CMP Review 2024-06-11

June 11, 2024

“How hard it is to tread in the footsteps of the great,” wrote Essex Cholmondeley. This time, however, she was not writing in her beloved biography of Charlotte Mason. Instead, she was writing in the “memories” issue of The Parents’ Review of May 1952.

Who had to tread in great footsteps? Miss Ellen Parish, who succeeded Miss Mason as the second principal of the House of Education. Cholmondeley describes the path Parish chose: “carrying on Miss Mason’s work in Miss Mason’s way.”

This week we continue our series from the “memories” issue with Cholmondeley’s recollections of the House of Education under E. A. Parish. Many people have wondered what life was like at this training college established by Miss Mason. This article gives us a bit of a picture.

But it gives us more than this. Cholmondeley can’t help but remind us of timeless truths along the way. “There has never been an educated person,” she reasons, “because education is not an achievement, it is a life to be lived.” Reason and remember with Mason’s biographer here.

@artmiddlekauff