The CMP Review — Week of July 6

July 6, 2026

“But let them have tales of the imagination, scenes laid in other lands and other times, heroic adventures, hairbreadth escapes, delicious fairy tales in which they are never roughly pulled up by the impossible—even where all is impossible, and they know it, and yet believe.” (Home Education, p. 152)

@tessakeath

July 7, 2026

Keegan Spittle grew up as the youngest of five children in a Charlotte Mason homeschool. So the world of picture study, Shakespeare, and living books is the only world he knew.

When he graduated from homeschool high school, people often asked him whether a Charlotte Mason education adequately prepared him for college. “Absolutely,” he would reply. For he certainly found that he could take his college classes in stride.

Over time, however, he began to wonder whether people were really asking the right question. All along, a Charlotte Mason education was preparing Keegan for life. Shouldn’t college be doing the same thing? Follow the link to read or hear Keegan’s challenging question, and be sure to share your thoughts. Find it here.

@artmiddlekauff

July 8, 2026

To make a prairie it takes a clover and one bee,
One clover, and a bee.
And revery.
The revery alone will do,
If bees are few.

~Emily Dickinson

@rbaburina

July 9, 2026

“We must make this father-business the prime interest of our lives, make it our hobby, our recreation, and let money-making and pleasure seeking be subordinated to this important matter of fathercraft.”

— L. E. Hertslet, “The Science and Art of Being a Father,” The Parents’ Review, vol. 35 (1924), p. 310

@artmiddlekauff

July 10, 2026

Well, I’ve never seen this before!

I guess this is a sign that we’re watering this mulch covered, potted watermelon plant enough (or possibly too much)!

Avid gardeners, do I need to worry? What do you advise? Pull out the fungal growth and water a bit less?

@antonella.f.greco

July 11, 2026

I love perusing used bookstores. I especially love when the shelves are overflowing into every nook and cranny, and where every stack promises an unexpected discovery.

This charming little bookshop in Rome was one of those places you could happily lose track of time.

Do you make a point to visit bookstores when you travel?

@tessakeath

In 1887 Charlotte Mason wrote, “If parents could but be got to believe in the omnipotence of habit and in the ease with which a habit is formed, we should live to see a moral revolution, a kingdom of heaven amongst men.” And where should parents go to learn about how a habit is formed? Mason pointed them to science. “Truly His commandment is exceeding broad, and grows broader day by day with each new revelation of Science” (vol. 2, p. 161).

But as powerful as habit is, for Mason it is only part of the story. It is one of the “‘few, faint, and feeble’ flashes which Science is as yet able to throw upon the mysteries of being. But is this all? Ah, no; this is no more than the dim vestibule of Nature to the temple of grace” (vol. 2, p. 162).

What lies outside the dim (yet mighty) vestibule of habit? It is a spiritual realm where we find supernatural beings of good and evil. We find the power of prayer and the snare of temptation.

In volume 2, Mason said, “we are not concerned, however, to say one word here of how ‘great is the mystery of godliness’” (p. 162). She saved that mystery for her poems. Learn about the other side of habit and find fortification against the scourge of temptation in today’s deeply spiritual poem by Charlotte Mason on “The Three Last Temptations.” Find it here.

@artmiddlekauff