CMP Review 2023-02-28

CMP Review 2023-02-28

February 28, 2023

In this year of 2023 many us are celebrating the 100-year anniversary of the life and legacy of Charlotte Mason. But it is not the first Charlotte Mason Centenary. In 1942, the January issue of The Parents’ Review was named the “Centenary Number” to celebrate the 100-year anniversary of Charlotte Mason’s birth.

That remarkable issue contained short appreciations of Charlotte Mason by archbishops, administrators, authors, and educators, as well as by a college professor, a poet, and a mother from Australia. All these contributors reflected on the enormous impact of Miss Mason on the world at large.

“Miss Mason’s ideas of education have developed naturally and wholesomely with the times,” wrote author Vyvyan Richards. “Like rings in water, the waves which her first impulse set radiating have opened out widely, but always centred upon her essential principles.”

The Charlotte Mason Poetry team has transcribed and recorded two of the essays from the first centenary. In the eight decades since 1942, the “rings of water” have radiated even more widely, but do they still center on her “essential principles”? One way to consider this is to reflect on how she was remembered back then.

Oh and besides those bishops and professors, there was one appreciation that was perhaps the most remarkable of all. A message from a queen. Reminisce on the first Charlotte Mason Centenary here.

@artmiddlekauff