Knowledge awakens. It’s the inspiring, startling, audacious claim of Charlotte Mason, a claim that’s at the heart of her method. “We know that religion can awaken souls,”[1] she writes. That claim isn’t so controversial, even today. But knowledge? I have to tell of the awakening of a ‘general soul’ at the touch of knowledge. Eight …
Editor’s Note: Mary Charlotte (Carta) Sturge was born in 1852 and earned a degree in moral science at the University of Cambridge. She was a frequent speaker at PNEU events from as early as 1896, lecturing on topics such as “The psychology of attention,”[1] “The place of imagination and poetry in Education,”[2] “First Elements of …
We live in a time of great confusion: meaning and fact, history and truth have become separated. As the poet W.B. Yeats wrote of the world in the time between the two world wars, “Things fall apart, the center does not hold.” The people of Jerusalem went through even more difficult times in the years …
The first time I ever spoke at a Charlotte Mason event was the 2008 Living Education Retreat. I thought I did pretty well, but I wasn’t sure I would ever be invited back. (I was, thankfully, in 2015.) A key element of my 2008 presentation was Charlotte Mason’s theology. My focus was narrow, however, and …
In 1861, a nineteen-year-old was starting her first full-time job. She had just moved and was by all accounts feeling overwhelmed by her new set of responsibilities. She was a teacher and of course she had a lot to worry about. But her thoughts drifted not to all the work to be done without, but …
Editor’s Note: In September of 1908, educationalists from around the world were invited to present and discuss their views at the first International Moral Education Congress in London. A notable delegate from America named Felix Adler will be familiar to those who have read chapter 10 of Charlotte Mason’s Parents and Children. Interestingly, Adler argued …
Editor’s Note: By the time the May, 1917 issue of The Parents’ Review went to print, planning for the upcoming “Baby Number” was well underway. In that May issue, Henrietta Franklin wrote, “We are anxious to compile a list for publication in the July (Baby) number of the Parents’ Review. Suggestions should reach me before …
A question I commonly hear from home educators (both men and women) is how to integrate spirituality with the mundane tasks of home and work life. The Preacher of Ecclesiastes said that God has “set eternity in the hearts of men” (3:11, NIV). At some time or another we all crave a deeper and richer …
There is a quality that Charlotte Mason said “is our first duty and our last duty, and includes all our duties.” She said it “is the hall-mark of character,” and that “all men are divided into two sorts”: those who have this quality and those who do not. Only the “few” have this quality, but …