The CMP Review — Week of October 28

The CMP Review — Week of October 28

October 28, 2024

“Do you know the kind of still, warm, comfort-giving day that comes in autumn, when, if you are silent, and will listen, you can hear a solitary beech leaf flutter slowly down from branch to branch, till it reaches Mother Earth and rests there? … Knowledge of such things comes by the listening ear. If we would have the joy that comes with such knowledge, we must cultivate the habit of listening, and if we would give children this joy, we must help them to form the habit early.” (The Parents’ Review, Vol. 57, p. 65, Gladding, “The Listening and The Hearing Ear”)

@tessakeath

October 29, 2024

The more we reduce education to the training of the mind, the more we reduce the curriculum to academic subjects. But we educate persons and not brains, so a narrow form of education encourages a narrow view of persons.

When we realize that a person is more than a rational mind, and that persons have hearts that feel, limbs that move, and souls that love, we realize that a fuller curriculum is required. And hence we bring in music, art, and drill. And some brave souls include dance.

But is folk dance merely an appendix to a school program to make sure we cover all our bases? Is dance merely a way to make sure that one more dimension of our children-born-persons are educated? Or is dance more than just that optional last piece for the bravest educators of all?

In 1914, the Parents’ Review ran a series of two articles by Juliet Williams about folk dancing. These eye-opening articles reveal aspects of this art that are often hidden from view. An original editor’s note and annotations by Heidi Buschbach further reveal that dance is no mere add-on but rather goes to the heart of what a Charlotte Mason education is all about.

You can read or listen to the first of the articles today at this link. But be forewarned: it’s hard to read this one and stay still. You might find yourself humming a new tune, learning some new steps, and dancing the afternoon away.

@artmiddlekauff

October 30, 2024

Add autumn leaves to your nature journal in three easy steps.

1) Lay down the leaf’s base color using wet juicy watercolor.

2) Drop a second, third, or even fourth color into the wet base.

3) Move wet paint with brush to form veins or “pull” the veins out using a clean, barely damp brush.

Tag us if you give it a try and be sure to visit our Brush Drawing Resources page for more tutorials and info!

@rbaburina

October 31, 2024

The 34th annual report of the PNEU for the years 1924–1925 was published in the September 1925 issue of the Parents’ Review. Compiled by Willingham Rawnsley, Elsie Kitching, and Ellen Parish, it was the first such report since the passing of the PNEU’s founder, Miss Charlotte Mason.

The annual report opened with a handful of sections including an account of the Children’s Gathering at Wembly. Then followed a section entitled “New Publications.” The leading publication was Charlotte Mason’s An Essay Towards a Philosophy of Education, which “was published on January 1st, 1925, together with a pamphlet ‘Some Impressions of the Method.’”

The report devoted four paragraphs to describing this important work. “The book is of set purpose a considerable one,” it stated, “for Miss Mason wished to leave a record of her theory and practice in one volume, which she hoped would be of use in the years to come.”

The description provides a valuable summary and assessment of the book by those who were entrusted to carry on Charlotte Mason’s movement. You can now read the transcribed piece here.

@artmiddlekauff

November 1, 2024

Though my kin from earth are fled
Yet the same woods & rills & trees
Murmur & sing in the same sweet breeze
& I can sit in the forest bower
& solace my heart with some wild flower
That looks from the green grassy ground
At the dead leaflets strewn around
Speaking thought voiceless & empty of sound
Bidding all gloomy care depart
Soothing the passions & calming the heart

— Charlotte Brontë

@artmiddlekauff

📷: @aolander

November 2, 2024

“To the fairy tale we must often look, if we are to mend our ways with the child and lead him forth to find that mighty world, that true self, which is the idea of him laid up in the heart of God.” (Greville MacDonald, The Parents’ Review, Vol. 65, p. 11)

@tessakeath

November 3, 2024

Chapter 49 of the great scroll of Isaiah is dedicated to the Servant of the Lord. At the end of the chapter we read:

Can plunder be taken from warriors, or captives be rescued from the fierce? But this is what the Lord says: “Yes, captives will be taken from warriors, and plunder retrieved from the fierce; I will contend with those who contend with you, and your children I will save.”

James R. Edwards explains that “the Servant’s mission is so seamlessly harmonious with God that God claims the Servant’s mission as his own, ‘I will contend … I will save.’”

The Servant came and did exactly what Isaiah said He would. He took plunder from warriors and captives from the fierce. But His detractors saw it differently. “By Beelzebul, the prince of demons, he is driving out demons,” they said.

Of course their logic made no sense. The strong man was bound because the King had arrived. Charlotte Mason delighted to elaborate the scene in a poem filled with imagery and life. Read or hear it here.

@artmiddlekauff

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