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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


A Philosophy of Education, Volume 6 of the Charlotte Mason Series

pg xxv

Author's Preface

It doesn't seem like the story of Undine [text online] has much to do with a varied, generous education, but there is a connection. Love awakened the water sprite Undine's soul to life. And I have a story about how knowledge awakened the souls of people. Eight years ago [in 1914], the souls of some children in a poor mining village awakened with the magic touch of knowledge--and are still awake. We know that Christianity can awaken souls. We know that love can reform a person. A calling and a purpose can do that, too. In the Renaissance, the collective soul of an entire society awoke to knowledge. But we don't hear of this kind of awakening in our time. Sure, schools pride themselves on their pleasant lessons and their emphasis on good grades. But I believe that the thirst for knowledge in the children of the mining village is a marvel that indicates new possibilities. Thousands of British children had already experienced this kind of intellectual conversion, but those were the privileged children of the educated classes. Finding out that even children of poor mining parents were just as responsive seemed to spark new hope for the world. Perhaps all children are waiting for the call of knowledge to awaken them to a life of delight.

Mrs. Francis Steinthal, who started the educational awakening in Council Schools, wrote, 'Think what this means for children--disciplined lives, no rebellious labor strikes, justice, an end to struggles between classes, developed minds, and

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no demand for trashy, corrupt books! We shall, or, rather, they shall, live in a redeemed world.' She wrote this in a spontaneous burst of excitement when she heard that Council Schools had made a decision to use her plan for that pioneer school. Our enthusiasm makes us tend to see future prospects brighter than usual, but, really, this new education is bound to have excellent results. It hasn't even been nine years since Council Schools reformed their method, and already thousands of its students have found that lessons are enjoyable.

Certainly children could be content and get a sufficient education from their lessons the way things were, and Council Schools was doing just fine before the reformed plan. Yet both teachers and students find a huge difference between the kind of casual interest in learning that comes from good grades, pleasant lectures and other school methods, and the kind of passionate thirst for knowledge that comes with an awakened soul. The students have even convinced the school inspectors. One inspector listened to the long, detailed, animated narrations of one class and was astonished. Over the last thirty years, my co-workers and I have taught thousands of children in our schools, in homes and other places. As we've worked, we've kept the Dean of St. Paul's School, Mr. Colet's prayer in mind: 'Pray that all children will thrive on good life and good literature.' Probably all children who are taught this way grow up with the kinds of principles and interests that make their lives happy and useful.

I don't have any bones to pick against education. Our interest is only what's good for the society. The methods we propose will work in any school. I offer this book to the public to convince everyone involved with education of a few significant principles that have been either forgotten or were never known, and a few methods that are so simple that, like bathing in the Jordan river,

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they seem too humble to create a stir. Yet these principles and methods make education completely effective.

I'd like to add that nothing I've said in this book is mere opinion. Every point has been proven in thousands of cases, and the method can be observed at work in many schools, both large and small, both elementary and secondary.

My apologies to anyone who is asked to consider my method from various angles. I can't explain any better than by quoting old Fuller. 'Good reader, I suspect I've written some things twice. Although not word for word, the meaning is the same. I beg you to skip over anything that's redundant. You can imagine how challenging and tedious it was in such a long book to find all the repetitions! Besides being a challenging task, searching them out would take more time than I can afford. Even now, my life is growing short and I can't afford to spend even one minute in something as trivial as nit-picking for straws. But, since advice must be given line upon line, and precept upon precept, I'll repeat the words of St. Paul--'It doesn't bother me to write the same things to you that I have written before. In fact, it is for your own good.' [Phil 3:1, CEV]'

I'd like to close what is probably the last preface I will ever write again by gratefully acknowledging those friends who are working with me in what we believe is a great cause. The Parents' National Educational Union has accomplished the mission that is stated in its first proposal, and it has done so nobly and generously. 'The PNEU exists to help parents and teachers of all classes in society.' For the last eight years, the PNEU has taken on the work and cost of an ambitious conviction to help elementary schools. There are

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now about 150 such schools using the Parents' Union School programmes. In this past year, an encouraging development has taken place, thanks to the Honorable Mrs. Franklin. She made a suggestion to the Head of a London County Council School about forming an association of parents. It would require some minor dues to cover expenses, but would offer them certain advantages. At their first meeting, one of the fathers who was there got up and said that he was very disappointed. He had expected to see three hundred parents and there were only about sixty there! But those who promoted the meeting were encouraged to see sixty. Most of those sixty became members of the Parents' Association, and their work goes on enthusiastically.

We have many fellow workers to thank, but even the very courteous Paul who wrote a letter to the Romans wouldn't be able to sufficiently acknowledge all of the people who are responsible for the success of this movement, which I'll attempt to explain thoroughly in the pages of this book.

CHARLOTTE M. MASON
HOUSE OF EDUCATION
AMBLESIDE, 1922

pg xxix

A Short Synopsis of the Educational Philosophy Explained in This Book

'As soon as the soul spots truth, the soul recognizes it as her first and oldest friend.'
'The repercussions of truth are great. Therefore we must not neglect to correctly judge what's true, and what's not.'
--Benjamin Whichcote

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 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.

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.

pg xxx

9. The child's mind is not a blank slate, or a bucket to be filled. 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.

10. 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 that the children, for all the teacher's effort, don't learn from anyway.

11. 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.

12. 'Education is the science of relations' 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.

13. In devising a curriculum, we provide a vast amount of ideas to ensure that the mind has enough brain food, knowledge about a variety of things to prevent boredom, and subjects are taught with high-quality literary language since that is what a child's attention responds to best.

14. Since one doesn't really 'own' knowledge until he can express it, children are required to narrate, or tell back (or write down), what they have read or heard.

15. Children must narrate after one reading or hearing. Children naturally have good focus of attention, but allowing a second reading makes them lazy and weakens their ability to pay attention the first time. Teachers summarizing and asking comprehension questions are other ways of giving children a second chance and making the need to focus the first time less urgent. By getting it the first time, less time is wasted on repeated readings, and more time is available during school hours for more knowledge. A child educated this way learns more than children using other methods, and this is true for all children regardless of their IQ or background.

pg xxxi

16. Children have two guides to help them in their moral and intellectual growth--'the way of the will,' and 'the way of reason.'

17. 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.

18. 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.

19. 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.

20. 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.

pg 1

A Philosophy of Education

Book 1

Introduction

These are stressful times for those involved with education. WWI is over, and we rejoiced in the strength, bravery and devotion shown by our soldiers. We recognize that these things are due to our schools, and to the fact that England still breeds 'very valiant people.' It's nice to know that the whole army was remarkable. The natural heroism of our officers benefitted even more from the education that every boarding school boy gets, and from organized sports where they learn habits of obedience and leadership. But what about the pathetic ignorance we saw in the thinking of those many men who chose to stay home? Is it our fault? I guess most of us feel like it is. Those men were educated by the methods we thought were correct. I mean, they can read and write and think through an argument, although they're unable to detect a fallacy. Perplexed, we wonder, why do so many people seem to have no impulse to be generous, no logical patriotism, no ability to see beyond their own narrow concerns? It's because those things come only with the proper education. Those things distinguish a well-educated person. When millions of the men who should be the strong backbone of the country seem to feel no duty to serve their fellow man, we have to ask, 'Why

pg 2

weren't these people educated? What have we given them instead of an education?'

If we've erred in education, the problem has stemmed from our concept of what the mind is. The theory which has trickled down to teachers is the outdated notion that the mind is made up of different 'faculties' that have to be developed. This notion comes from the idea that thinking is nothing more than a function of the brain. And that notion is the only explanation for the scanty curriculum that most of our schools provide, and for the tortuous way teachers give lessons, and the disastrous idea that 'it doesn't matter what the child learns, all that matters is how he learns it.' We teach a lot, but the students learn very little. So we comfort ourselves with the belief that we're 'developing' one 'faculty' or another of his mind. The nation that understands that it is knowledge itself, and not developing faculties, that education should concern itself with, will have a great future. The mind needs the daily food of knowledge.

Teachers are searching for a sound theory. Such a theory must be convinced the the mind plays an active role in education, and what conditions the mind needs to do this. We need an educational philosophy that realizes that only thoughts can appeal to the mind, and that thoughts give rise to more thoughts. All of the activities of the senses and muscles that supposedly train the mind as well as the body must be put in their proper places. This point is very important. Understanding that the mind feeds on thoughts and ideas, and isn't developed with physical exercises, isn't just something that needs to be understood as part of education, it's all of education. This relates to vocational training, too. Our newspapers scornfully ask, 'Is book-learning the only good education? Isn't the boy running a farm, or fixing computers, also getting an education?' The public lacks the courage to say with conviction, 'No, he isn't,'

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because the public doesn't have a clear understanding of what education is, and what makes education different from vocational training. But the people are beginning to understand. They are beginning to demand that their children receive the kind of education that prepares their children for life, not just to earn a living. As a matter of fact, the man who has read and thought about all kinds of subjects and also has the training he needs, will be the most capable, whether his skill is with handling tools, drawing plans, or accounting. The more of a well-rounded, whole person we succeed in making the child, the better able he'll be to fulfill his potential, live his life and serve society.

There has been a lot of talk about what caused the break-down in character and conduct in Germany [in WWI]. The terror of war was just one symptom, and the symptoms have been traced to the kinds of thoughts that the people had been taught to think for three or four generations. We've heard a lot about Nietzsche, Treitschke, Bernhardi and the rest [this online article may help to summarize popular thought in pre-WWI Germany], but Professor John Henry Muirhead helped us to see that it goes even deeper. Darwin's theories of natural selection, the survival of the fittest and the struggle for existence, came at the moment Germany was ripe for such an idea. The ideas of a super race, the super state, the right for the strongest country to disregard treaties and destroy weaker countries, and to recognize no law except what serves its own interests--these come from Darwinism as surely as a chicken comes from an egg. The concept that 'might makes right' actually predates even Darwin--Frederick the Great wrote, 'Let those who have power take, and whoever is strong enough to keep power is entitled to it.' Perhaps Darwin, an Englishman, gave Germany a logical reason to do what it wanted to do anyway. Human nature tends to prefer natural laws over spiritual laws and to get its code of ethics from science rather than God. And that's why the Germans took Darwin's theories as justification to be brutal.

pg 4

Here are a few examples of how German philosophers add to what Darwin said: 'All natural and spiritual powers dwell in physical matter. Matter is the foundation of everything that is.' 'What we call spirit, thought or knowing, is merely natural forces in peculiar combinations.' Darwin himself protests against the idea that, in man's higher nature, the struggle for existence is the most driving force. He never intended to make education purely materialistic any more than Locke intended his essays to bring about the French Revolution. But men's thoughts have more power than they think. Darwin and Locke both directly influenced world-changing ideas. Germany had had 25 years of materialistic thought, so they accepted Darwin's ideas. His theories freed them so that they no longer felt limited by morals. Darwin's follower, Ernst Haeckel, thought that the concept of natural selection made it acceptable for Germany's lawless action [since they were merely a country struggling to survive] and led to the notion of a superman. 'The principle of natural selection is very elite.' Buchner also simplified Darwin's theories and made them more popular. 'All the things the brain does that we think of as physical activities are only functions of the physical brain. Thought is to the brain what gall is to the liver.'

However Germany has used Darwin's teaching, good or bad, wouldn't concern us (except for the war), except that Germany has influenced our educational thought with the fallacy that the brain has various faculties that need to be developed. English psychology hasn't come to any firm conclusions yet, but it has progressed far enough to deny the myth of brain faculties. The concept of

pg 5

'mind' may be debated, but all psychological writers write about it [thus confirming its existence?] At least, that's what the Encyclopedia Britannica says under Psychology, and they are qualified to know. We have mind and we have matter. If, as we're told, psychology rests on feeling, then what about mind and physical matter? Is there something else?

II

The body needs healthy food and can't thrive on just anything. We don't realize that the same is true for the mind. The war [WWI] taught us that men are spirits. The soul, spirit and mind of a man is something more than just his physical body. A person's spirit is the person. His physical body lives and breathes merely as a vessel for his thoughts and feelings. Now we recognize that man is a spiritual being. And so we need to make sure that the education we give the next generation is made up of the great thoughts and great events that influence the way our nation thinks.

The educational thought we hear about most is based on various Darwinian presumptions. And from Darwin's theories, people have come to think that all that matters is physical health, and being trained with a marketable skill. Those things may be important, but they aren't the most important thing. In the 1700's when Prussia lost their war against Napoleon, they discovered that it wasn't Napoleon who was responsible for the country's ruin, but the ignorance of their own citizens. Some philosophers worked together to bring history, poetry and philosophy to the people, and it saved the nation. Studying those things develop the whole person: his character, cooperative community spirit, and personal initiative. Those were the qualities that Prussia needed most. Those are also the qualities that make individuals happy and successful. But, on the other hand, when

pg 6

Germany switched to a utilitarian style of education, that was the beginning of its moral downfall. History repeats itself--there are rumors such as one where students in Bonn, Germany burned French novels, art prints and other luxury items in a solemn procession. This is just the kind of thing that ruined Germany before. Its youth should have saved Germany, both then and now. Will Germany have another Tugenbund? [Tugenbund is an organization compared to the KKK; based on the teachings of philosophers such as Voltaire and Rousseau, it originated under the name Order of the Illuminati. Its original purpose was to advance secular philosophy and eliminate monarchy, religion and religious morality. Their goal was for The Order to take over the world.]

We need an education that will nourish the mind as well as provide physical and vocational training. In other words, we need a philosophy of education that works. I believe that the PNEU has found such a philosophy. Over the last thirty years, we have tested and made adjustments to our theory, and had success with thousands of children. I've written about this theory in the other volumes of the Home Education Series, which have been published at various intervals over the past 35 years. I'll summarize just a few of the most important points that set it apart from current education:

(a) It's the children, not the teachers, who are responsible for being educated. Children exert their own effort to do the work of learning.

(b) The teachers encourage and sometimes help explain or guide, but the actual work is done by the students.

(c) In each 12-week term, students read 1000-3000 pages, depending on their age and level, from a variety of scheduled books. Such a large amount of material allows only enough time for a single reading. Comprehension is tested by narration, or by writing on a test passage. By the time term exams come up, so much material has been covered that reviewing it all would be impossible. But the children know and retain what they've read. They can write about any part of it easily and clearly with dramatic style. They usually spell well.

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Many feel that 'mere book learning' is inferior, and that people need to focus on the practical aspect of living. But I'd like to point out that, whatever weaknesses have been found with using books don't apply to our method. As far as I know, this method has never been used before. Has there ever been a wide-spread attempt to get students to know many pages from lots of books after a single reading, and to know it so well that they can write about any part of it freely and accurately, even months later?

(d) Lessons, books and passages aren't selected for school based on the child's whims. The best available book is used and read through consecutively, sometimes over two or three years.

(e) Children study many books on different subjects, but that doesn't seem to cause them confusion. Bloopers on tests are almost nonexistent.

(f) Students find that, as Bacon said, 'studies are delightful.' This delight doesn't rest in entertaining lessons, or a pleasant teacher. It rests purely in a love for their books.

(g) Whenever possible, well-written, literary books are used.

(h) Grades, prizes, placement, rewards, punishment, praise, blame, or other inducements aren't necessary to get a child to pay attention. Students pay attention willingly, immediately and very effectively.

(i) Success in disciplinary subjects such as math and grammar depends on the ability of the teacher, although the students' habit of attention helps here, too.

(j) No diverting rabbit trails are followed to capitalize on student interest. The knowledge the children get is consecutive.

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The children show unusual interest in their lessons and pay close attention. They have varied and fairly accurate knowledge of history, literature and some science. These results have made people take notice and assume that these children are tutored in privileged homes where education and culture is valued. Nobody believes that these results aren't the norm for all tutored students. But soon it will be apparent that all children are capable of this kind of success. Then there will finally be hope that even children of lower socio-economic classes, or children of working parents, can receive this kind of varied, generous education.

We believe in cause and effect, and our results make it evident that we have stumbled onto previously unknown truths about how education works. At any rate, we have discovered truth in Comenius's Golden Rule: 'Teachers shall do less teaching, yet students will learn more.'

Now let's outline a few of the educational principles that are responsible for our success.

III

Principles That Have Been Unrecognized or Disregarded Before Now

I've discussed some of the ways in which our work is extraordinary. I hope to convince readers that our results--students doing so well both in classrooms and home correspondence schools--are based on principles that have been unrecognized until now. Recognizing these principles should give our country's education an intelligent foundation and should make students more stable, content and ambitious.

I'd like to add a couple more arguments to my reasons for implementing this kind of education.

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This education doesn't just work for unusually smart children. It works for average and handicapped children, too.

Schools using this plan take less time to do a day's work than ordinary schools, even though the number of subjects is the same.

There's no need to do reviews, complete work at night, cram for tests, or catch up in subjects. So there's more time to use for vocational training, outside pursuits, or hobbies.

All bookwork is done in the morning so that afternoons are free for outdoor nature study, drawing, handicrafts, etc.

Even with these limitations, students produce a surprising amount of good intellectual work.

There is no homework.

It isn't that we PNEU workers are such geniuses, but, like William Paley's man who found the watch, 'we have stumbled onto a good thing.'

'Any benefit that I experience should be shared.'

We feel that the country and, in fact, the whole world, should know about educational discoveries that can make people more moral. We are experiencing the Renaissance as if for the first time, except we don't have its pagan lawlessness.

Let me share the steps that brought me to these conclusions. When I was a young woman, I spent a lot of time with a family whose half Indian children were living at their grandfather's house and being raised by their aunt, who was a good friend of mine. The children impressed me. They were generous and sensible, intelligent, creative and able to discern moral issues with understanding. Their imaginativeness and moral insight were illustrated one day when the five-year-old girl came home from her walk silent and sad. After leaving her alone for awhile, some careful questioning brought out sobs as she struggled to get the words out--

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'a man--no home--nothing to eat--no bed to sleep in,'--and then she collapsed into tears. Such incidences may be common in most families, but it was new to me. I was reading a lot about educational philosophy at the time because, like any enthusiastic young teacher, I thought that education should change the world. I worked at an elementary school and a church high school, so I was able to observe children in varied age groups. But children aren't as open at school as they are at home. Being with my friend's children taught me to view them as persons, and I began to suspect that they are more than we adults are, except that they haven't learned everything they need to know yet.

I did find one limitation with these children. My friend claimed that they couldn't understand English grammar. I disagreed and said that they could. I even wrote a little grammar book for children aged 7 and 8, which is not quite ready to publish. But I found that my friend was right. She let me give my lessons with as much clarity and freshness as I could. But it was useless. No matter how hard I tried, they couldn't understand the nominitative case. Their minds rejected the abstract concept, just like children reject the idea of writing an essay about 'Happiness.' But I had learned something--a child's mind accepts or rejects new knowledge according to what it needs.

Once I had established that fact, the next step in logic was obvious. In accepting and rejecting knowledge, the mind is actively seeking what it needs. The mind needs nourishment to grow and be strong, just like the physical body. But the mind can't be measured or weighed. It's spiritual. Therefore, its food must also be spiritual. The mind needs the nourishment of ideas--what Plato called images. I came to understand that children are equipped with all they need to deal with ideas.

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Explanations, comprehension questions, drawing out points, are unnecessary. They bore children. Children are born with a natural hunger for the kind of knowledge that is informed with thought. Like the stomach's gastric juices digesting food, children use their own imagination, judgment and what some people call 'faculties' to digest a new idea. This discovery was enlightening, but a bit startling. All of the teacher's hard work to present vividly, illustrate accurately, summarize and draw out by questions were nothing but obstacles. They intervened between the children and their mind diet of ideas. On the other hand, when children are presented with the right idea, they go to work on it with the focus and single-mindedness of a hungry child eating his dinner.

The Scottish school of philosophers explains this with their doctrine of desires. [Perhaps explained in this online article?] It seemed to me that those desires could stimulate the action of the mind so that it seeks invisible nourishment, just like appetites do to keep the body alive and continue the human race. This was helpful. It seemed to me that, of all the desires, the desire for knowledge (curiosity) was the main tool of education. This simple desire to know can be paralyzed, or rendered as powerless as a deformed arm if other desires are allowed to come between a child and the knowledge that's appropriate for him. Placement can encourage competition, prizes can encourage greed, special privileges can encourage ambition, praise can encourage vanity. Any of these can be a stumbling block for the child. It looked to me like, without even realizing it, teachers had created a complex system to ensure that students would behave and be enthusiastic about their lessons through the use of grades, prizes, etc. Yet, in doing that, they have eliminated the children's natural thirst for knowledge, which is incentive enough.

And then I asked myself, Can't people do just fine with a bare minimum of knowledge? After all, how much is really necessary? My young friends gave me an answer. Their insatiable

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curiosity showed that the whole world and its history was barely enough to satisfy any child, unless spiritual malnutrition had made him apathetic. My next question was, What is knowledge? Ages of intellectual thought haven't answered that question yet! But perhaps all we need to know is that the only knowledge a person has is what he has digested when his mind has actively chewed on it.

Children's natural inclination to learn, and their eagerness to know everything, made me conclude that the areas made accessible for children to learn about should never be artificially restricted. He has a right to as much and as varied knowledge as he's able to take in, and he needs it. Any limitations on his curriculum should only depend on what age he leaves school. In other words, a common curriculum up to age 14 or 15 should be the right of every child [regardless of social class].

We no longer believe that old medieval notion that intelligence is only born in children of the privileged classes, or that intelligence is inherited or can be developed by artificially manipulating the environment a child grows up in. Of course, inheritance plays a part, but so many factors come into play in genetics. Environment can make a child's learning fun or stressful, but learning is a spiritual thing of the soul, and can't be forced by making the child look at things or making him manipulate his fingers. Things of the mind are what appeal to the mind. Thought gives rise to more thought, and that is how we are educated. This is why we owe it to every child to put him in touch with great minds so that he can have access to great thoughts. Then he can be in communication with the minds of the people who left us great works. The only essential method of education seems to be that children should read worthy books, and lots of them.

But some will say that schools have libraries, and children have access to their public libraries and that they do read. Or, some will protest that the literary language of well-written books is too challenging for children of the lower classes. But

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we know that, although haphazard reading is fun and can even teach a thing or two--yet it isn't education in the sense of obtaining knowledge. If a person reads casually, then he isn't really applying his mind to work at making the knowledge 'his own.' If we don't actively read to know, then we won't be much better educated, even if we read a lot.

Why insist that books be written with literary style? My many years of experience have shown me too many circumstances and considerations to describe here, but I have seen that it comes naturally to us to enjoy well-written words--until our 'education' kills our taste for books.

It's difficult to explain how I figured out how to solve the problem of getting students to focus their attention. Observing many children, things I read here and there, remembering my own childhood and considering my own current mind habits, has taught me that there are certain laws that relate to the mind. By adhering to those laws, the focused attention of children can be guaranteed all the time, regardless of their age or social class. And they can keep their attention focused even with distractions. It's not due to the winning ways of their charismatic teacher, since hundreds of different teachers working both in homes and PNEU elementary schools and junior high schools are able to secure the attention of students without really trying. And it isn't because their lessons are so entertaining. The students do find their lessons interesting and enjoyable, but they're interested in a lot of different subjects, and their attention doesn't wander during the dull parts.

It's not easy to summarize those principles that the mind acts on naturally in a few sentences. I've tried to relate those principles as they apply to a school curriculum. The main idea is that children are already persons when they're born, which makes them affected by the same motivations to behavior that

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we adults are. One of those is the desire for knowledge. Everyone hungers to know, because curiosity is natural to everybody. History, geography, what other people think, which is humanities, are things that we all like to know about, and it's good for us to know about them. Science is, too, since we all live in this world and want to know more about it. Everyone needs beauty and wants to know how to evaluate it, so art is something worth knowing about. Ethics and social studies teach us how to act in life. And everyone needs to know about religion, because all men, not just those on the battlefront, hunger for God.

Since all children have that thirst to know, their unspoken demand is to have a wide and very diverse curriculum. They should learn something about all the many different issues that humans should know about. The various subjects included in their curriculum should never be curtailed because of convenience or time constraints.

Considering the wide range of things that children have a right to know about because they are persons, how can we get them to learn those things? What should they learn in the few years they go to school? We have discovered answers to those two questions. I say discovered rather than invented, because there's only one way to learn. Intelligent people who can talk about any subject, and experts who know a lot about a specialized subject, both learned in the same way--by reading to know. I have discovered that this method of reading in order to know is available to any child, whether homeschooled or in a large classroom.

Children are born with all they need to deal with knowledge, in the same way that they're born with all they need to deal with digesting their food. They already come pre-wired with a hunger to know and an enormous, almost unlimited ability to focus their attention. Their ability to remember seems to be related to their power of attention

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in the same way that the stomach and intestines are related to the total digestion of food. Some might say, 'Yes, children have natural curiosity and they're capable of paying attention when they're interested, but they can only be coaxed to attend to their lessons part of the time.' But isn't that the fault of the lessons? Shouldn't lessons be planned carefully around the needs of the child's mind, just as his meals are planned around the needs of his physical body? Let's consider the way the mind works. The mind is concerned only about thoughts, imaginings, and reasoned arguments. It doesn't assimilate facts unless they're in the form of appropriate mind food. The mind is always active. It tires quickly of passive listening. A child's mind is as bored by the rambling twaddle of a prattling teacher as we adults are by twaddly small talk. The mind prefers something literary. When presented with something in literary form, the mind is curious and will attend to a great variety of topics.

I say that these are things of the mind because they seem to be true of the minds of everyone. I've observed these things, as well as a few other points about how the mind works. All I needed to do was to apply what I had discovered to a trial curriculum for schools and families. Lectures were mostly eliminated. Lots of books from many subjects were scheduled for reading during morning school hours. So much work was scheduled that there was only time for a single reading. All reading was tested by narrating either part of the selection or the entire reading, either orally or in writing. Students doing this kind of work know what they read, even months later. Their ability to focus their attention is remarkable. They don't have trouble with spelling or composition. They mature into well-informed, intelligent people. (The small test school related to The House of Education, with students from ages 6-18, tests the schedule of schoolwork sent out each term and the end-of-term exams. The work in each form/grade is easily finished in the hours of morning school.)

pg 16

But someone might say that reading or hearing different books read out loud chapter by chapter and then narrating is merely memory work. But that can be easily tested. Before turning off your light in bed, read a newspaper article or a chapter from Boswell or Jane Austen, or an essay by Charles Lamb. As you go to sleep, narrate silently to yourself what you just read. You'll be disappointed with the results, but you'll find that the act of narrating requires every power of your mind. Points and details that you didn't notice come into your memory. The whole thing is visualized and brought into focus in an unusual way. What's happening is that the particular scene or argument has become part of your personal experience. You have assimilated and know what you read. This is not memory work. In order to memorize, we repeat a passage or series of points or names over and over, inventing little clues to help us. We can memorize a string of facts or words this way, and that memory is useful in the short term, but it isn't really assimilated. After its purpose is served, we forget it. That's the kind of memory work students use to pass exams. I won't try to explain (I don't even understand!) this power to memorize. It has its temporary use in education, I'm sure, but it must never take the place of the main tool, which is the ability to focus the attention.

Long ago, a philosophical friend used to quote this saying: 'The mind can know nothing except what it can produce as an answer when it asks itself a question.' I haven't been able to trace the saying to its author, but over the last forty years, I've become more convinced of its importance. It implies that questions shouldn't come from

pg 17

without (this doesn't include the Socratic method of questioning to draw out students' thinking for the purpose of teaching morals). This internal questioning is necessary to be certain of something intellectually, to really own the knowledge. For example, if we want to get the details straight in our memory after a conversation or incident, we go over it again in our minds. That 'going over' process is the self-questioning I just mentioned. When someone narrates something they just read, this is what happens: The mind asks itself, 'what happened next?' to remember each consecutive detail. This is why it's so important that only one single reading be allowed. Trying to use rote memory techniques weakens the power to focus the attention, which is exactly what the mind needs to do. If the teacher wants to ask questions so that certain points are emphasized, they should be asked after the narration, not before or during.

Some advanced psychologists agree. They declare that the key is 'not a group of mind faculties, but one single subjective activity, which is attention.' And, again, there is 'one common factor in all mind activity, and that's attention.' (I'm quoting from the Psychology article in the Encyclopedia Britannica.) I would add that attention is unfailing, prompt and steady--so long as the material set in front of students is suited to their intellectual requirements, and so long as the material is presented concisely, directly, and simply, as all good literature should be.

Another thing to keep in mind: the intellect needs a moral motivation. We tend to rouse our minds to action better when we know, somewhere in the back of our minds, that there's a reason that we must. For students, that reason is that they'll be required to narrate or write from what they just read, and they'll have no opportunity to look things up or otherwise refresh their memory. Children enjoy narrating so much that the teacher hardly ever has to coax students to do it.

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What follows is a complete list, a chain, describing the educational philosophy that I've tried to work out. If nothing else, what it has in its favor is that it's been successful in practice. I've adopted and applied a few hints, but I hope that I've succeeded in methodizing the whole thing and making education what it should be--a system of applied philosophy. Even so, I have been careful not to use philosophical terms.

Briefly, here's how it works:

A child is a complete person with all the spiritual needs and abilities of any person.

Knowledge nourishes the mind in the same way that food nourishes the body.

A child needs knowledge just as much as he needs food.

He already has:
The desire for knowledge (curiosity).
The ability to take in knowledge by paying attention.
As much imagination, reflection, judgment, etc. as he needs to deal with knowledge, without the need for outside props.
Natural, inborn interest in all the kinds of knowledge that he'll need as a human being.
The ability to retain and articulate that knowledge, and assimilate what he needs.

He needs most of his knowledge to be communicated to him in literary form. When he articulates knowledge from a literary source, his version will be touched by his own unique personality, so that his reproduction becomes original.

The natural ability for making use of knowledge and digesting it is already sufficient. No external stimulus [reward, threat, entertainment] is needed to make a child learn. But some kind of moral motivation is needed to prompt students to pay attention.

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The moral motivation is knowing with certainty that he will be required to tell what he read. Children have a right to the best that we have. Therefore, their school books should be the best books we can find.

Children get tired of lectures, and bored with comprehension questions. They should be allowed to use their schoolbooks for themselves. If they need help, they'll ask for it.

Children need a variety of knowledge--about religion, humanities, science, art. Therefore, they should have a broad curriculum with a set amount of reading scheduled for each subject.

The teacher should give the student some direction, sympathy in his work, an encouraging word sometimes, help with things like setting up experiments, and the usual help they need in languages, experimental science and math.

When education follows these conditions, 'lessons are enjoyable,' and seeing daily progress is exhilarating to both the teacher and the students.

Some readers might say, 'I already knew all of this before and I've always acted more or less on these principles.' All I can say is, the incredible results we've had didn't come from adhering to these principles 'more or less,' but by following them strictly in practice. Joseph Lister must have had this same difficulty to contend with. Surgeons in his day knew that their instruments should be sterile, but it was only those who actually acted on that knowledge and sterilized their instruments each time with his chemical solution who saved millions of lives. That's the difference between scrupulously following exact principles, and casually using them 'more or less.'

It remains to be seen whether my method is the only right way to educate. There needs to be more proof than

pg 20

the thousands of students who have used it. But one thing is certain--today's current education is feeble and unclear because there are no sound principles being put into action and applied exactly. It's time to decide. We've trusted in 'civilization' and we've taken pride in our modern progress. Of all the painful things that war has brought us, perhaps the most difficult is the total breakdown of the civilization that's always meant education to us. We've learned our lesson and we're once again relying on our human instinct and God's divine rules. The part of a person that can be educated is his mind. The senses and muscles aren't educated, they're trained. The mind, like the rest of the body, needs quantity, variety and regularity in its diet. The mind, like the body, has its own appetite: the desire to know. The mind, like the body, is perfectly capable of taking in and digesting its food via attention and reflection. The mind, like the body, doesn't like limp, dull and unpleasant food. It wants its meals to be in literary form [such as, in stories]. The mind's diet is restricted to one thing: it can only absorb ideas and facts when they're connected to the living ideas on which they hang. Children who are educated this way respond in a surprising way. They develop ability, character, self-control, initiative, and a sense of responsibility. Even as children they are good, thoughtful citizens.

In this book, I've tried to show the principles and methods that this kind of education is based on, and that's so successfully being carried out. I've added chapters to explain the history of our movement, whose aim is, as Comenius says, 'All knowledge for all men.' I've been given permission to use the comments of various teachers, Directors

pg 21

of education, and others about the practical application of this method.

It is a cause for celebration that we have the opportunity to give students from all socio-economic classes a foundation of mutually shared thought and knowledge. This includes familiarity with a common collection of literature and history, which has an interesting way of bonding people together. Also, it's a wonderful achievement that children of lower income families, even with their limited opportunities, will have access to this kind of education. They will have equal opportunity to develop the stability of mind and nobleness of character that are the result of a rich, bountiful education.

In this book, I'll limit myself to clarifying and illustrating some of the points I tried to make in this introduction.




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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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