In my first article in this series, I highlighted a quality that Charlotte Mason said should accompany “all our teaching of children”: reverence. This is a quality that I began to realize was sorely lacking in my own lessons, so I resolved to do something about it. But was this going to be something that …
By Miss C. M. Mason The Parents’ Review, 1913, pp. 561-572 The curriculum of the child is the provision for the man. “Do as you like,” is the new commandment for children,—so we are told; but there are two things against this rule of life. In the first place, it is not possible, and in …
Knowledge awakens. It’s the inspiring, startling, audacious claim of Charlotte Mason, a claim that’s at the heart of her method. “We know that religion can awaken souls,”[1] she writes. That claim isn’t so controversial, even today. But knowledge? I have to tell of the awakening of a ‘general soul’ at the touch of knowledge. Eight …
Editor’s Note by Richele Baburina Scale How Tuesdays were a special time of enjoyment conceived by Charlotte Mason for her teaching students at the House of Education. In the drawing room of Scale How each week, a student from the training college would give a biographical sketch of her favorite author, artist, or musician, while …
English children should have such a familiar and intimate knowledge of the geography of their own country as would make a railway journey a delight; and this is especially the case in these days when “cheap trips” afford opportunities “to see for themselves” to persons whose eyes have been opened by previous instruction.[1] It was …
Editor’s Note, by Dawn Tull It can be difficult for students to comprehend ideas which they cannot physically see in person. What means does the teacher have at his or her disposal in this regard? For example, how do we realistically convey the concept of the topography of a geographical area in a way that …
Many parents get interested in the Charlotte Mason method when their children are young, and they wonder what happens when children educated in this manner get older. Is the Charlotte Mason method a good preparation for life and/or for college? Recently I had the opportunity to talk to a young woman who was homeschooled from …
Editor’s Note: Mary Charlotte (Carta) Sturge was born in 1852 and earned a degree in moral science at the University of Cambridge. She was a frequent speaker at PNEU events from as early as 1896, lecturing on topics such as “The psychology of attention,”[1] “The place of imagination and poetry in Education,”[2] “First Elements of …
Elsewhere I have told the story of how I learned about a medieval saint from Amy Steedman’s In God’s Garden. In the months and years that followed, I read everything I could get my hands on by and about this saint named Catherine of Siena. All of her works had been translated already from her …