Jun 09 2009
Vol. 1 Preface: an overview of Charlotte Mason’s philosophy of education
“The educational outlook is rather misty and depressing both at home and abroad.” So much of what Miss Mason writes would not look out of place in newspapers today! She believes the problem stems from not having pinned down the “natural law” of education. If we could find this law, it would be pervasive (covering a child’s whole life), illuminating (showing what works and what doesn’t), it would be a measure and a standard by which all works could be tested, and it would be liberal, encompassing everything which is good, true and honest. Ultimately, she states that “We shall doubtless find [that] it is necessary to believe in God; that, therefore, the knowledge of God is the principal knowledge, and the chief end of education.”
The Original Homeschooling Series is Miss Mason’s attempt at a “workable, effectual philosophy of education,” based upon the central thought that “the child is a person with all the possibilities and powers included in personality.” She then goes on to list 18 precepts on which her volumes will be based. In summary: authority and obedience are vital, but must be tempered by respect for the child. Children should be surrounded by an ‘atmosphere’ of education, taught the discipline of good habits of mind and body, and provided with intellectual and moral sustenance in the form of a generous curriculum.
Children should not be spoon-fed information, but guided, using the principle that “Education is the Science of Relations,” to discover how the world fits together and how they fit into that world. They should be taught how to master their will and to recognize when their reasoning and understanding is infallible or otherwise. And lastly, as Miss Mason says, “We should allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and ’spiritual’ life of children; but should teach them that the divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their continual helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life.”
And, for all those times when I’m looked at strangely by people who can’t relate to my belief that, as their mum, I’m the best person to be bringing up my children (rather than handing them over to child minders or nursery workers while I go back to work), there is Miss Mason’s belief that “in the words of a wise teacher of men, ‘the woman receives from the Spirit of God Himself the intuitions into the child’s character, the capacity of appreciating its strength and its weakness, the faculty of calling forth the one and sustaining the other, in which lies the mystery of education, apart from which all its rules and measures are utterly vain and ineffectual.’”
