“God with Us” as the Lost Tool of Education

Charlotte Mason & The Classical Tradition Revisited

As conflicting modern ideas about education cast us about, many have dug into the very bedrock of western thought looking for inspiration and a stable base; and while much that is good has come to us via the great Greek thinkers, there is a particular fallacy that says: ancient must equate correct. While grace should always be extended to those who lived before Christ and outside of Hebrew culture, it cannot be denied that within that void some thinking will of necessity be flawed.

Evidence of God’s goodness lies in the fact that these ancient thinkers at times grasped true ideals, and one of these centered on the idea that life must be about more than the merely tangible, more than utility. They glimpsed an unseen aspect beyond our material make-up and sought ways to mold this intangible part of humanity. In pursuit of this phantom idea the Greeks set their eyes and hopes on education. For these patriarchs of humanistic thinking, outward manipulation for inward goals was all that they had at their disposal, and they leaned into their task with a will.

In the revival of Classical Education, many Christians resonated with the reminder that education should be about more than utility, more than the merely tangible. When it was rediscovered that the ancients believed virtue could be the goal of education, many were inspired and made laudable efforts to re-interpret ancient humanistic thought and technique with Christianity.

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To say that Charlotte Mason is “in the classical tradition” for many people simply means that she too believed that education should be about more than utility. However, to leave it at “she is in the classical tradition” ignores a fundamental difference between her point of origin and that of the ancients.

The Greeks thought and acted from a humanistic perspective; they believed that man was perfectible, that given the correct manipulation of external circumstances (education?) personal and even societal utopias could be achieved. This humanistic thinking was adopted by the Romans and was blended with Christian thought during the Christianization of the empire. After its collapse in 476, faithful monks preserved and mingled both Christian and pagan thought in their scriptoriums, and this couplet ran in little rivulets throughout the Middle Ages to reach flood tide again during the rediscovery of those same manuscripts, an energizing epiphany that ignited the Renaissance. This bountiful heritage, which in many ways proved to be good and beautiful, flowed into modern enlightenment thinking, contributing to the progress and chaos of the past two centuries. But was the discovered ore purely true?

The goal of Christians during these various periods seems to have been to harness “secular” things for “sacred” purposes and education was a prize horse. This idea adopted the phrase “plundering the Egyptians” as its mantra. The reality was, there was just enough tantalizing truth in what the ancients had said about the possibilities for education that the knotted rope of virtue-as-the-goal couldn’t be let go of completely in order to make a fresh and truly Christian start on the role of education.

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The humanistic paradigm is in direct opposition to Miss Mason’s theistic perspective which accepts man as we actually find him, fallible — flawed to a level that no amount of external control or manipulation can remedy. The hope for the theist lies in help from above — a spiritual working from within. The genius of Charlotte Mason is that in her time, for whatever reason, she was able to step back, take hold of her faith with both hands, and start a fresh educational movement that wasn’t predicated on humanistic thinking.

From her Christian perspective she taught that education was about cultivating the whole person; feeding and developing all that it means to be human, body and spirit. Under this Christian paradigm, a whole and well-developed person would become virtuous, but virtue would be the by-product, not the end in itself, would manifest from the inside out due to a working of the Holy Spirit within the spirit of man. In this context the educator is merely a co-laborer with the Holy Spirit who is the great educator of us all, and education itself a handmaid rather than mistress.

For Charlotte Mason the ultimate goal of all education was to know Christ. Under her scheme, the many elements of the broad education she advocated for would pivot the student to face outward and cast him into the wide current of a beautiful life, where ultimately Beauty Himself would have many conduits through which to speak. With this understanding, the educator’s job is not unlike that of John the Baptist’s as the prophet Isaiah described his needful role: “The voice of him that crieth in the wilderness, Prepare ye the way of the Lord, Make straight in the desert a highway for our God” (Isaiah 40:3, NKJV; cf. John 1:23). John encouraged outward ability and habit (repentance) but understood, as should we, that he was not the Savior, but a preparer of hearts for a time when Christ would come to speak and work there. Our goal in education should be to provide a broad thoroughfare for our God, as opposed to a narrow and introverted path with mere virtue (self) as its objective.

The Greeks had caught a glimpse of a beautiful truth, but a beauty so immense that virtue was but a sliver.

So, is it even correct to say that Charlotte Mason was in agreement with classical ideals? I believe the answer is both yes and no. Yes, in the sense that there is a shared vision for education serving goals beyond utility. No, in that Miss Mason lived at a time that gave her more pieces — key pieces — to the puzzle of true purpose and due to this wider understanding ultimately rejected the classical goal of virtue as too narrow and short-sighted.

In the realm of lofty goals and abstract thought, anything may be proposed, but the person who truly believes and wishes to proceed will ask how. This is where Miss Mason and the classical thinkers again diverge. Both propose specific tools, but again, only one had the advantage of time, and perspective… and Christ. These new puzzle pieces shifted the goal of education to be more dynamic than mere self-management — which begs the question of why one would attempt to use outdated tools unsuited to a new task?

What were the tools of education offered by the ancients, how are they in conflict with Christian goals, and what does Charlotte Mason offer in their place?

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Socrates spoke and Plato wrote. Collectively their thought was that the goal of education should be to instill virtue. The tools they offered to reach this goal were (1) reason and (2) the teacher, and while these may seem good recommendations at first glance, upon closer inspection we see that neither form a stable base.

Classical Thought on Human Reason

The primary tool the Greeks utilized in their quest was reason. They placed immense value on human reason; it was the hinge on which all their efforts pivoted. The reason it was so prized and trusted might come as a bit of a surprise to Christians today.

Both Socrates and Plato taught that the human soul is:

immortal and having been born again many times, and having seen all things that exist, whether in this world or the world below, has knowledge of them all.^[1]

From this starting point of reincarnation, they proposed a theory of innate ideas. Essentially, that knowledge of truth could be obtained from within oneself. The process that this was to be accomplished by was what Plato called a “dialectic.” Dialectic refers to a purposeful way of reasoning via dialogue to arrive at truth. The thought was that once the person unveiled the hidden truth within themselves (a dubious assumption), they would also obtain virtue (the ability to act on that truth) because it was inconceivable to them that anyone in procession of truth would act in opposition to it, since to do so would cause pain (another dubious assumption).

This idea of innate goodness runs contrary to the Bible’s teaching on original sin: “There is none who does good, No, not one” (Psalm 14:3, NKJV). The idealistic belief that no one would voluntarily choose to go against the truth they know finds a candid rebuttal in St. Paul’s lamentation, “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil I will not to do, that I practice” (Romans 7:19, NKJV). To put reason, via a dialectic, as the arbitrator of truth deifies reason and places it in a position it is unqualified to fill.

To be fair, even in ancient times the theory of innate goodness had its detractors; among them was Aristotle who said:

It is quite right, then, to say that it is by doing just deeds that a just man is made, and that a temperate man is made by acting temperately. There is not the slightest prospect of anyone being made good by any other process. Most men, indeed, shirk it and take refuge in the theory of [innate] goodness.^[2]

While Christians will hear hints of truth in this statement (and Luther, and Lewis as well!), Aristotle’s ultimate premise rests on reason with stoic application. One can be good enough, if one would just try hard enough. The truth is that virtue isn’t the problem — it is something we can’t reach on our own merits — internal (innate goodness), or external (stoicism), we are people in need of a savior.

We know that ideas have consequences, so where did and does the idea of innate goodness and using reason to ascertain truth lead? One memorable external consequence of the deification of reason was the French Revolution, a time when everyone did what was right in their own eyes, with each person’s reason providing plausible justifications for calling in the guillotine as an enforcer.

An internal consequence for the just-try-harder trope tends to be an endless cycle of depression as one continually tries to meet an ideal with damaged equipment. The irony for both is that they each block the person from seeing their need of a savior.

Not only did the offered tool of reason not work — it damaged.

Classical Thought on the Role of the Teacher

The second tool that the ancients employed towards the goal of virtue was the teacher. For classical thinkers the teacher held an almost mystical power and sway, and more than that — was encouraged to cultivate this effect. David Hicks explains approvingly:

Students become the disciples of their teacher… forming around him what in ancient times was referred to poetically as a chorus, or a thiasos (“fraternity”). Teachers then exercised such a profound influence over their students that the charge against Socrates of corrupting youth was not at all an uncommon one.^[3]

And again:

The ancients preferred oral teaching over the impersonal study of the written word. Talk was freer, more intimate, and depended on the teacher’s lively intelligence and superior knowledge…^[4]

And again:

Classical education challenges both teacher and pupil: the one to justify his superior wisdom and intellectual skill; the other to win his teacher’s praise by matching his performance… The pupil becomes a part of his teacher’s own studies… [a] happy consequence [is] a profound and intimate relationship between the teacher and his pupil.^[5]

In modern times we see evidence of this romanticized thinking in some movies and literature popular in the 90s. I love them! It is easy to be drawn into this mythical ideal as there are twin desires cloistered deep in humanity causing some to want to follow and some to want to lead, and while this is not inherently evil, it does require precaution rather than endorsement! The perceptive teacher will become aware of any undue centering on their own personality, desire, and effort as the driving force for their students and either feel the strain of it… or become enamored. It smacks of a narcissistic tendency to make the great wide world of study and ideas about oneself, to face the student not inward or outward, but at me.

Once again we see a too optimistic view of human nature. Socrates wasn’t the first, or the last to lead his followers “astray.” History has proven time and again that to be dependent on a person for truth and understanding is risky. The fails and successes of this model form a double-edged sword in this way: the following of a flagrantly unqualified person leads to immediate pain, while the following of seemingly worthy individuals sets the student up to be dependent upon, and prey for another in the future.

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When I first came to Charlotte Mason’s philosophy, I was largely unaware of the Classical vs. Mason conversation. Her ideas were so cohesively Christian that the ring of truth echoed from element to element. I was drawn to distraction from the application elements of her books, which seemed more needful to me at the time, to her writings on the “way of the will” and the “way of reason,” as well as to her thoughts on the role of the teacher and on authority and docility. In hindsight I now see why these things are more pivotal than the parts I thought I needed (for utility!) and why they are more pointed than I realized at the time.

In spending so much ink on the fallibility of reason — the wonders of the human intellect, but also its limits; its scope, but also its well-defined boundaries; in emphasizing the part the teacher may play and clearly articulating the parts that they may not, Charlotte Mason was putting her finger on key elements of classical humanistic thought that did not line up with the Christian faith.

Christians, for generations before her, were so enamored by the ideals of the classical thinkers that they set dutifully to work to bring them to fruition. In an interesting parallel I see Miss Mason as a bit of a Galileo of education. In Galileo’s time the Church was blinded to obvious truths due to their reverence for Aristotle. Galileo came along and, while valuing the past, saw clearly where the Church had missed the mark by ceasing to think and look for itself.

Miss Mason’s Christian faith was the lens through which she viewed the world. From this vantage point she was able to learn from the past but also see the flaws in thinking. In her paradigm, shortcomings were to be expected of a people who didn’t yet have the bad news of mankind’s fallen state, the whole picture that made the gospel such good news. Because of this she was able to respect the men, as we should, but stopped short of attempting to make use of their flawed tools aimed at narrow goals.

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It is worth noting that in Charlotte Mason’s time, these classical ideas had not been lost. To the contrary, classical education was alive and well in her day. And while there are those who will complain that this is an unfair comparison, their argument runs along the same lines as those who argue that communism has simply been wrongly implemented. Truth works in real life. Many ideas sound good on paper, but can they be applied and bear good fruit? The classical ideology had space and time and much tangible application; it had been tested and found wanting. And while there are no doubt worthy teachers in every generation, improvising flawed tools via divine mercy and insight, the net effect of education was one of impersonal rote often brutally enforced by teachers who were as damaged by misplaced authority as their students.

Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and sadly this was the state of many a British school room in the 1800s, Dickens and others give us a taste.

The classical Greek ideal of a god-like teacher drawing students to himself via his magnetic personality and flawless powers of reason, wasn’t in existence — not because it had been forgotten about or hadn’t been tried — but because it couldn’t work in real life, the definitive test of all truth.

Miss Mason brought to education all of the truth and beauty, the stability and effectiveness, of Christian thought when she said things like:

• Human reason is amazing, but it isn’t infallible. It certainly can’t be trusted to define truth.
• Ultimate truth must come from outside of us, must be higher than us.
• We need to be able to reason well, and here are the places where it is safe to use this tool but also make careful note of where it isn’t.
• A teacher holds a powerful role — and so must remember their place.
• The student is capable of making direct relationships with knowledge without the need of middlemen.
• There is no education but self-education. This isn’t about the teacher — stand aside, facilitate.
• People may not manipulate other people. Children are people!
• To will is to be human and people must be given space to exercise their will and experience the consequences of their actions as part of the calibration of conscience, an inward working.
• There are many things a teacher may do and not violate the personhood of children, but there are just as many that they may not. Beware for their sake… and for yours.

These seemingly harsh restrictions placed on reason and teachers are a specific commentary on classical thought and a direct recognition that the Holy Spirit is the great educator of us all, something those early philosophers could not have possibly conceived of.

That God would come down from heaven, become a man, live alongside us, die for us, and send his Holy Spirit to indwell us and instruct us in all truth, is something even their greatest myths failed to fathom.

For them this was unimaginable.

But for Christians it is truth — this is the paradigm shift we hear and grapple with in Miss Mason’s philosophy and in her method of application.

The Christian idea of “God with us” — truly with us — was the piece to the puzzle that the ancients didn’t have, had to work around. This missing piece forced them to rely exclusively on external human approaches.

When Miss Mason introduces things like masterly inactivity, she does this from a distinctly Christian understanding.

Masterly inactivity is only possible because there is a teacher who never sleeps.

Nature study becomes a synthetic opportunity to know more about a Creator and his work, instead of an analytic exercise that is dependent on reason.

That words convey powerful ideas that go into a person and germinate in outward expressions correlates to a moment in history when The Word became flesh.

These are the things the classical thinkers couldn’t see and know — but must now be added to the equation.

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As I ponder education in our day two patterns strike me as relevant to this conversation, one is the rise of secular Charlotte Mason educators. That people would see something that works (truth) and want it, and thus inadvertently inherit goodness from Christianity seems reasonable and even beautiful. What seems discordant is the second trend — one of Christians trying to utilize partially informed, humanistic ideas to build on a flawed foundation.

One of the many glad tidings of the good news of Christ’s birth, death, and resurrection is that we need no longer put a strangle hold on education the way past generations did, corrupt it by expecting more than it can give. Our hope is in, our help comes from, and our goal should be the Lord.

As Charlotte Mason’s philosophy gains footing in modern times and begins to lead thought with its winsome effectiveness, where should we invest our energy in introductions and training?

Beyond the various elements, and schedules, and book titles, I believe we should begin in the same place that Miss Mason did — the clarification of Christian thought on the role of reason and the role of the teacher.

When these two facets are understood, the rest of the picture begins to shift into alignment, clarity comes, and education gains space to serve its rightful role as the handmaid of religion.

To sum up:

1. Classical thinkers said that education should be about more than utility. They said the goal of education should be virtue.
2. Virtue as an end in itself is inward and self-focused; this is what happened to the Pharisees of Jesus’s time. They mastered themselves and missed the Messiah. To make virtue (self/ self-management) the goal of education is to miss the Christian goal of life: to know Christ and enjoy him forever. Virtue is beautiful — but must be a by-product.
3. For the classical thinkers the key tools to reach the goal of Virtue were reason and the teacher.
4. However, due to the Christian understanding of the fallenness of mankind, neither of these tools are effective. Our reason was corrupted in the Fall and is not trustworthy in all things.
5. Because of our fallen nature, we cannot be in absolute authority over other people nor let other people have absolute power over us as power unmasks and enlivens our corruption.
6. If absolute power is unattainable, we tend to settle for subtle forms of manipulation. Parents, teachers, spouses, friends may use fear, love, jealousy or greed. To will is to be human, and to undermine someone’s will (choice) via manipulation is to violate their personhood. This means that there will literally be less of them (their capacity to make an act of their will) for the next event of their lives.
7. Charlotte Mason agreed that education should be about more than utility — however she set a goal even greater than personal virtue and societal utopias and utterly rejected the tools recommended by the ancients. She wrote extensively on reason, the role of the teacher, deputed authority, personhood, the will, habits, and the instruction of the conscience, as well as a lovely and workable (in real life — the test of truth!) method of education.
8. If you would like to read her writings on these topics, they are clustered most densely in her books: School Education, Towards a Philosophy of Education, and Ourselves.

Endnotes

^[1] Hicks, D. (1999), Norms & Nobility, p. 24, quoting The Dialogues of Plato, translated by B. Jowett (1969).

^[2] Hicks, D. (1999), pp. 25–26, quoting The Ethics of Aristotle, by J. Burnet (1976).

^[3] Hicks, D. (1999), p. 41.

^[4] Ibid.

^[5] Ibid., p. 42.

Sara Timothy lives in the Ozark Mountains where she currently has 5 CM graduates and two in lessons. In the comparative lull she leads Red-Brick Academy and curates its Living Book Library. Her study and purposeful applications of Charlotte Mason’s philosophy have resulted in many ideas and resources for homes and schools. Sara has had the privilege of speaking and writing for many streams within the Charlotte Mason community and was particularly humbled by her visit to Ambleside England to present ideas and techniques at the Centenary Conference. She is passionate about the culture and influence of Miss Mason’s ideas in modern times and works to support those who are cultivating these things in their localities. Her “ABCs of Charlotte Mason” audio blog is hosted by Commonplace Quarterly; resources and her personal blog may be found at stimothyonline.com.

©2025 Sara Timothy

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