CMP Review 2023-09-12

September 12, 2023

A prominent leader in the homeschool movement recently opined, “If Charlotte Mason had actually written curriculum past 8th-grade students, helping them go to college age, you would have seen the finish of the classical education.” Setting aside the plausibility of this hypothetical prediction, the statement reveals a common misperception: Charlotte Mason was not meant for high school.

That misperception could not be farther from the truth. The fact is that Charlotte Mason wrote curriculum for students up to age 18 — our equivalent of the end of high school. However, the world imposed myriad constraints that made it difficult to implement all of Mason’s ideas to the end of secondary school.

But the historical PNEU did not give up. Nor did they close their eyes to the pressures and constraints of the real world. Instead, they charted a course to give the best secondary education they could all the while informed and inspired by the luminous ideals Miss Mason had uncovered.

Today we begin a series of vintage articles which together tell the story of the Charlotte Mason method in the upper years. There are wins and there are losses, but most importantly, there are lessons. Our hope is that these lessons will help those who are educating teenagers to chart a course for high school that consistently applies the Charlotte Mason method. Read or listen to the first article in the series today, the report of a headmaster of a boys’ school who wrote in 1924 that “the beneficial spirit of Miss Mason inspires the whole work of the College.” Find it here.

@artmiddlekauff