Ask Art #6 — A Classical Education Perspective on Charlotte Mason
In December and January, the Classical Et Cetera podcast of Memoria Press released a three-part series entitled “Charlotte Mason Explained: A Classical Education Perspective.” These recorded conversations between four classical education experts provoked much reaction and discussion within the Charlotte Mason community. Although opinions vary, I think there is one thing we can all agree on: the three episodes do not say the final word about Charlotte Mason and classical education.
After carefully reviewing the audio, video, and transcript of the Classical Et Cetera series, I joined Charlotte Mason enthusiast Mariana Mastracchio for a detailed analysis of the perspectives shared in the episodes. We brought every assertion to the test of Miss Mason’s writings and the writings of her followers. And you may be surprised by what we found. Listen in and then share your comments and questions below:
Subscribe: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon Music
Links
The Classical Et Cetera podcast series:
Part 1: Mason vs. Classical Ed
Part 2: The Classical Divide
Part 3: Two Methods, One Goal
Writings by Charlotte Mason:
A Short Synopsis (the 20 principles)
Two Educational Ideals
P.N.E.U. Principles
Mothers’ Education Course
The Home Education Series
Writings by the Charlotte Mason community:
Early Influences by Helen Webb
On First Looking into Miss Mason’s Books by E. F. Bozman
The Child in Literature by Miss Shakespeare
The Conflict of Philosophies by Sir Fred Clarke
“God with Us” as the Lost Tool of Education by Sara Timothy
By the authors:
4 Replies to “Ask Art #6 — A Classical Education Perspective on Charlotte Mason”
Art,
I just listened to your podcast and I very much enjoyed it. It is refreshing to know that we are in good company in how we read Charlotte Mason. Obviously we differ on whether we agree on following her method, but we concur that the reason for it is our moderate realist philosophy in contrast to Charlotte’s romanticism. I appreciate you linking our statements to Charlotte’s direct words.
I must quibble on a couple points, namely Latin and nature studies. I totally understand how in our response to Charlotte’s stance on Latin, a listener might think we only want students to master the humanities through Greco-Roman works, but in practice we do both Greco-Roman and English works. There is a lot of truth in how Charlotte elevates English literature as there is so much good to be found there. Also, you cited nature studies as a development or evolution of classical education; we see nature studies as coming from Aristotle who spent a large portion of his works on observing, naming, describing, and categorizing the natural world. It is not a major point, but one I thought you might be interested in.
Paul Schaeffer
Paul,
Thank you for taking the time to listen to this episode and for sharing your thoughts here. I also appreciate the time you and your colleagues spent on the development of your three-part series for the Classical Et Cetera podcast. I believe that series provided a much-needed restatement of some of the core tenets of classical education and how they relate to the views of Charlotte Mason as expressed in her writings.
Respectfully,
Art
Thank you for this informative episode! I remember listening to Art talk about this topic back when Karen Glass was writing about it in 2017. One question that was most pertinent to me was the topic of pre-reading for the CM mother/teacher. Art–would you say we should pre-read everything but write our own narration? What is the purpose of the pre-reading and what should be prioritized when planning time is short?
Art,
This was an exciting podcast to listen to and a fresh one on its response to the Memoria Press Podcast. Thank you! It helps to provide increased clarity to working out this method — and perhaps brings out a few extra questions, which is part of our ‘philosopher’ role, that perhaps gets lost a bit as we live out our roles as guide and friend for our children. As an aside, the ‘friend’ role of the parents is one that I found was quite missing from the memoria approach — perhaps intentionally so.
As I listened to this wonderful summary of Mason’s key principles, I was particularly struck when you both spoke about the child’s natural capacity for attention. A few moms from our co-op also listened to the podcast and while we were encouraged by these reminders we were also struck how new children coming into the co-op from traditional learning systems, and certainly those also who have grown with the method, struggle more with attention in a co-op setting. We explored this a bit and wondered if the co-op setting restricts the degree to which we can evaluate each book in light of the child we have before us? Is this book digestible for this child? Maybe there is a danger of catering too much to the program of study — but maybe not? At the same time we are all acknowledged that there are choices we would make for each individual child that might differ if we were not in a co-op setting. However, we were also reminded that Mason allowed her method to reach the public school system and therefore she too may have struggled with this reality – and did! We remembered the principal from the boy’s grammar school who adopted this method and wrote about the drawbacks of books in communal study (as well as the gains) but that it was best to have the method working at some level. We take great courage of that example and also try to find ways we can continue to consider each child before us even in a group setting.
I am also wondering more about the obvious dichotomy between how the classical approach sees the nature of the child and how Mason does. It is clear that the child’s estate is an elevated one and and princely one, but I also appreciated (in the idyll readings from Parents and Children) the realist approach of Mason — even though Paul (above) says realism is a hallmark of the classical approach. While Mason, I agree, sits with the Romantics on many things and that her final interpretation of things is different from both the classical and romantic outlook. A realist ought to get at the real heart of things — as so does Mason. I think in this way she moves past the romantics who might get stuck. A reading from the idyll challenge came up right away for me —
“Children have a sense of sin, acute in proportion to their sensitiveness. We are in danger of trusting too much to a rose-water treatment; we do not take children seriously enough; brought face to face with a child, we find he is a very real person, but in our educational theories we take him as ‘something between a wax doll and an angel.’ He sins; he is guilty of greediness, falsehood, malice, cruelty, a hundred faults that would be hateful in a grown-up person; we say he will know better by-and-by. He will never know better; he is keenly aware of his own odiousness. How many of us would say about our childhood, if we told the whole truth, ‘Oh, I was an odious little thing!’ and that not because we recollect our faults, but because we recollect our childish estimate of ourselves. Many a bright and merry child is odious in his own eyes; and the ‘peace, peace, where there is no peace,’ of fond parents and friends is little comfort. It is well that we ‘ask for the old paths, where is the good way’; it is not well that, in the name of the old paths, we lead our children into blind alleys; nor that we let them follow the new into bewildering mazes.” (Parents and Children, 49).
She is saying so many fascinating things here: warning about many educational theories that can make our children into wax dolls (maybe Montessori?) or barbarians (though here she seems more concerned about seeing them as angels). They can lead us into ‘blind alleys and bewildering mazes’. And instead of putting the blame entirely in our court she says we must look deeper into how the child may see herself. It reminds me of what insightful and practical Martha says to Mary in The Secret Garden, when she is slighting everyone around and presenting herself as a miserable little thing — “How does tha’ like thysel’? “Mary replies, “Not at all—really”. Martha, like Mason, truly understands children. So Old Paths ( perhaps the classical way of understanding the nature of children) and equally new paths (perhaps an overly romantic view of children) are not helpful?
Celeste Cruz has done a wonderful talk about Mason’s affinity and alignment with the romantics (and also the classicists — in philosophy not education) but also a beautiful exploration of how she moves beyond them both in her talk “The Source of our Joy: A Christian Conception of Beauty”. She quotes James Baikie, author of Peeps of Many Lands: Ancient Greece (a popular book in Mason homes and classrooms):
“Only there is one thing. It is the last thing I have to tell you, and perhaps it holds the secret of how Greek faith, and culture, and art, great and noble in many ways as they are, failed and passed away at last. And that one thing you see perhaps more clearly than anywhere in the art of this noble race. It had no place for the dark and broken side of human life, out of which come all the greatest and highest things that we know. The Greek loved strength, wholeness, beauty, and put away from him as far as possible all thought of sorrow and suffering. It was not till after Jesus Christ had come into the world that men began to realize that the greatest things on earth are not beauty and strength, but love, sympathy, and sacrifice. The Hermes of Praxiteles is beautiful and strong; but I wish I could have put beside him Donatello’s great Christ on the Cross at Padua, for the contrast would have shown you, far better than I can tell it, where the Greek failed. The Greek god is far more beautiful than the Christian Saviour; but the Italian sculptor has done an infinitely greater thing, and taught an infinitely greater truth, than Praxiteles ever dreamed of (pp. 114-115).”
She then talks about where the Romantics fall short — (if I remember correctly) they also remain in images of beauty or despair, that while poignant and perhaps even more insightful to us than the classical philosophers, are not the last word. She refers to some writings of Keats to really show the difference. But nonetheless I saw the greater affinity of Mason with the Romantics perhaps.
Lastly, the thing I struggle with the most, is this idea that the medieval educational system, or perhaps mainly the renaissance as referred to here (though I am not sure we can put these together) was aligned away closer to a classical approach (and therefore pagan?) than what Mason offers. I am largely in agreement that the Mason method and classical method are quite different. I am not convinced yet that there is a coherent definition of the classical method that is followed in most quarters — despite the clear one offered by the founder of Memoria (not sure if it was founder?) as relayed in the podcast. As a catholic I see so many writings that embody the philosophy and ideas about children and spirituality mentioned in the Mason books. Perhaps I am overtly on the lookout for alignment between the teachings of my faith and Mason — of course we are both Christians. so there is much! However, I look for this in ideas of education in the catholic atmosphere of medieval christendom (dare I even try!). While the monks of medieval Christendom may have preserved and kept a classical library I don’t think this means they subscribed to everything within those books — and I think there is much evidence they didn’t. Mason loved The Imitation of Christ — a deeply medieval piece of writing. Maybe its stands out differently than the rest. I am also curious about your own appreciation of Catherine of Siena and that you have said in the past she had many living ideas — was this in complete contrast to the church around her at the time? I hope that the ideas that came from such writers was not only a direct gift from God but was somehow given to them through home, church and community life. I am not sure, but it’s something I wonder.
In this podcast as well as the Memoria Press series, there was much talk of the ‘goal’ of this education. My favourite writing from Charlotte Mason that inspires my own ‘goal’ for doing this everyday with my children is:
“Thus it rests with parents to ease the way of their child by giving him the habits of the good life in thought, feeling and action, and even in spiritual things. We cannot make a child ‘good’; but, in this way, we can lay paths for the good life in the very substance of his brain. We cannot make him hear the voice of God; but, again, we can make paths where the Lord God may walk in the cool of the evening. We cannot make a child clever; but we can see that his brain is nourished with pure blood, his mind with fruitful ideas.” (Vol. 5, 141-142).
Thanks for this wonderful addition to the Ask Art Series!