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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




Appendix

Discussion Questions

BOOK II

Introduction

1. How is the body kept healthy, and how is it ruined?
2. What abilities does the mind have to deal with knowledge?
3. What functions serve the same purpose for the mind that the appetites serve for the body?
4. Name some of the virtues related to love, and some of the virtues related to justice.
5. Which virtues are related to the justice that we owe to our own bodies?
6. Why do the body, heart, and mind need governing?
7. What are the governing powers?

Part I - The Conscience

Chapter 1 - The Court Of Appeal

1. In what ways is conscience like a judge in a court of law?
2. Conscience continually bears witness of what two or three facts?
3. Why is it possible for conscience to give wrong judgments?
4. Which ability is used to tamper with conscience?
5. Why is it necessary for the conscience to be educated?

Chapter 2 - Teaching the Conscience

1. What teachers does the conscience depend on to teach it?
2. What's the educational value of history and biography?
3. What's the educational value of the Bible in teaching morals?
4. How does poetry teach us?
5. Why is the teaching of older novels and plays to be preferred?

Chapter 3 - Conscience's Rulings In The House Of The Body: Moderation

1. Give two or three examples from literature of immoderation in eating.
2. Give two or three examples from literature of immoderation in drinking.
3. Give two or three examples from literature of immoderation in relaxing.
4. Give two or three examples from literature of immoderation in day-dreaming.
5. What is Carlyle's advice about work?
6. What principle is moderation based on?
7. Why shouldn't we be careless about our health?
8. Explain how neglecting our health is a form of immoderation.
9. Give a few rules for the managng of our physical health.
10. Why do we need clear principles about our duty regarding our health?

Chapter 4 - The Rulings of Conscience in the House of the Body: Purity (Part 1)

1. How do overly attached friendships affect the purity of our soul?
2. 'Yet what have I done wrong?' What lesson can we learn from this question of King Edward II.'s?
3. Why aren't we free to give ourselves with unlimited abandon?

Chapter 5 - The Rulings Of the Conscience In the House Of The Body: Purity (Part 2)

1. Give some examples of sensible and sincere friendships.
2. What rules for self-management are illustrated in each of them?
3. What two kinds of friends have a right to our loyalty?

Chapter 6 - The Rulings of Conscience in the House of the Body: Purity (part 3)

1. Show the effect of devious flirtations.
2. What habit prepares the way?
3. Which monster of our nature do we not want to be in a death-grapple with?
4. How can we keep ourselves safe from this?
5. How can we keep 'a pure heart in work and will'?

Chapter 7 - The Rulings of the Conscience in the House of the Body: Fortitude

1. Describe Botticelli's 'Fortitude.'
2. How did Isaiah give us an image of fortitude?
3. Use two or three examplesto show that there is an element of kindness in fortitude.
4. Explain how Sir Kenneth in The Talisman illustrates an example of fortitude.
5. Give an example of fortitude under distressing troubles.
6. Give an example of cheerful, serviceable fortitude.
7. What about wearing a 'black ribbon' when things go wrong?
8. Show that fortitude is a physical virtue.
9. What did the Apostle Paul say regarding fortitude?

Chapter 8 - The Rulings of the Conscience in the House of the Body: Prudence

1. Show why imprudence is the same selfishness.
2. Why do we need prudence in everything we do?
3. Why do we need prudence in the choice of our friends?
4. How does prudence deal with undue influence?
5. Explain how prudence prefers simplicity to luxury.
6. Explain why prudent citizens are a society's most valuable asset.
7. How does prudence the way we furnish our surroundings?
8. How was the Scripture, 'My servant will deal prudently,' fulfilled?

Chapter 9 - Opinions in the Air

1. What part of our lives do we tend to think is exempt from the judgment of conscience?
2. Show the danger of casual opinions.
3. How does a fallacy work?
4. Give four rules that should help us in the matter of opinions.

Chapter 10 - The Untaught Conscience

1. Show that, in everyone, conscience is persistent about some issues.
2. What causes moral instability? Who tends to be morally unstable?
3. Show, by example, how an entire nation can be unstable.
4. Illustrate the danger of a compelling idea.
5. What are some of the dangers of moral ignorance?
6. Show that painstaking over-vigilance is a result of ignorance.
7. What moral advantage does an instructed conscience have over an uninstructed conscience?

Chapter 11 - The Instructed Conscience

1. Give some examples to show that sensible moral judgment is a valuable asset.
2. What's the difference between the ability to form moral judgments, and the ability to live a virtuous life?
3. How can we to get the ability to form moral judgments?

Chapter 12 - Some of Conscience's Teachers: Poetry, Novels and Essays

1. Show that the ability of poetry to educate the conscience does not depend on its direct teaching.
2. Explain the gradual way in which Shakespeare influences us.
3. For what purpose should we read novels, and what sort of novels should we read?
4. Why are essays useful for teaching us?

Chapter 13 - Some of Conscience's Teachers: History and Philosophy

1. Why is history important to us now more than ever?
2. What's the difference between an informed and an ignorant patriot?
3. Show why we need to know some philosophy.
4. How should we reach our convictions?
5. Illustrate that using Columbus as an example.
6. How may we tell the difference between a true 'message' and a fanatical notion?
7. How can we safeguard ourselves regarding philosophy?

Chapter 14 - Some of Conscience's Instructors: Theology

1. Why do most people live poor, crippled lives?
2. Contrast Jesus's method of teaching with most other methods.
3. Why are our Lord's sayings 'hard' intellectually, as well as morally?
4. 'They sit in darkness.' Who sits in darkness, and why?
5. What harm is there in entertaining questions of criticism?
6. Do we have any indications that we are declining from the knowledge of God?
7. What is the one question that really matters for all of us?
8. When are the little devotional books we use for spiritual stimulation unhealthy?
9. What should we bear in mind regarding the authors of the Scriptures?
10. What should we look for in the lives of men as told in the Bible?
11. How is the revelation contained in the Bible unique?
12. What two laws seem to apply to the revelations that God gives to the world?
13. What should we keep in mind to safeguard us from the 'Lo, here!' of each novel spiritual happening?
14. How will be come to know the difference between the merely human and the inspired elements in the Bible?
15. How can we discern the essential truth in Scripture?
16. How the loss of life that shocks us in some Bible stories paralleled in our own day?
17. How can we explain the mystery of why God allows so many people to die?
18. Why do we need to set aside our prejudices and misconceptions regarding the Bible?
19. What is the penalty for ignorance about God?
20. Explain why the tendency to think of God as a 'permissive' Parent is wrong.
21. Why is every little detail of Jesus that's recorded in the Gospels precious to us?
22. Use any argument you can think of to respond to the statement that 'miracles don't happen.'
23. Show that the words of Jesus are more amazing than the miracles of the Gospels.
24. Why shouldn't we accept the modern tendency to question Resurrection and the Incarnation?
25. What danger is concealed in trivial doubts?
26. How can you explain an attitude that over-analyzes, hyper-scrutinizes and clings to every challenge to the Bible?

Chapter 15 - Some Instructors of Conscience: Nature, Science, Art

1. Show that there is no excuse for ignorance about the things of nature.
2. In what two ways does nature approach us?
3. Explain how nature teaches us our duty towards God.
4. Explain how nature moves us to gratitude.
5. How has our modern preoccupation of mind shut out this teaching from us?
6. What does science teach the conscience?
7. What is the difference between science and scientific information?
8. What duty is laid upon our conscience regarding science?
9. What duty is laid upon our conscience regarding art?
10. What frame of mind should we have when we consider art?

Chapter 16 - Some of Conscience's Teachers: Sociology, Self-Knowledge

1. Why do we need to understand how other people live?
2. Why is casual help usually a hindrance?
3. What are the conditions of helpfulness?
4. What kind of knowledge about ourselves is wisdom?
5. What's so great about human nature?

Chapter 17 - Conviction of Sin

1. What is the conscience's job?
2. What convictions seem to be common to all men?
3. Explain how religion is no substitute for an educated conscience.
4. Name three mental habits that can limit the conscience.
5. Explain how uneasiness of conscience proves that sin is wrong.
6. How do our sins of omission affect us?
7. Explain why the conscience's rebuke is something to be thankful for.

Chapter 18 - Temptation

1. How does temptation come upon us?
2. Where does temptation come from?
3. What is the secret of heroic lives?
4. How is a reliable spirit trained?
5. What is our role in not entering into temptation?
6. Is it possible for penitence to become an obstacle?
7. What is the proper role of penitence?
8. What does, 'I believe in the forgiveness of sins' mean?

Chapter 19 - Duty and Law

1. Why is it wrong to do wrong?
2. What is 'wrong'?
3. In what different ways have people answered these questions?
4. May we excuse wrong-doing because it's 'human nature'?
5. Compare the assured peace of an enlightened Christian conscience with the uneasiness of superstition.
6. Why is it a delight to understand and to fulfil the law?

Part II - The Will

Chapter 1 - The Will-less Life

1. Explain how conscience, love, intellect, reason, can sometimes behave foolishly and unworthily.
2. What abolity within us has the job of managing the rest?
3. Show that it is possible to live without ever exercising the will.

Chapter 2 - The Will And Willfulness

1. Explain how willful people can have various dispositions.
2. What is the common characteristic of willful people? Give examples.
3. What is the difference between wilfulness and of will?
4. Give some examples from Sir Walter Scott of will-power and wilfulness.
5. Classify some people from literature or history on each side of a dividing line--on one side, the wilful people; on the other, people who use their will.
6. Classify some nations that fall on either side of such a line, and explain why they're on one side or the other.
7. What teaching has weakened the will-power of Western nations?
8. What is Jesus's teaching about the Will?

Chapter 3 - The Will Itself Is Neither Moral Nor Immoral

1. Show that will can be used for good or evil ends.
2. Show that a person of will can use evil means for good ends.
3. What's the difference between 'will' and 'an ideal?'
4. What interesting question does Browning raise about the Will?
5. What distinguishes the quality of a person?
6. What six points were discussed concerning the Will?

Chapter 4 - The Will and Its Friends

1. Explain how the will is subject to appeals.
2. Explain how the Will doesn't act alone.
3. What does the Will need to do?
4. When is the Will exercised, and upon what?

Chapter 5 - The Functions of the Will

1. What is the only power that Mansoul has as a free agent?
2. What is the one thing that the Will is able to do?
3. Why is it increasingly difficult for us to make decisions?
4. What is the danger of ready-made clothes and ready-made opinions?
5. Why may we choose only for ourselves, and not for others?
6. How can you reconcile choice and obedience?
7. What's the difference between obedience that's become a habit, and obedience that's a choice.
8. What is it that we're supposed to choose between?

Chapter 6 - The Scope of the Will

1. Show how allowance often passes for deliberate choosing.
2. Compare the difference between Will and allowance in some circumstance, such as when buying clothes.
3. Do we need to make a deliberate choice of Will for every small occasion?
4. How does the fallacy behind having to have the 'newest and cheapest' lead us astray?
5. What one consummate idea is ours to freely decide?

Chapter 7 - Self-Control, Self-Restraint, Self-Command, Self-Denial

1. What can we say about moral self-improvement for its own sake?
2. How does any obsessive absorption affect others?
3. What's the difference between absorption for a phase, or for a purpose, and self-absorption?
4. Describe a better way than moral self-improvement.
5. Show that what we call 'self-denial' makes it impossible to really love.
6. What kind of self-denial does Jesus require from us?

Chapter 8 - The Effort of Decision

1. How do we try to avoid the effort of making decisions?
2. Sum up the sort of creed that's behind 'Tolerance.'
3. Describe a picture of Ludwig Richter's that shows how 'Providence' and 'freewill' co-operate.
4. How can we tell the difference between a decision of the Will from one of 'making allowances'?
5. A person who uses his Will gathers what two assets during the course of his life?
6. How these serve him in big or little occasions?

Chapter 9 - Intention, Purpose, Resolution

1. Give two or three examples of the sequence ofa resolution.
2. What truth is illustrated by the halos of pictured saints?
3. When does 'influence' become harmful?
4. What sort of influence do we need to safeguard ourselves against?
5. Influence isn't something that comes from how much opportunity a person has, or even how hard they try. Where does our influence stem from?
6. What different acts of the Will are required of us ?

Chapter 10 - A Way Of The Will

1. Sum up what we know about the Will from our reading so far.
2. What advice is there for good-intentioned people who dread temptation?
3. Which gate needs to be guarded?
4. Who are the gate-keepers on guard?
5. Should we fight or run away?
6. What can the will do in times of temptation?
7. Show that the same weapon (what weapon?) applies to intellectual and moral enemy idea.
8. Show how Jesus's condemnation of fallacies proves that opinions should be selected on the basis of moral considerations.

Chapter 11 - Freewill

1. Why is it important to know as much as we can about the behavior of the Will?
2. Sum up the sixteen, or so, points we have tried to make so far.
3. Tell the difference between a person of determined Will and a conventional/mainstream person.
4. What are the only two services that man can choose between?
5. What can we discern about a person of good-will?
6. What did Tennyson say about our Wills?

Part III - The Soul

Chapter 1 - What The Soul is Capable Of

1. 'Sometimes we doubt whether we're finite creatures.' Give four or five reasons why.
2. Explain how our religious thinking has become so poor and ordinary that it colors the way we interpret religion.
3. How are our Soul's needs satisfied by God alone?

Chapter 2 - The Disabilities Of The Soul

1. What are some of the persistent obstacles and deep-rooted diseases of the Soul?
2. How can we tell if our Soul is lazy?
3. What is the cure for this laziness?
4. How does preoccupation affect our relationship with God?
5. Show how our involuntary aversion to God can actually be useful to us.
6. What's the difference between voluntary and involuntary aversion?
7. What the important deliberate choice we make with our Will?

Chapter 3 - The Knowledge of God

1. Under what condition can we have the one satisfying intimacy?
2. Who is this intimacy available to?
3. What are some ways that this divine friendship touches us?
4. Name some of the first ways that we sometimes gain knowledge of God.
5. Explain why the Bible is the immediate source of this kind of knowledge.
6. How is the Bible different from other great ancient writings?
7. Show how proper and necessary the knowledge of God is to the Soul of man.
8. Is this knowledge inevitable?

Chapter 4 - Prayer

1. Describe some of the expressions of spontaneous prayer.
2. What are some of our responses to these?
3. What two requirements of the soul are thus met?
4. What are some of the times and occasions for habitual prayer?
5. How can we serve the world with our habitual prayers?

Chapter 5 - Thanksgiving

1. What things make us hesitate to express the gratitude we owe?
2. 'My Soul rises and sees' what reasons to be thankful?
3. For what, besides our food, should we express thanks?
4. Why does it matter whether we thank God?

Chapter 6 - Praise

1. Explain how praise implies more than thanksgiving.
2. Who do we tend think of as being endowed with the right to praise God?
3. Explain why praise is our duty just as much as theirs.
4. Name some reasons that the Psalmist found to praise.
5. Who today especially gives us new reasons to praise?

Chapter 7 - Faith in God

1. Why do we find it frustrating to be told we need to 'just believe' in God?
2. How does faith come?
3. Explain how people have faith in each other.
4. What are the two sorts of faith that people can have?
5. Explain why we owe both kinds of faith to God.
6. How can we know if we have the faith of love?
7. Explain how faith is an act of will.
8. Show that believing in God is a duty that's required of us.
9. Is this duty fulfilled by serving our fellow man?
10. Explain how no article of the Apostles' Creed is supposed to appeal to our Reason.
11. Explain how all the great things of life also are mysteries.
12. Explain how Christianity means a relationship with Jesus.







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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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