CMP Review 2025-01-23
January 23, 2025
Charlotte Mason insisted that science be taught with living books: “I have so far urged that knowledge is necessary to men, and that, in the initial stages, it must be conveyed through a literary medium, whether it be knowledge of physics or of Letters, because there would seem to be some inherent quality in mind which prepares it to respond to this form of appeal and no other.”
She immediately followed her statement with a qualification, however: “I say in the initial stages, because possibly, when the mind becomes conversant with knowledge of a given type, it unconsciously translates the driest formulæ into living speech; perhaps it is for some such reason that mathematics seem to fall outside this rule of literary presentation; mathematics, like music, is a speech in itself, a speech irrefragibly logical, of exquisite clarity, meeting the requirements of mind.”
My firstborn developed his appreciation for science only when he began to see the mathematical themes running through the many branches of physics and engineering. This happened when the apparently dry formulae had become for him living speech. This logical speech met the requirements of his mind and soul.
He saw me introducing his brother to an early formula in physics and was so delighted that he took this photo. He was excited that his brother was on his way to discovering the same living speech that had moved him. To me it’s still a kind of living book; it’s just written in a different language.
@artmiddlekauff