
purpose along the lines of the PNEU. Some parents are reading the Parents' Review and our other
information, some parents are members
of our various local branches or other departments, and even more
parents are being influenced by these parents. All of them have one
thing in common: the passion of working for an inspiring idea.
The
Importance of the PNEU
The force of this group of educated parents can hardly be
overestimated. When we think of these children growing up under
the
influence of these ideas who will one day be helping to govern and
lead our country, we're struck with a solemn sense of great
responsibility, and it's a good idea to stop and ask ourselves again
the two
pg 250
main questions that every organization should re-evaluate from time to
time: Where have we come from? and where are we going?
Where Have We Come From?
A person who's content with his home has no desire to move. The mere
fact that there was a 'movement' indicates that there was
dissatisfaction, and that there's been some kind of motion in a
direction that's different from the common, accepted way. But there's
one thing we don't want to lose from the old way of education.
The
Legacy of the Past
Exceptionally fine men and women were brought up by our grandparents,
and even by our parents. Those who are wiser and older among us may
observe what we're doing with goodwill, but they probably also have
an
unexpressed feeling that, in the old days, people were made from a mold
that we'll have a hard time improving upon. They didn't turn out such
fine people by chance, and such people weren't that way because of
their primers, spellers, or William Pinnock's Catechisms [of Botany, Grammar, Drawing, History, etc.
'to be learned by heart'] that we've abandoned with good reason.
Children
Are Responsible People
The school lessons of the old days couldn't have been much worse. The
training
was inconsistent, lacking any sound physiology or psychology, but our
grandparents had one saving virtue, although, for the past 20-30 years,
we've been working hard with a determined will to get rid of it. That
saving virtue was that the older generation recognized that children
were reasonable beings with minds and consciences just like theirs.
They just needed guidance and control from adults since they didn't
have much knowledge or experience yet. Just look at the strange, quaint
books they used to read. More than anything else, these books talked to
children as if they were reasonable, intelligent and responsible
(extremely responsible!) people. This
pg 251
pretty much represents the attitude of family life in those days. As
soon as a baby became aware of his surroundings, he became aware that
he was a morally and intellectually responsible being. One of the
secrets to effectively dealing with other people is realizing that
human nature tends to do what it's expected to do, and to be what it's
expected to be. Don't confuse this with a blind faith, like the
affectionate and foolish Mrs. Hardcastle in She Stoops to Conquer, who bestowed
that kind of belief in Tony Lumpkin. Expectation stimulates another
impulse, the chord of 'I am, I can, I ought' that needs to be alive in
every heart because that's the way we were created. All of the capable,
dependable men and women that I know were raised this way.
But
Now, We're Not So Sure
But what about now? These days, many children are brought up with the
old style of discipline, but without the unfaltering confidence of
those earlier times. There are other concepts floating around that
confuse us. One leading psychologist says that a baby is like a huge
oyster. Its job is to eat, sleep and grow. Even Professor Sully, in his
delightful book, Studies of Children,
seems unsure and torn between two concepts. The children have won him
over and convinced him beyond a shadow of a doubt that they're people
just like us, only even more so. Yet, he's also an evolutionist, and
feels obligated to accommodate the principles of evolutionary theory
into his concept of the nature of the child. So, he says that the child
supposedly goes through a thousand stages of moral and intellectual
development that lead him from the phase of being like a savage or an
ape, to becoming an intelligent, cultivated human being. If children
refuse to fit neatly into his outline of stages, then it's their fault,
and Professor
pg 252
Sully loves children too truly not to accept them as they really are,
with gaps that don't always fit into his evolutionary pattern. But I
have no evolutionary theory that I'm committed to advancing. I'm
inclined to believe the evolutionary model because it sounds so
logical, scientifically speaking. But the reality that I see with my
own eyes
make me think otherwise.
The
Mental Labor of a Child's First Year
When we consider the enormous intellectual work that an infant goes
through in his first year getting used to his environment, learning the
difference between far and near, round and flat, big and little, and a
thousand other specifications and limitations of this baffling, complex
world, then we're not surprised that John Stuart Mill was learning
Greek at age five, or that Arnold could tell all the Kings and Queens
of England by looking at their pictures when he was three, or that a
baby with a gift for music should know an impressive repertoire of
classical music.
Intelligence
of Children
One time I was saying that children could easily learn to speak two
languages at the same time. A man who was there said that his son was a
missionary in Bagdhad, married to a German lady. Their three year old
could express everything he had to say with equal fluency in three
languages--German, English and Arabic. He used each language depending
on who he was talking to. One thoughtful little four year old girl
asked, 'Nana, who does God love best? Little boys, or little girls?'
Her good-natured Nana wanted to please her, so she answered, 'God loves
little girls the most, of course.' 'Well, if God loves little girls the
most, then why wasn't He a little girl Himself?' Which of us more
sophisticated
pg 253
adults who have supposedly reached a more advanced stage of evolution
could have come up with a more conclusive argument than that? That same
little girl asked another time, 'Nana, if bees make honey, then do
birds make jelly?' That wasn't an illogical question. In fact, it only
shows that we grown-ups are too dull and unobservant of Nature's
mysteries to appreciate the wonder of bees making honey.
Children
Are Highly Gifted, but Ignorant
This is how children are--their intelligence is more acute than ours,
their logic is sharper, their powers of observation are more alert,
their moral sensitivities are more delicate, they're more abounding in
love, faith and hope--in fact, they're everything that we are, only more so.Yet they're totally
ignorant about the world and the things in it, about us and our ways,
and, most of all, about how to control and channel and realize the
unlimited possibilities that they were born with.
Happy
and Good, or Good and Happy?
The way we relate to children depends on our concept of them. If we
subscribe to the 'oyster' theory, then having fun will be the emphasis
of our dealings with them. In fact, most of our children's books and
our theories about education are based on this concept. 'Look how happy
he is!' we say, and we're satisfied, because we believe that if he's
happy, he'll be good, and that can be true many times. But in the olden
days, they believed that if you were good, then you'd be happy. And
this is a concept that inspires the wellspring of effort, and it
doesn't only work through all the different stages of childhood, but
it's true of all of life and even the hereafter. A child who has
learned to 'endeavor himself,' as the Prayer Book says, has learned to
truly live.
pg 254
Our
Perception of Children is Old, But Our Concept of Education is New
Our concept of 'Where have we come
from?' includes our perception of the nature of the child as:
'A Being who thinks with every breath,
A sojourner between life and death,'
which is an old perception that our grandparents believed. But our
concept
of the goals and methods of education is new. It was only made possible
during the late 1700's because it rests one foot on the latest
scientific advances in biology, and the other foot on the mystery
discovered in recent days, the mystery that matter serves the spiritual
like a
tool, and the spirit shapes, molds, and completely rules physical
matter. The spirit can affect the physical changes of the brain,
influencing what we might call the heart.
We know that the brain is the physical foundation and origin of habit,
and behavior and character are both the result of the habits we allow
ourselves to develop. We also know that an inspiring idea can initiate
a new habit in the mind, and, from there, a new habit of life. Knowing
these things, we recognize that education's great mission is to inspire
children with living ideas relating to the relationships of life, all
subjects of knowledge and fields of thought, and to devote careful
guidance to forming the habits of good living that come from the
inspiration of living ideas.
Divine
Cooperation
In this great work, we seek and are certain to receive the Spirit's
cooperation. We recognize that He is the Supreme Teacher of mankind,
teaching them everything that's considered secular as well as all
things sacred, although this concept is new to our modern way of
thinking.
Two
Educational Efforts
We're free to throw ourselves wholeheartedly
pg 255
into these two great educational efforts--providing inspiring ideas,
and developing good habits--because, with the exception of some
mentally handicapped children, we don't consider 'developing mental
faculties' as part of our work. After all, we can see for ourselves
that children's so-called 'faculties' are already sharper than ours!
Test
for Systems
We also have in our possession a way to test Systems that we come
across so that we can assess their educational value. For example, a
while ago, the London Board Schools exhibited some work, and one
exhibit that got a lot of attention was from New York, representing a
week's worth of work from a school using Herbart's methods. The
students had spent a week studying the theme of 'an apple.' They
modeled it out of clay, sketched it in paint, stitched the outline on a
sheet of cardboard, pricked it, formed the shape of the seed pod's
pentagon out of sticks. Older students made a model of an apple tree
complete with a ladder for climbing up to pick the apples and a
wheelbarrow to cart them away, and there was more along the same lines.
Everyone exclaimed, 'That's neat! How clever! What an ingenious idea!'
and went away thinking that they'd finally seen something worth
labeling education. But I have to ask, 'What was the foundational
idea?' The whole study was based on the external shape and internal
contents of apple, and these are things that children are already very
familiar with. What mental habits had they gained from their week's
work? Yes, they learned to really look
at an apple, but imagine how many other things they could have been
introduced to in that same week! The students probably never felt bored
since
pg 256
the teacher's enthusiasm urged them on. But just imagine:
'Rabbits hot and rabbits cold,
Rabbits young and rabbits old,
Rabbits tender and rabbits tough.'
These children probably had had enough of apples. The most education
this 'apple' study provides is in showing us how the human mind tends
to accept and rejoice in any neat, laid-out system that appears to
produce immediate results. Instead, we should be analyzing every school
lesson
and testing to see if it does or doesn't advance one or both of our
great educational principles [presenting
living ideas, and developing habits].
Advance
with the Tide
Where are we going? Our
question, 'Where have we come from?' opens a world of delightful and
unlimited possibilities and destinations. Since we're all working for
the progress of the human race through the individual children we
teach, let's carefully consider which direction this progress should
move towards, and then exert determined effort to educate our students
so
that they move in that direction and advance with the tide. 'Can't you
discern the signs of the times?' A new Renaissance is just around the
corner, and it will be even more important than the last one. We're
raising our children to lead and to guide in that renaissance, and to
help in many ways with that progress that the world is going to make by
leaps and bounds. But 'Where are we going?' is too great a question to
end a chapter with.
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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