CMP Review 2026-02-10

February 10, 2026

“We can of course learn of them from Home Education and School Education, and certainly no one would venture to teach in the P.U.S. without first reading these books. To read once, however, is not enough; we must go back to them again and again.”

So wrote Helen E. Wix in 1927. Who was this Miss Wix? Born in 1882 in Sydney, Australia, she traveled to England and graduated from Charlotte Mason’s House of Education in 1903. A little over a decade later, she was serving as the Assistant Organising Secretary of the PNEU. The best, however, was yet to come.

When state schools started adopting the Charlotte Mason method, teachers needed to hear and learn from someone with credibility. Someone who spoke their language. Someone they could trust. Again and again, Director of Education H. W. Household pointed them to Miss Wix.

And Household was not sparing in his praise. Speaking of Helen Wix and Ellen Parish, he wrote, “We owe everything to them.”

Who was this Helen Wix and how did she present the Charlotte Mason method to teachers? I think we should all get to know her. That’s why we’re starting a three-part Helen Wix series, so you can hear from her in her own words. We begin with her 1927 article in which she presents the foundational ideas of the Charlotte Mason method. Find it here.

@artmiddlekauff