CMP Review 2023-03-02

March 2, 2023

In her little 1981 book Charlotte Mason Reviewed, Jenny King (CMT) wrote the following:

Learning of verse by heart comes easily to many children as they grow out of the nursery rhyme, so a wealth of poetry can be made their own. Parents can learn with their children and share in the pleasure of recitation.

When Miss King says “parents can learn with their children,” I think she means we can learn poetry by heart too. She calls it a pleasure, and I think I know why.

Charlotte Mason wrote, “Having found the book which has a message for us, let us not be guilty of the folly of saying we have read it.” If it is folly to say we have read a book, how much more to say we have read a poem. “The book that helps us,” explains Mason, “deserves many readings, for assimilation comes by slow degrees.”

As poems have been assimilated by slow degrees in our household, verses have overflowed from our hearts and into our nature journals and our conversations, enriching our family culture and giving us moments of shared joy.

I suppose I could have experienced all that even if I did not learn the poems too. But then I would not have experienced the deeper pleasure that I think Miss King was referring to. It is a pleasure that comes from the fullest method of assimilation I have discovered.

Having found the poem which has a message for us, Miss Mason might say, let us store it in our hearts. Then it can be our ever-ready companion to interpret for us the meaning of life.

@artmiddlekauff