The final practice which was added to the original 18 principles has several elements within it, and it is here that we find a few prohibitions—Don’t do these things!

15. A single reading is insisted on, because children have naturally great power of attention; but this force is dissipated by the re-reading of passages, and also, by questioning, summarising, and the like.

We’ve already noted the connection between narration and attention, but Charlotte Mason includes a warning here about things that can hinder the attention we want to secure. A single reading is the point she insisted upon. If the children thought they’d have another chance to hear or read, they just wouldn’t give their full attention to that reading.

A little math. A little Latin. Our day carries on. #homeschoolrealities #behindthescenesatambleside #amblesideonline #aomom #charlottemasonirl

A post shared by Dawn Garrett (@ladydusk) on Mar 23, 2017 at 7:56am PDT

But re-reading is not the only way we can hinder a child’s power of attention, which will also hinder his ability to assimilate and make knowledge his own. Unfortunately, those things that are hindrances are standard educational practices, and it requires a deliberate effort on the part of a CM educator (who was probably brought up under those practices and finds it hard to let them go) to refrain from…

1) Questioning. It is so tempting. But any question aimed at eliciting a specific piece of information from a child is…well, Charlotte Mason gave us this graphic description: It’s like asking a child to show you his dinner before he has finished digesting it. Eew. Also, it prevents assimilation if a child has to spew out what he should be absorbing internally. I’m being graphic on purpose, because I find it the best way to develop the proper attitude toward what I call analytic questioning. It should disgust us a little bit, and our abhorrence will prevent us from doing it. There is an article in the Parents’ Review that really explains this well. If you want an idea of what kinds of questions are okay—questions that could be asked after narration has taken place, I suppose you want to think about open-ended questions. I’d call them synthetic questions, without a single “right” answer, but that require a child to think a little deeper, or further, or “outside the box.” (I could write a whole post about questions—let me know if you are interested.)

2) Summarising. It’s so tempting to do the talking ourselves—to wrap things all up for the children in tidy little packages. But the person who does the talking is doing the thinking—that is the person who has performed the act of learning and knowing. Charlotte Mason knew that if the teacher did it for him, the child would not do it, and she is adamant: The children must do the work for themselves.

3) “and the like.” Isn’t it just like Charlotte Mason to be that vague in a principle about practices? That’s because she wants us to think—to “mix it with brains” —and really understand what it is we are doing, to think about whether or not any particular thing is in line with the principles or not. The principle is: the child must be the one who is doing the mental labor, not the teacher. Keep a sharp eye on fads, and avoid them if they are going to interfere with any of the vital processes.

I’m going to add here the manner in which Charlotte Mason expressed these practices-that-are-principles in Philosophy of Education, when she wanted to present the ideas and work of the PNEU to the wider British public:

He requires that in most cases Knowledge be communicated to him in literary form; and reproduces such Knowledge touched by his own personality; thus his reproduction becomes original.

The natural provision for the appropriation and assimilation of Knowledge is adequate and no stimulus is required; but some moral control is necessary to secure the act of attention; a child receives this in the certainty that he will be required to recount what he has read. Children have a right to the best we possess; therefore their lesson books should be, as far as possible, our best books.

They weary of talk, and questions bore them, so that they should be allowed to use their books for themselves; they will ask for such help as they wish for.

They require a great variety of knowledge,––about religion, the humanities, science, art; therefore, they should have a wide curriculum, with a definite amount of reading set for each short period of study. (Philosophy of Education, p. 18-19)

Do you see how closely these align with the “new” principles in this final book—the practices that Charlotte Mason considered essential?

These are practices “that [Charlotte Mason] has indicated” must be followed exactly in order to obtain the benefits of her ideas. These are practices that have “methodised” the principles such as “children are born persons” and “education is the science of relations.”

I’ve added this quote here because it hints at one or two further practices that will give us optimum results. I’m thinking in particular about “a definite amount of reading set for each short period of study.” There is quite a bit implied there, but keeping the lessons short was part of the way that attention was maintained.

Every practice under consideration can be brought back to the principles, and that is the way to decide whether or not something is a good idea. This is what Charlotte Mason wanted teachers to know.

Once Miss Mason gave an instance of how a question of seemingly small importance should be answered. She put the question to the students and when they could give no suggestion for an answer she told them that before an answer could be found it was necessary to think back to first principles, then to think outward again to the question in their light. (The Story of Charlotte Mason, p. 152)

The principles always determine the shape of the practices. The principles represent universal truths, while the practices are the behavior that shapes itself around those truths, just as “fire burns” is a principle that determines our practices, but does not dictate explicitly what must be done.

in Charlotte Mason's 6th volume, she says, " 'Education is an atmosphere'… we use the opportunities in the environment he already lives in the educate him. Children learn from real things in the real world." on this first day of spring, this meant taking advantage of newly found shamrocks in our yard & tying it back into last week's lesson on St. Patrick. join the conversation on #atmosphere at #charlottemasonirl {swipe left!!!} #naturejournal #charlottemason #classicaleducation

A post shared by Heather Tully (@heathertullyphotography) on Mar 20, 2017 at 1:59pm PDT

The final part of principle 15 is a summation of these added “practical” principles:

Acting upon these and some other points in the behaviour of mind, we find that the educability of children is enormously greater than has hitherto been supposed, and is but little dependent on such circumstances as heredity and environment.

Nor is the accuracy of this statement limited to clever children or to children of the educated classes: thousands of children in Elementary Schools respond freely to this method, which is based on the behaviour of mind.

These methods—these practices—are based upon “the behavior of mind.” The way the mind behaves is part of the human nature that is common to us all. Charlotte Mason had a vision for a “liberal education for all,” and when we take up her principles and these vital practices, we become a part of her vision. What are the vital practices again? I give them to you in the shortest form I can manage:

1. Education is the science of relations.
2. Children must form relationships with a wide variety of knowledge, generally divided into the knowledge of God, the knowledge of man, and the knowledge of the world.
3. Children take in knowledge best through literary language.
4. And they make it their own when they are required to narrate.
5. The children must be the ones performing the mental effort of learning, so we must take care not to interfere with that process.

These are the practices that Charlotte Mason identified as principles–the ones that are truly vital to educating according to her method. If these are the practices that shape your homeschool or classroom, you are being faithful to the method and the ideals that lie behind it. Your children will be blessed.

"Early Spring" by Alfred Lord Tennyson Once more the Heavenly Power Makes all things new, And domes the red-plowed hills With loving blue; The blackbirds have their wills, The throstles too. . Opens a door in Heaven; From skies of glass A Jacob's ladder falls On greening grass, And o'er the mountain-walls Young angels pass. . Before them fleets the shower, And burst the buds, And shine the level lands, And flash the floods; The stars are from their hands Flung through the woods, . The woods with living airs How softly fanned, Light airs from where the deep, All down the sand, Is breathing in his sleep, Heard by the land. . O, follow, leaping blood, The season's lure! O heart, look down and up, Serene, secure, Warm as the crocus cup, Like snow-drops, pure! . Past, Future glimpse and fade Through some slight spell, A gleam from yonder vale, Some far blue fell; And sympathies, how frail, In sound and smell! . Till at thy chuckled note, Thou twinkling bird, The fairy fancies range, And, lightly stirred, Ring little bells of change From word to word. . For now the Heavenly Power Makes all things new, And thaws the cold, and fills The flower with dew; The blackbirds have their wills, The poets too. . (one of my favorite poems, conveniently memorized by Gianna last year so she can recite it on spring days like these ❤)

A post shared by Celeste (@celeste_cruz) on Mar 25, 2017 at 4:21pm PDT

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(Pictures are used with permission and are found on Instagram in the community @charlottemasonirl [Charlotte Mason In Real Life]. I’m sure they’d love to have you join in.

Yesterday, we looked at principle #13, which gave us some insight into how to choose or build a curriculum consistent with Charlotte Mason’s principles. Today, we’re going to look at the next practice that Charlotte Mason considered a vital principle. We can’t really neglect this practice in a faithful “CM education.”

14. As knowledge is not assimilated until it is reproduced, children should ‘tell back’ after a single reading or hearing: or should write on some part of what they have read.

“Tell back”—we’re talking about narration here. Narration is a practice, but it is also so essential to the successful implementation of Charlotte Mason’s philosophy, that she made it a principle.

Guess who Xavier drew! (Hint: it's from our Year 2 literature reading. He normally wears Lincoln Green, but disguised himself for the match at Nottingham Town. 😉)

A post shared by Celeste (@celeste_cruz) on Mar 14, 2017 at 7:22am PDT

There are multiple reasons why this is so, and scattered throughout her books, Charlotte Mason has explained them to us.

Remember that education is the science of relations? Well, narration is a relationship-building exercise. That is its very reason for existence—to create an emotional tie between a learner and knowledge.

The citizen, in whose bringing-up P.N.E.U. has had a part, has had many of his innumerable emotions stirred by his “lovely books,” “glorious books,” and the emotion of the moment has translated the facts of history, travel, science, the themes of poetry or tragedy, into vital knowledge. That is the raison d’etre of narrating; the reader recovers as it were what he has read and looks at it, and in this looking his emotion becomes fired. (Charlotte Mason, In Memoriam, p. 11-12)

Another pragmatic, but infinitely valuable effect of using narration is that it demands and builds the habit of attention. Children who narrate regularly (consistency is vital in order for narration to do all that it might) develop the ability to focus and concentrate—a mental power which will serve them well in many things, for all their lives.

To return to our method of employing attention; it is not a casual matter, a convenient, almost miraculous way of covering the ground, of getting children to know certainly and lastingly a surprising amount; all this is to the good, but it is something more, a root principle vital to education.(Philosophy of Education, p. 74)

Narration is the foundation for requiring children to make use of all their mental powers. No need to invent contrived “thinking skills” activities. You don’t have to teach children to think; instead—narration requires them to do so. When children narrate, they are engaging in the “act of knowing.” Charlotte Mason compared narration to the act of digestion—the process by which a child assimilated knowledge and made it a part of himself.

‘In all labour there is profit,’ at any rate in some labour; and the labour of thought is what his book must induce in the child. He must generalise, classify, infer, judge, visualise, discriminate, labour in one way or another, with that capable mind of his, until the substance of his book is assimilated or rejected, according as he shall determine; for the determination rests with him and not with his teacher….The simplest way of dealing with a paragraph or a chapter is to require the child to narrate its contents after a single attentive reading…(School Education, p. 179)

Atmosphere in home includes a glass table often filled with dishes and messes. Today it was filled with magnets for the science curriculum from @sabbathmoodhomeschool #beanyr2 #luyr5 #charlottemason #charlottemasonliving #charlottemasoneducation #charlottemasonirl

A post shared by Danielle Elean (@raising.saints) on Mar 21, 2017 at 10:52am PDT

And that isn’t all, either! Narration is the foundation of teaching writing in Charlotte Mason’s methods. It builds a child’s vocabulary; it teaches him to order his thoughts; it accustoms him to writing on all manner of topics. You can find a bit more about how it works here. If you have had the privilege of watching a child grow from a half-articulate six-year-old narrator into a young adult who can express himself (or herself) fluently in writing, you have been blessed.

Among these is the art of composition, that art of ‘telling’ which culminates in a Scott or a Homer and begins with the toddling persons of two and three who talk a great deal to each other and are surely engaged in ‘telling’ though no grown-up, not even a mother, can understand.(Philosophy of Education, p. 190)

And we haven’t even discussed the fact that narration can take many forms. Simply “telling back” is fine, but there are a multitude of ways to add variety and interest to the practice.

The victory procession in Aristides, for instance, can be accounted for by a list of words naming the several persons and things in sequence. A rough sketch would do the same. In each case the boy has had to “turn-over” in his mind all details of the paragraphs read. Another useful exercise is to ask the children to write down six or more questions on the subject matter dealt with, the questions not to require simply “Yes” or “No” as answer….In Geography, sketch maps by the scholars of the bird’s-eye-view type are interesting and useful. Here too a boy has to sift very carefully what he has read, before expressing himself on paper.
(“Some Notes on Narration” by G.F. Husband)

It’s no wonder, is it, that Charlotte Mason decided narration was a practice valuable enough to become a principle? Whatever else you do or adapt while being faithful to Charlotte Mason’s methods, please don’t give up narration, and please give yourself the best chance of reaping a harvest by using it consistently. The regular use of narration—both oral and written—is one of the most powerful tools Charlotte Mason has given us.

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(Pictures are used with permission and are found on Instagram in the community @charlottemasonirl [Charlotte Mason In Real Life]. I’m sure they’d love to have you join in.)

We’re looking at the practices that Charlotte Mason considered important enough to make into principles. Basically, these are the practices that define what is and what is not “a Charlotte Mason education.” If your educational efforts line up with these educational practices, you can feel confident that you are giving your students a “CM” education. (In my introductory post, I abbreviated the principles for the sake of space, but in the course of the rest of the discussion, we’ll be looking at them in full.)

Before we begin, remember #12—Education is the science of relations!

Today, we’re going to look at principle #13, which has three parts.

13. In devising a SYLLABUS for a normal child, of whatever social class, three points must be considered:

These are the guidelines for “devising a syllabus” which I think probably corresponds to “designing a curriculum.” You don’t have to design your own, of course, but these are the guidelines you can use to evaluate your curriculum choices if you want to follow a CM education. (I have used AmblesideOnline with all my children, and I can recommend it as an excellent CM curriculum, but it is not the only one that will meet these criteria.)

Okay, the first point:

(a) He requires much knowledge, for the mind needs sufficient food as much as does the body.

Your curriculum needs to offer “much knowledge.” No stingy, starvation diet will do, because you are feeding a growing mind. Charlotte Mason elaborates on this principle when she divides knowledge into three categories—Knowledge of God, Knowledge of Man, and Knowledge of the World. She measured the “quantity” of knowledge by page counts, telling us that:

These read in a term from one thousand to between two and three thousand pages, according to age and class, in a large number of set books; the quantity set for each lesson allows of only a single reading. (Philosophy of Education, p. 241)

(There were three terms in each year, so multiply the numbers by three to see how many pages were read in a year.)

In Charlotte Mason's 6th volume she says that education is an atmosphere. This is what our school/home #atmosphere looked like today @charlottemasonirl. Today's individual and group lessons all laid out on the floor, kids still in pj's, X already jumping into his #ralphmoody book, and a fire crackling in the wood stove. #charlottemasonirl #charlottemason #livingbooks #homeschoolrocks #raisingreaders

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You don’t have to make your page counts match hers exactly, and I hope you realize that isn’t the point. These are a “plumb line” against which we can determine whether or not we are acting in accordance with the principles. A difference of 100 pages per term is probably of no great import, but doing half as much, or twice as much, is probably straying from the “best practices” of a CM education. Give your students sufficient food, but don’t overwhelm them so that they lose their appetites, and above all, don’t leave them hungry and unsatisfied.

The second point dovetails closely with the first:

(b) The knowledge should be various, for sameness in mental diet does not create appetite (i.e., curiosity)

I’ve already mentioned the three-fold division of knowledge. When you take it altogether, it makes a long list of “subjects” that get covered. This is the list from a sample programme (for a child of 12) in Appendix IV of School Education:

Bible, Recitation, French, German, Italian, Latin, English History, French History, Roman History, Geography, English Grammar, Singing, [Hand]Writing, Drill, Dictation, Drawing, Natural History, Botany, Physiology, Arithmetic, Euclid, Reading, Composition, Handiwork

For whatever reason, this one doesn’t even mention picture study, but it was included under “drawing,” and it is interesting to note that three options for picture study were given. This note is included, too: “Children who are beginners or have just been moved up from [a lower class], or who find the work difficult, may omit three subjects.” (emphasis added)

The principle/practice of a “wide and generous” curriculum is the standard, but do you see how flexible it could be? The needs of the child—because the first principle that “children are born persons” is always at work as well—allowed the practices to be flexible for them.

Maybe a child couldn’t handle all the foreign languages, so those would be reduced. Maybe he is struggling in math, so Euclid could be set aside this term. Ideally, you’d work it in later, when the child was ready to tackle it. Maybe a child reading below grade level would be given fewer books, or a child recovering from an injury would omit Drill (PE). Or maybe, the student would dive in with gusto and do it all, and the teacher would be on the lookout for an extra book or two to challenge him.

But what you wouldn’t do, if you were following this principle, is to cut out a whole realm of knowledge, or straighten the program to utilitarian subjects, or just the ones that a child liked. “Education is the Science of Relations” is at work here, too, so we labor to form relations in as many areas as we can.

The third part of our curriculum-building principle is extremely pertinent:

(c) Knowledge should be communicated in well-chosen language, because his attention responds naturally to what is conveyed in literary form.

Living books. Need I say more? It’s one of those things that lies at the heart of a CM education and permeates all our thinking on the subject. Whatever books we choose should be living and literary, so we won’t choose dry textbooks, or magazine-style books with lots of graphics and little text (no more than snippets of information). I’ll just tell you now that tomorrow’s principle is going to be about narration, and narration can only be done well from well-written books.

I don’t feel the need to belabor this point, because most of us—CM educators—are inveterate book collectors at the same time, and shelf space is always at a premium. Wherever you are, reading this, I’d be willing to bet you can glance up at a well-filled bookcase. Some principles are just so easy to comply with, aren’t they?

Yesterday I shared about how Charlotte Mason's vision for atmosphere has more to do with attitudes than aesthetics.  Even though that's the case, Miss Mason doesn't ignore aesthetics entirely.  We are both body and soul, after all, and we were created for beauty and order.  The spaces we spend our day in absolutely help to set the tone for our homeschooling. But thankfully, we don't need to have picture-perfect rooms to create an environment that inspires virtue, encourages joy, and speaks to what we believe about life and learning. Our home is nothing special decor-wise.  It is a place I am grateful for and it fits our style as a family.  There are also things I would love to change about it. 😉  But that doesn't keep it from helping to cultivate our family culture. What we display, how we order our rooms, where we do lessons — these all depend on family needs, priorities, and yes, limitations too. Here's a peek at how that combination has worked out in our home, where I hope that our ordinary spaces reflect our educational philosophy. (Swipe left to see them all!  I'll add a few notes in the comments about the individual snaps.) Check out @charlottemasonirl for more thoughts on atmosphere in the Charlotte Mason homeschool!

A post shared by Celeste (@celeste_cruz) on Mar 21, 2017 at 3:51pm PDT

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(Pictures are used with permission and are found on Instagram in the community @charlottemasonirl [Charlotte Mason In Real Life]. I’m sure they’d love to have you join in.)

I know I pointed out yesterday that principles 13-15 are the “practical” ones added to the original more abstract principles, but before we dive into those, we need to back up to number 12:

Education is the Science of Relations

There is an awful lot implied by this principle, as I wrote recently. It is also the foundation of the “practical” principles we are going to be talking about, because all of Charlotte Mason’s methods are relationship-building methods.

The full principle reads:

12. “Education is the Science of Relations”; that is, that a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts: so we train him upon physical exercises, nature lore, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books, for we know that our business is not to teach him all about anything, but to help him to make valid as many as may be of––

“Those first-born affinities
“That fit our new existence to existing things.”

You can see some explicit suggestions there for things that should be included in a “CM education:” physical activity, nature, handicrafts. Those are enriching, real-life activities, things that get you away from the desk, include movement, and maybe some fresh air. But there are more academic relations to be developed as well: science, art, and of course—living books!

"How do we prepare a child, again, to use the aesthetic sense with which he appears to come provided? His #education should furnish him with whole galleries of mental pictures, pictures by great artists old and new…in fact, every child should leave school with at least a couple of hundred pictures by great masters hanging permanently in the halls of his imagination, to say nothing of great buildings, sculpture, #beauty of form and colour in things he sees. Perhaps we might secure at least a hundred lovely landscapes too,––sunsets, cloudscapes, starlight nights. At any rate he should go forth well furnished because imagination has the property of magical expansion, the more it holds the more it will hold." – Charlotte Mason . . #picturesstudyportfolios @simplycharlottemason #simplycharlottemason #charlottemason #charlottemasonirl #educationisanatmosphere #picturestudy #homeschool #atmosphere #truthbeautygoodness #charlottemasonliving #charlottemasoneducation #commonplacebook #digitalcommonplacebook #shelfie

A post shared by Jen McBride (@old.paths) on Mar 22, 2017 at 2:15pm PDT

But our job isn’t to give our children a body of knowledge, to make sure there aren’t any gaps. No, CM included in this principle the idea that there probably are going to be gaps— “our business is not to teach him all about anything.” So, okay, they aren’t going to learn everything.

But what they are going to do is develop relationships with all the different areas of knowledge. If we are doing something—math is a frequent bugbear—in a way that is causing a child to dislike the material, we are interfering with this principle.

The question is not,––how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education––but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him? (School Education, p. 170-71)

Sandcastle building-kite flying-polar plunging-shell identification-beach day with our co-op. So much fun! #charlottemasonliving #naturestudy #charlottemasonirl #cmirl_cmincommunity

A post shared by Sarah (@home_again_six) on Jan 27, 2017 at 10:43am PST

Is your child getting stressed about something you are doing? This can happen in so many ways—we feel pressured to have them keeping up or making progress. Are they reading well? Are they “caught up” in math? Do they “perform” well enough to make you look like a successful homeschool mother? This kind of stress is counterproductive.

Because education is the science of relations, all the relationships in this relational method of education matter—the relationship between you and your children, and between your children as brothers and sisters, and between each child and the lovely enticing knowledge that is there for him to find in math, science, literature, art, music, and more. Bearing in mind each and every day, as a teacher, that “Education is the science of relations” will keep us mindful of what we are doing. We won’t make a child sit 45 minutes over a page of math problems. We won’t weary everyone by doubling up the lessons to make up for not getting everything done yesterday.

We will take a deep breath and make sure every day is a harmony of atmosphere, discipine, and life that creates an environment in which relationships can grow. Remember that when you know a principle well, you act upon it intuitively.

Of course, this isn’t actually an explicit “how do I do this?” principle. It’s just the principle that is the springboard for the rest of the practical ones. I’m confident of this, because rather than tacking them onto the end, Charlotte Mason chose to insert them exactly here. The new principles are 13 through 15, so number 12— “Education is the Science of Relations” will be fresh in our minds as we consider them and their role.

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(Pictures are used with permission and are found on Instagram in the community @charlottemasonirl [Charlotte Mason In Real Life]. I’m sure they’d love to have you join in.

I’ve written a bit about principles recently (here and here) because it’s so easy to get caught up in the “what” and the “how” of our day-to-day educational endeavors that we lose touch with that “why,” which is the living, life-giving touch that makes our busy-ness purposeful and meaningful.

I think most of us who have devoted years and years to educating children with Charlotte Mason’s methods know that just looking at the principles alone—laid out at the beginning of each of her volumes—isn’t going to give you any confidence or guidance about how to get started. It’s lovely that Charlotte Mason has, with the principles, identified the path— “this is the way”—but we are still in need of guidance to make it possible to “walk ye in it.”

Charlotte Mason knew that. I’m going to tell you something rather funny from the annals of modern “CM history,” but I hope you won’t laugh at us.

The CM series was republished (thanks to the Andreolas—we owe them much) in the pink volumes we all know so well in 1989. When I acquired my set in 1994, the internet was in its infancy. I found others who were interested in Charlotte Mason, and we plunged in and read the series together, but, as far as the community goes, no one I ever met had read more than one or two of the volumes. We read them together, and there was no one to tell us that volume 6, Philosophy of Education (such a daunting title compared to the friendlier, more accessible Home Education) was a good place to start, because no one had read that far! We observed that there were 18 principles listed at the beginning of each book. We talked about the “18 principles” and even worked systematically through a study of the “18 principles.”

I had been reading and studying about Charlotte Mason for some years before I got to Volume 6, and noticed the difference there—20 principles! There were two new ones? No, there were three new ones, because Charlotte Mason had combined two of the earlier principles into one. I got out my books, and compared them side by side.
The next generation of younger CM educators knows that there are 20 principles, and probably can’t imagine how we missed that for so long, but that’s how it was. Thank goodness we kept on learning and studying, and didn’t stop after Home Education.

Do you know which of the 20 principles are the “new ones,” that CM added later in her life, after many, many years of experience?

I’m giving them in shortened form for the sake of space, but you can find them in full here.

13. In devising a SYLLABUS (I think we might say “curriculum”) for a normal child, three points must be considered:—
(a) He requires much knowledge, for the mind needs sufficient food.
(b) The knowledge should be various.
(c) Knowledge should be conveyed in literary form.

14. As knowledge is not assimilated until it is reproduced, children should ‘tell back’ after a single reading or hearing: or should write on some part.

15. A single reading is insisted on, because children have naturally great power of attention; but this force is dissipated by the re-reading of passages, and also, by questioning, summarising, and the like.

Thousands of children in Elementary Schools respond freely to this method, which is based on the behaviour of mind.

Back to back appointments today, so we brought school with us for the waiting room. When I was finished with my appointment my son asked if we could stay until he finished his chapter. #charlottemasonirl #atmosphere #homeschoolrocks #raisingreaders

A post shared by Jamie Hupfer (@jamiehup4) on Mar 22, 2017 at 8:31am PDT

If you look carefully at these added principles, you will realize, as I did, that they are not just abstract principles in the nature of “Children are born persons”—rather, they are explicit descriptions of the practices that are indispensable to Charlotte Mason’s philosophy. These are the practices Charlotte Mason included in her appeal to the wider British public to adopt.

These vital practices are the ones that should shape our Charlotte Mason homeschools and classrooms. There are some important “dos” embedded in there, as well as a few prohibited “don’ts.”

I was interested to find in The Story of Charlotte Mason, by Essex Cholmondeley, a brief explanation of these additional principles:

Miss Mason added the following paragraphs for the use of teachers when the ‘liberal education for all’ movement was active. [emphasis added]

The other principles were expressed with parents in mind, parents who were bringing up their children, but not necessarily attending to their “school” education (although they are applicable in that setting). These additional practical principles are the ones that were given to those of us actively engaged in teaching. They bear a closer look, and that’s what we’ll do over the next few days (there are five parts in the series).

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(Pictures are used with permission and are found on Instagram in the community @charlottemasonirl [Charlotte Mason In Real Life]. I’m sure they’d love to have you join in.

There’s a quote from Charlotte Mason that I like a lot. I’ve been aware of it for a long, long time, and it has underpinned my own homeschooling efforts. This is the quote:

The reader will say with truth–‘I knew all this before and have always acted more or less on these principles’; and I can only point to the unusual results we obtain through adhering not ‘more or less’ but strictly to the principles and practices I have indicated. I suppose the difficulties are of the sort that Lister had to contend with; every surgeon knew that his instruments and appurtenances should be kept clean, but the saving of millions of lives has resulted from the adoption of the great surgeon’s antiseptic treatment; that is from the substitution of exact principles scrupulously applied for the rather casual ‘more or less’ methods of earlier days. (Philosophy of Education, p. 19)

There was a time when I thought the “practices” mentioned included all the practices of the PUS (Parents’ Union Schools). I thought it meant we needed to adhere to things like strict page counts, and learning three modern languages plus Latin, and doing school in the morning so free time happened in the afternoon, and so on. I really can’t remember now when I realized that isn’t what this is about at all. Lately, I’ve seen this quote misunderstood in the same way I misunderstood it quite a few times, and not long ago, I shared with one Facebook group what I’m going to share here.

It begins with understanding the audience for the book, Philosophy of Education. Charlotte Mason’s first five books were written for the PNEU—the group of parents who adhered to her philosophy and were trying to implement it with their children. This final book was not written for them, but was addressed to the wider British public—to present CM’s philosophy and the work of the PNEU to people unfamiliar with it, in hopes of spreading their work even further. (It worked for a while, too.) Some of the chapters were even published earlier, as stand-alone pamphlets, and part of it appeared as a series of letters to a newspaper.

With that audience in mind, read the quote again, giving special attention to the part I have emphasized— “I have indicated.” What practices? Indicated where? Well, that’s where the context comes in—right there on the same pages. I urge you to read the full context for yourself.

The quote is self-limiting. It can refer to nothing but the principles and practices “indicated” right there, on those pages. I really do invite you to see for yourself what principles and practices Charlotte Mason considered vital—indispensable—in order to make her philosophy work. But I’ll give you a hint—there aren’t that many of them, and none of them are as specific as “have school in the morning” or “do this for history.” Not at all—as principles should be, they are broad and robust. As practices go, they are fairly flexible, involving putting a child in touch with a wide program of living books, and using narration to insure attention and assimilation. That’s the context that goes with that quote, and I hope my fellow Charlotte Mason educators will learn, sooner than I did, how truly freeing it is to apply a set of “exact principles” to your educational practices and watch them take root, germinate, branch out, and bear fruit.

Addendum: I’m editing this post to add some information that I think might be helpful. It has been suggested to me that I am incorrect about the audience for the book—that Charlotte Mason was not actually addressing herself to anyone beyond her colleagues in the PNEU. I just want to let you all know that this is not a fabrication on my part. Charlotte Mason says, herself, in the preface to the volume: “My object in offering this volume to the public is to urge upon all who are concerned with education a few salient principles…” (emphasis added).She addresses herself to “all who are concerned with education”—casting a wide net—rather than those already associated with her work. She assumes no prior knowledge of the PNEU and its work, and explains her principles from scratch, as it were.

I mentioned some time ago that I had one more thing to share about Comenius, and this book, Education That Is Christian, is what I had in mind. Lois LeBar worked at Wheaton College for many years, and this book is one of her contributions to education, specifically as it concerns teaching the Bible.

One of the things that makes it interesting is that Ms. LeBar looks at the educational influence of Herbart (yes, that same Herbart) on the typical teaching in churches and Sunday Schools, and recommends instead practices based on the ideas of Comenius. It is quite interesting and remarkable to read another modern educator’s thoughts on these two older educators.

I have no idea if she ever heard of Charlotte Mason or not, but it is startling to read this in the Introduction and see the points of similarity:

Lois LeBar is a revolutionary. Forty years ago she rebelled against traditional Bible teaching that “starved people with Biblical facts.” …But she also rebelled against so-called progressive teaching that ignored the authoritative Word of God and the power of the Holy Spirit.

Sounds like she and Charlotte Mason would have appreciated each other, doesn’t it? Especially as a good portion of the discussion in the book revolves around psychological considerations, such as inner and outer factors in learning.

Rousseau, Froebel, and Dewey get brief mentions, but this book is less a theoretical work of education than it is a practical one. If any of your teaching activities are conducted in the church community, you might find this book a very valuable read, and it is actually set up to be read and discussed within a group. Above all else, it brings a good deal of Bible wisdom to the task of teaching the Bible, and for that purpose, I do recommend it.

I was startled recently to run across a reference to Comenius in the tribute to Charlotte Mason published after her death, In Memoriam:

Like Comenius, she believed in a course of reading which is massive and many-sided. Like Comenius she had to guard against the dangers of superficiality.

Since I spent a good portion of the fall comparing Charlotte Mason and Comenius, it was interesting to me that even within her own lifetime, one of her colleagues drew a connection between them.

Don’t you love end-of-year recaps of what other people have been reading? I do! That’s why I’m sharing mine.

I used to be a book-blogger wanna-be, but I abandoned that idea. I’m too indifferent a “blogger” (term used in the loosest sense of the word) to be anything other than “occasional.” But I did like having a record of all my reading, and now I keep that in my bullet journal. (Yes, I am card-carrying member of that club–two years and counting.)

Just for fun, here are my year-end stats and the best titles of the year. My grand total is 33 books finished this year. I have a couple more in progress, but they will not be completed this year.

Of the 33, 9 were non-fiction, and 24 were fiction. Thirty-three is a low number–probably one of the lowest ever. I consider averaging a book per week kind of a minimum standard, but I fell far short of that this year, even if I give myself half-credit for books-in-progress.

Of the 24 fiction, a whopping 13 were rereads. This has a lot to do with the fact that I was away from home for over three months, traveling a lot, and I had my Kindle library with me.

Of the 9 non-fiction, 2 of them were re-reads (You will not be surprised when I tell you the re-reads were Comenius and Charlotte Mason–hence, the blog series.)

So, choosing only from the books that were new for me this year, my top 5 non-fiction books (in no particular order)

1. Mere Motherhood by Cindy Rollins

2. 

3. 

4. 

5. 

If you are a mom, do not miss Mere Motherhood. If you want some insight into written narration, I recommend the Zinsser book. I am a Sire fan, and reading this book gave me an appreciation for John Newman. King Solomon’s Ring is a delightful living science/nature book written by an Austrian naturalist. It will be the most fun if you live in Europe and have jackdaws about; however, not all the chapters are about jackdaws, and it is a worthwhile read for anyone. If you follow Charlotte Mason’s methods with highschoolers, this would be a great pick.

And my top 5 fiction books (also in no particular order)

I have nothing to say about these that hasn’t been said elsewhere, I am sure. I am years behind other readers, and not up to date with the latest titles by my favorite authors. If you haven’t read Edith Wharton yet, Bunner Sisters should not be your first pick. It’s achingly sad (typical Wharton), but The House of Mirth remains my favorite, I think.

Looking over my reading for the last couple of years, I am also making plans for 2017. I must plan, or I’ll end up reading deplorable titles on the spur of the moment. Of the 24 fiction books I read in 2016, two of them were absolutely awful, and I don’t have time to waste on awful, while another half-dozen were merely mediocre, and I’m not interested in mediocre, either.

I’m not planning the whole year, but to start with my top-picks for 2017 are:

Fiction:

(Oddly enough, these are all translations–from Russian, Japanese, and Spanish. Further titles will be English originals, maybe something from E.M. Forster and hopefully the Pulitzer winner All the Light We Cannot See)

Non-fiction:

1. (reread)

2. (reread)

3.

And I’m in the middle of Essays on Educational Reformers by Robert Quick, so I’ll be finishing that. I would also like to read Orthodoxy by G.K. Chesterton and/or Roots Of American Order by Russell Kirk. And it would be lovely to squeeze in something by Jacques Barzun, but have you noticed that a year has only 12 months in it? We’ll see how it goes!

If you’ve something to recommend that you think I’d like, I’m all ears–hit me with some great titles, and I’ll be happy to take a look at them.

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Now that it’s finished, I feel that this blog series went by in a hurry, but this is the 8th post in as many weeks, and it’s time for me to wrap this up and move on to other projects.

While reading The Great Didactic, there were just so many little things that reminded me of Charlotte Mason, in addition to the things I’ve already shared. I’m going to just make a few notes here.

(1)   In the history of education, many writers examine the questions of education beginning with “school age” children, jumping into the question of curriculum or order of studies as the first order of business. Both Charlotte Mason and Comenius recognized that education properly begins in infancy, and that habits of observation and correct speech, and the beginnings of all kinds of knowledge, are appropriate material for young children and lay the groundwork for more “academic” studies later.

(2)   Both Comenius and Charlotte Mason recommended that school work for children take no more than 4 hours a day, so that there would be plenty of time for outdoor nature study, pursuing interests, and…

(3)  …Handicrafts! Both of them also recommended that children learn to work with tools and materials, for a variety of reasons.

(4)   Both take a high view of man. Charlotte Mason’s first principle is, of course, “Children are born persons.” The title of the first chapter in The Great Didactic is “Man is the highest, the most absolute, and the most excellent of things created.” The first question addressed in any good philosophy is “what is man?”–and they both articulate their positions well.

(5)   Both recognize that children have a natural appetite for knowledge, a desire to learn. I smiled a bit at this quote from Comenius:

To whom is it not a pleasure to go to some new place daily, to converse with some one, to narrate something, or have some fresh experience? In a word, the eyes, the ears, the sense of touch, the mind itself, are, in their search for food, ever carried beyond themselves. (The Great Didactic, p. 195)

Comenius connects this idea to the ancient educator Aristotle: “As Aristotle says, the desire of knowledge is implanted in man: and the mind grows as the body does–by taking in proper nourishment, not by being stretched on the rack.”

(6)   Comenius and Mason, being so convinced of the value of every child, and of the natural appetite in each to learn, believed that education should be for ALL–not the privileged, the rich, the elite, the high-born, but literally for all–including girls as well as boys. In fact, Charlotte Mason herself quotes from The Great Didactic to underscore her point.

I have in this volume attempted to show the principles and methods upon which education of this sort is being successfully carried out, and have added chapters which illustrate the history of a movement the aim of which is, in the phrase of Comenius,–– “All knowledge for all men.”(Philosophy of Education, p. 20)

(7)   Comenius said, “All things that are naturally connected ought to be taught in combination,” and also, “It may be laid down as a general rule that each subject should be taught in combination with those which are correlative to it.”

It reminds me of the way that Charlotte Mason makes literature and citizenship ancillary to history. She liked to correlate subjects when it made sense, although she didn’t like to take it as far Herbartian-style “unit studies.”

I must commend any further study of the rationale of our syllabus to the reader’s own kind consideration; he will perceive that we have a principle of correlation in things essential, but no fatiguing practice of it in detail. (Philosophy of Education, p. 276)

I don’t want to leave the impression that Charlotte Mason and John Amos Comenius are carbon-copies of each other. They are not. Both of them were original thinkers, but because they begin from the perspective of Christianity, and because they purposed to seek out natural, universal laws of mind, teaching, and learning, they both tapped into the same vein of Truth about man, his purposes, and how education can best prepare him for those purposes.

Incidentals like 4-hour school days and handicrafts are interesting similarities, but the interesting point is less that they happened to propose the same things and more that basing their ideas upon universal principles led them to startling similar methods and conclusions.

I think I’ve probably said enough on this topic. I think Charlotte Mason, like Comenius, really stands out from among other educational philosophers because of her strong Christianity, her broad understanding of the humanities to include things like science and handicrafts, and her search for natural, transcendent laws of education–laws which were to be discovered, not manufactured–and above all, for offering practical, workable methods based upon those laws and principles.

I have one more thing to share about Comenius, but not pertaining to Charlotte Mason–a book review of sorts. Look for that in the next few weeks. I hope you’ve enjoyed learning about Comenius as much as I have!