During most of the past six years I have volunteered helping with the pre-school and elementary aged children at our church. Although our church family includes many loving and well-intentioned educators, I am not aware of anyone else inclined towards Mason’s philosophy. In fact, much of what I observed over the years runs contrary to …
Editor’s Note by Richele Baburina Without the influence of Emeline Steinthal, the Parents’ National Education Union might never have come to be. And, without her influence, it might not have had such a far-reaching positive and enduring impact for good. Biographer Essex Cholmondeley explains what happened after their first membership enrollment: Mrs Steinthal was not …
“When Miss Mason was alive, for example, children were instinctively more obedient and respectful than they are today.”[1] As I have studied Charlotte Mason’s volumes with dozens of men and women over the past six years as part of the Idyll Challenge, I have noticed an occasional but recurring theme. Sooner or later, someone inevitably …
Editor’s Note. The first article I ever read by House of Education graduate Eleanor Frost is her 1913 “Bible Teaching in The Parents’ Union School.” Presented at the 17th annual PNEU Conference, it has been one of my main “go to” references for Bible lessons, and I have read it more times than I can …
What was Charlotte Mason’s source for her philosophy of education? It is a question that I have discussed and debated at length over the past several years. And it is a question which does not seem yet to be settled to everyone’s satisfaction within the Charlotte Mason community. Answers seem to fall into three general …
Editor’s Note: The PNEU motto was “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life.”[1] This motto encapsulated what Charlotte Mason saw as the only three valid instruments of education: “the atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit, and the presentation of living ideas.”[2] But did these three instruments function like the three legs of …
Editor’s Note: One of the most common questions we hear is how to handle a homeschool situation where there are multiple children in multiple forms. This is not a new question; it has challenged teachers for generations. Essex Cholmondeley, Charlotte Mason’s confidante and biographer, took on this and other questions in a 1927 “Notes and …
Editor’s Note, by Heidi Buschbach Our author, W.H. Leslie, wrote Part II of this article and it was included in a later printing of The Parents’ Review that year. Part I focused on the early years of teaching Sol-fa which included basic things such as having good tone, training the ear to hear pitch, melody, …
The first principle of Charlotte Mason’s twenty-point synopsis reads simply, “Children are born persons.” Comprised of only four words, it’s the shortest principle in the synopsis. This economy of wording has led to a variety of interpretations of what Mason means by this principle. Through an extensive survey of Mason’s writings, I’ve attempted to uncover the …