A Delectable Education Charlotte Mason Podcast

Through twice monthly conversations, three moms who have studied the Charlotte Mason method of education and put her ideas into practice in their homes join together to share with one another for the benefit of listeners by giving explanations of Mason's principles and examples of those principles put into practice out of their own teaching experience. These short discussions aim at providing information, support, and encouragement for others by unfolding the myriad aspects.

Episode 292: Balancing Time--School Schedules 01/03/2025

Episode 292: Balancing Time--School Schedules This week on the podcast, we are discussing the principles behind Charlotte Mason's School Schedules. First we look at the whole year's schedule, why three terms, and options we have for today's students. Then, we turn our focus to the daily schedule and how we can bring much needed balance to our education. We hope you take away principles, rather than rules, and gain clarity on how our seemingly mundane choices have such a large impact on our students. “It is impossible to overstate the importance of this habit of attention. It is, ..., ‘within the reach of everyone, and should be made the primary object of all mental discipline’; for whatever the natural gifts of the child, it is only so far as the habit of attention is cultivated in him that he is able to make use of them.” (1/146) “...if the [student] is to get two or three hours intact [in the afternoon], she will owe it to her mother's firmness as much as to her good management. In the first place, that the school tasks be done, and done well, in the assigned time, should be a most fixed law. The young people will maintain that it is impossible, but let the mother insist; she will thereby cultivate the habit of attention." (5/195) “It is well to make up our mind that there is always a next thing to be done, whether in work or play; and that the next thing, be it ever so trifling, is the right thing; not so much for its own sake, perhaps, as because, each time we insist upon ourselves doing the next thing, we gain power in the management of that unruly filly, Inclination. … "At first it requires attention and thought. But mind and body get into the way of doing most things; and the person, whose mind has the habit of singling out the important things and doing them first, saves much annoyance to himself and others, and has gained in Integrity. ... "In the end, integrity makes for gaiety, because the person who is honest about his work has time to play, and is not secretly vexed by the remembrance of things left undone or ill done.” (4-1/171-2) (Contains affiliate links) on Holiday Pursuits and Activities /episode/index/show/adelectableeducation/id/33878242

Episode 291: Finding Balance in High School and Beyond with Helen Swaveley 12/20/2024

Episode 290: Bringing Older Children into the CM Method 12/06/2024

Episode 289: CM Graduate Panel with Jono Kiser 11/15/2024

Episode 288: Finding Balance for Our Student 11/01/2024

Episode 287: Balance in Life with Michelle Riesgraf 10/18/2024

Episode 286: Finding Balance in Our Teaching 10/04/2024

Episode 285: Finding Balance in Ministry with Susanne Norris 09/20/2024

Episode 284: Balancing Parent-Child Relationships 09/06/2024

Episode 284: Balancing Parent-Child Relationships One of the distinctives of the Charlotte Mason Method is that it is relational education. The Method also applies to all of life, and so we start with the foundational relationship in our students' lives: their relationship with their parents. In this episode of the podcast, we look at the two extremes, and learn from Charlotte Mason how to strike a balance that leads to life--for both parent and child. School Education, Volume 3 of the Home Education Series by Charlotte M. Mason, chapters 1-3 "...it is far easier to govern from a height, as it were, than from the intimacy of close personal contact. But you cannot be quite frank and easy with beings who are obviously of a higher and of another order than yourself." (3/4) "Parents and teachers, because their subjects are so docile and so feeble, are tempted more than others to the arbitrary temper..." (3/11) "Autocracy is defined as independent or self-derived power...Autocracy has ever a drastic penal code, whether in the kingdom, the school, or the family. It has, too, many commandments. 'Thou shalt' and 'thou shalt not' ... The tendency to assume self-derived power is common to us all, even the meekest of us, and calls for special watchfulness; the more so, because it shows itself fully as often in remitting duties and in granting indulgences as in inflicting punishments." (3/15-16) "Locke promulgated the doctrine of the infallible reason. That doctrine accepted, individual reason becomes the ultimate authority, and every man is free to do that which is right in his own eyes...the principle of the infallible reason is directly antagonistic to the idea of authority." (3/5-6) "[B]ut wise parents steer a middle course. They are careful to form habits upon which the routine of life runs easily, and, when the exceptional event requires a new regulation, they may make casual mention of their reasons for having so and so done ; or, if this is not convenient and the case is a trying one, they give the children the reason for all obedience-"for this is right." In a word, authority avoids, so far as may be, giving cause of offence." (3/22) "[A]uthority is vested in the office and not in the person; that the moment it is treated as a personal attribute it is forfeited. We know that a person in authority is a person authorised ; and that he who is authorised is under authority." (3/12) "Authority is neither harsh nor indulgent. She is gentle and easy to be entreated in all matters immaterial, just because she is immovable in matters of real importance; for these, there is always a fixed principle. It does not, for example, rest with parents and teachers to dally with questions affecting either the health or the duty of their children. They have no authority to allow children in indulgences... Authority is alert; she knows all that is going on and is aware of tendencies...It sometimes happens that children, and not their parents, have right on their side: a claim may be made or an injunction resisted, and the children are in opposition to parent or teacher. It is well for the latter to get the habit of swiftly and imperceptibly reviewing the situation; possibly, the children may be in the right, and the parent may gather up his wits in time to yield the point graciously and send the little rebels away in a glow of love and loyalty." (3/17) "Authority is that aspect of love which parents present to their children; parents know it is love, because to them it means continual self-denial, self-repression, self-sacrifice: children recognise it as love, because to them it means quiet rest and gaiety of heart." (3/24) "The constraining power should be present, but passive, so that the child may not feel himself hemmed in without choice. That free-will of man, which has for ages exercised faithful souls who would prefer to be compelled into all righteousness and obedience, is after all a pattern for parents. The child who is good because he must be so, loses in power of initiative more than he gains in seemly behaviour. Every time a child feels that he chooses to obey of his own accord, his power of initiative is strengthened." (3/31) "We shall give children space to develop on the lines of their own characters in all right ways, and shall know how to intervene effectually to prevent those errors which, also, are proper to their individual characters." (3/35) "'Wise passiveness.' It indicates the power to act, the desire to act, and the insight and self-restraint which forbid action. But there is, from our point of view at any rate, a further idea conveyed in 'masterly inactivity.' The mastery is not over ourselves only; there is also a sense of authority, which our children should be as much aware of when it is inactive as when they are doing our bidding." (3/28) "Further, though the emancipation of the children is gradual, they acquiring day by day more of the art and science of self-government, yet there comes a day when the parents, right to rule is over; there is nothing left for them but to abdicate gracefully, and leave their grown-up sons and daughters free agents, even though these still live at home; and although, in the eyes of their parents, they are not fit to be trusted with the ordering of themselves: if they fail in such self-ordering, whether as regards time, occupations, money, friends, most likely their parents are to blame for not having introduced them by degrees to the full liberty which is their right as men and women. Anyway, it is too late now to keep them in training; fit or unfit, they must hold the rudder for themselves." (2/17) -- Our Season Sponsor ADE's /episode/index/show/adelectableeducation/id/32065477

Episode 283: Balancing Our Priorities 08/16/2024

Episode 282: Introduction to Season 10 08/02/2024

Episode 281: Season 9 Closing Ceremonies 05/17/2024

Episode 280: The Simplicity of the Charlotte Mason Method 05/03/2024

Episode 279: Trusting the Method with Sandra Johnson 04/19/2024

Episode 278: Trusting the Method Through Our Curriculum 04/05/2024

Episode 277: Trusting the Method with Morgan Conner 03/15/2024

Episode 276: ADE Book Club Discussion -- Vanity Fair 03/01/2024

Episode 275: Trusting the Method with Jami Hurt 02/16/2024

Episode 274: Gaining Independence 02/02/2024

Episode 274: Gaining Independence As home educators trying to spread the wide feast of a Charlotte Mason education for multiple children, we feel the need to have our students working independently. But how do we get them there? Join Liz, Nicole, and Emily as they discuss the rewards and challenges with practical advice for how to help our children grow in independence--in school lessons and beyond. “As we have already urged, there is but one right way, that is, children must do the work for themselves. They must read the given pages and tell what they have read, they must perform, that is, what we may call the act of knowing." (6/99) “One of the features, and one of the disastrous features, of modern society, is that, in our laziness, we depend upon prodders and encourage a vast system of prodding.” (3/39) "...parents who have always satisfied the intellectual craving of their children must needs forego the delight of watching a literary awakening." (3/123) “The children must know themselves to be let alone, whether to do their own duty or to seek their own pleasure. The constraining power should be present, but passive, so that the child may not feel himself hemmed in without choice. That free-will of man, which has for ages exercised faithful souls who would prefer to be compelled into all righteousness and obedience, is after all a pattern for parents. The child who is good because he must be so, loses in power of initiative more than he gains in seemly behaviour. Every time a child feels that he chooses to obey of his own accord, his power of initiative is strengthened.” (3/31) "A parent may be willing to undergo any definite labours for his child's sake; but to be always catering for his behoof, always contriving that circumstances shall play upon him for his good, is the part of a god and not of a man!" (1/10) "Make children happy and they will be good,' is absolutely true, but does it develop that strenuousness, the first condition of virtue, which comes of the contrary axiom-' Be good and you will be happy'?" (3/57) "Let her distribute her time as she likes, but count her tale of bricks; let her choose books for her own reading, but know what she chooses; let her choose her own companions, but put before her the principles on which to choose..." (5/245) ADE's /episode/index/show/adelectableeducation/id/29499108

Episode 273: Voices from the Conference: Melissa Petermann on Homeschooling Through Chronic Illness 01/19/2024

Episode 272: Charlotte Mason on Children "Liking" Their Books 01/05/2024

Episode 272: Charlotte Mason on Children "Liking" Their Books How do you determine which books are the "right" books for your children? Charlotte Mason said they must LIKE their books, right? Or did she? We explore the nuances of children's taste and how much a role that should play in our choices of their lesson books in this episode. “The children must enjoy their books." (3/178) "What manner of book will find its way with upheaving effect into the mind of an intelligent boy or girl? We need not ask what the firl or boy likes. She very often likes the twaddle of goody-goody storybooks, he likes condiments, highly-spiced tales of adventure. We are all capable of liking mental food of a poor quality..." (3/168) "[T]he happiness of the child is the condition of his progress; that his lessons should be joyous, and that occasions of friction in the schoolroom are greatly to be deprecated." (1/178, emphasis added) "Our conception of a child rules our relations towards him. Pour s'amuser is the rule of child-life proper for the 'oyster' theory, and most of our children's books and many of our theories of child-education are based upon this rule. 'Oh! he's so happy,' we say, and are content, believing that if he is happy he will be good; and it is so to a great extent; but in the older days the theory was, if you are good you will be happy; and this is a principle which strikes the keynote of endeavour, and holds good, not only through the childish 'stage of evolution,' but for the whole of life, here and hereafter. The child who has learned to 'endeavour himself' (as the Prayer Book has it) has learned to live." (2/254) "Your opinions about books and other things will very likely be wrong, and you will yourself correct them by and by when you have read more, thought more, know more. Indeed, no wise person, however old, is sure of his opinions." (4/I/183-84) "A child has not begun his education until he has acquired the habit of reading to himself, with interest and pleasure, books fully on a level with his intelligence. I am speaking now of his lesson-books, which are all too apt to be written in a style of insufferable twaddle, probably because they are written by persons who have never chanced to meet a child. All who know children know that they do not talk twaddle and do not like it, and prefer that which appeals to their understanding. Their lesson-books should offer matter for their reading, whether aloud or to themselves; therefore they should be written with literary power. As for the matter of these books, let us remember that children can take in ideas and principles, whether the latter be moral or mechanical, as quickly and clearly as we do ourselves (perhaps more so); but detailed processes, lists and summaries, blunt the edge of a child's delicate mind." (1/229) "A corollary of the principle that education is the science of relations, is, that no education seems to be worth the name which has not made children at home in the world of books, and so related them, mind to mind, with thinkers who have dealt with knowledge. We reject epitomes, compilations, and their like, and put into children's hands books which, long or short, are living. Thus it becomes a large part of the teacher's work to help children to deal with their books; so that the oral lesson and lecture are but small matters in education, and are used chiefly to summarise or to expand or illustrate." (3/226) "We are apt to believe that children cannot be interested in the Bible unless its pages be watered down––turned into the slipshod English we prefer to offer them." (1/247-48) "We are determined that the children shall love books, therefore we do not interpose ourselves between the book and the child. We read him his Tanglewood Tales, and when he is a little older his Plutarch, not trying to break up or water down, but leaving the child's mind to deal with the matter as it can." (2/231-32) "The teacher's part in this regard is to see and feel for himself, and then to rouse his pupils by an appreciative look or word; but to beware how he deadens the impression by a flood of talk. Intellectual sympathy is very stimulating; but we have all been in the case of the little girl who said, 'Mother, I think I could understand if you did not explain quite so much.'" (3/178) "The real use of naturalists' books at this stage is to give the child delightful glimpses into the world of wonders he lives in, to reveal the sorts of things to be seen by curious eyes, and fill him with desire to make discoveries for himself." (1/64) "This sort of weak literature for the children, both in any story and lesson books, is the result of a reactionary process. Not so long ago the current impression was that the children had little understanding, but prodigious memory for facts; dates, numbers, rules, catechisms of knowledge, much information in small parcels, was supposed to be the fitting material for a child's education. We have changed all that, and put into the children's hands lesson-books with pretty pictures and easy talk, almost as good as story-books; but we do not see that, after all, we are but giving the same little pills of knowledge in the form of a weak and copious diluent. Teachers, and even parents, who are careful enough about their children's diet, are so reckless as to the sort of mental aliment offered to them, that I am exceedingly anxious to secure consideration for this question, of the lessons and literature proper for the little people." (1/176) "In their power of giving impulse and stirring emotion is another use of books, the right books; but that is just the question––which are the right books?––a point upon which I should not wish to play Sir Oracle. The 'hundred best books for the schoolroom' may be put down on a list, but not by me. I venture to propose one or two principles in the matter of school-books, and shall leave the far more difficult part, the application of those principles, to the reader." (3/177) "Children cannot answer questions set on the wrong book; and the difficulty of selection is increased by the fact that what they like in books is no more a guide than what they like in food." (6/248) , Flannery O'Connor , William Makepeace Thackeray , Herman Melville ADE's /episode/index/show/adelectableeducation/id/28987103

Episode 271: Trusting the Method with Melanie Verlage 12/15/2023

Episode 270: Can We Make Children Care? 12/01/2023

Episode 270: Can We Make Children Care? Can you make a child care about their education? Or about anything, let alone the many things that Charlotte Mason commended? We tackle these questions in this episode of the podcast, exploring the reasons for a seeming indifference in our students as well as how we can come alongside them and help them grow in their love for knowledge. “Our aim in Education is to give a Full Life.- We begin to see what we want. Children make large demands upon us. We owe it to them to hast set my feet in a large room,' should be the glad cry of every intelligent soul. Life should be all living, and not merely a tedious passing of time ; not all doing or all feeling or all thinking-the strain would be too great-but, all living; that is to say, we should be in touch wherever we go, whatever we hear, whatever we see, with some manner of vital interest. We cannot give the children these interests; we prefer that they should never say they have learned botany or conchology, geology or astronomy. The question is not,-how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education-but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him ? I know you may bring a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink. What I complain of is that we do not bring our horse to the water. We give him miserable little text-books, mere compendiums of facts, which he is to learn off and say and produce at an examination; or we give him various knowledge in the form of warm diluents, prepared by his teacher with perhaps some grains of living thought to the gallon. And all the time we have books, books teeming with ideas fresh from the minds of thinkers upon every subject to which we can wish to introduce children." (3/171-172) "I know you may bring a horse to the water, but you cannot make him drink. What I complain of is that we do not bring our horse to the water. We give him miserable little text-books, mere compendiums of facts, which he is to learn off and say and produce at an examination; or we give him various knowledge in the form of warm diluents, prepared by his teacher with perhaps some grains of living thought to the gallon. And all the time we have books, books teeming with ideas fresh from the minds of thinkers upon every subject to which we can wish to introduce children. The fact is, we undervalue children." (3/172) “In conclusion, the parent must educate himself up to the level of the child, or if he cannot do this, he must never discourage. Children with their natural irresponsibleness and ignorance of what is in them, will take up various subjects with more or less vigor, only to drop them perhaps, before finally lighting upon the one thing of absorbing interest. Be patient with these vagaries and the litter they make if they are wholesome and healthy; above all do not scoff at this inconsequence, and if their particular hobbies are not according to your especial taste remember that— “There are diversities of gifts, but the same spirit.” (PR 22 p. 792) ADE's /episode/index/show/adelectableeducation/id/28803573

Episode 269: Voices from the Conference: Jono Kiser on Dangerous Books 11/17/2023

Episode 268: Recitation Tactics 11/03/2023

Episode 267: Trusting the Method with Celeste Cruz 10/20/2023

Episode 266:The Unity of the Charlotte Mason Method 10/06/2023

Episode 266:The Unity of the Charlotte Mason Method Charlotte Mason's Method can seem confusing and difficult to implement, especially if we view it as a list of do's and don'ts. But when we learn to see it as a unified whole, it is revealed as a truly simple and cohesive method of education. “Time is insufficient for teachers as well as for scholars. How then find room for a new subject ? Where place it ? What would give way for it ? The answer is easy. The art of reading can only benefit education where it adds nothing, eliminates nothing, supersedes nothing, but by assimilation is our aid to all things. It is not a tax but an aid to memory ; it does not fatigue, but relieves and supports the mind. It is to education what the gastric juice is to the nutritive process : it causes and facilitates digestion ; it is not in itself a new factor, but a component part of all the other factors.” (Short Treatise on Reading Aloud. PR 17, p 129) "The reader will say with truth,-" I knew all this before and have always acted more or less on these principles " ; and I can only point to the unusual results we obtain through adhering not ' more or less,' but strictly to the principles and practices I have indicated. I suppose the difficulties are of the sort that Lister had to contend with ; every surgeon knew that his instruments and appurtenances should be kept clean, but the saving of millions of lives has resulted from the adoption of the great surgeon's antiseptic treatment; that is from the substitution of exact principles scrupulously applied for the rather casual ' more or less ' methods of earlier days." (6/19) “Therefore we do not feel it is lawful in the early days of a child's life to select certain subjects for his education to the exclusion of others; … but we endeavour that he shall have relations of pleasure and intimacy established with as many as possible of the interests proper to him; not learning a slight or incomplete smattering about this or that subject, but plunging into vital knowledge, with a great field before him which in all his life he will not be able to explore.” (3/223) "As we have already urged, there is but one right way, that is, children must do the work for themselves." (6/99) "The children, not the teachers, are the responsible persons ; they do the work by self-effort." (6/241) "'The mother is qualified,' says Pestalozzi, 'and qualified by the Creator Himself, to become the principal agent in the development of her child ; . . . and what is demanded of her is a thinking love. • • • God has given to thy child all the faculties of our nature, but the grand point remains undecided-how shall this heart, this head, these hands, be employed? to whose service shall they be dedicated? A question the answer to which involves a futurity of happiness or misery to a life so dear to thee. Maternal love is the first agent in education.'" (1/2) "What we cannot do with Miss Mason's Ideal is to reduce it to lowest terms, and just in so far as we try to, so far we misrepresent it, and misunderstand it. But some of the secret undoubtedly lies in the Programmes of Work; the longer we work from those wonderful programmes the more we realise how well balanced they are; how satisfying to the hungry mind; how the subjects dovetail; how difficult it is to teach history only in history time, how it will 'flow over' into geography, literature, or even into such unexpected channels as arithmetic or botany." (In Memoriam, p. 151) "Method implies two things -- a way to an end, and step-by-step progress in that way. Further, the following of a method implies an idea, a mental image, of the end or object to be arrived at." (1/8) "It would seem a far cry from Undine to a' liberal education ' but there is a point of contact between the two ; a soul awoke within a water-sprite at the touch of love; so, I have to tell of the awakening of a ' general soul ' at the touch of knowledge. Eight years ago the ' soul ' of a class of children in a mining village school awoke simultaneously at this magic touch and has remained awake. We know that religion can awaken souls, that love makes a new man, that the call of a vocation may do it, and in the age of the Renaissance , men's souls, the general soul, awoke to knowledge : but this appeal rarely reaches the modern soul ; and, notwithstanding the pleasantness attending lessons and marks in all our schools, I believe the ardour for knowledge in the children of this mining village is a phenomenon that indicates new possibilities. Already many thousands of the children of the Empire had experienced this intellectual conversion, but they were the children of educated persons. To find that the children of a mining population were equally responsive seemed to open a new hope for the world. It may be that the souls of all children are waiting for the call of knowledge to awaken them to delightful living." (6/Preface) "It is such a temptation to us ordinary folks to emphasize some part at the expense of the rest and so turn a. strength into a weakness. There is only one way to avoid this danger. That is constantly to read and re-read Miss Mason's books, constantly to remind ourselves of her first principles -- for from now onwards Miss Mason's work is in our hands; we dare not leave un-made and effort to keep the truth." (Wix, p. 153) “Questions there will always be, but if we continually keep in touch with Miss Mason's thought by constant reading of all her books, we shall have a sheaf of principles at command by which we can test the value of this or that criticism, this or that book.” (Franklin. PR 36 p. 419) Miss Wix's Article: ADE's /episode/index/show/adelectableeducation/id/28063275

Episode 265: Trusting the Method with Bethany Glosser 09/15/2023

Episode 264: The Time-Table 09/01/2023

Episode 264: The Time-Table Charlotte Mason encouraged us to use a time-table to ensure lessons were kept short and varied. Today on the podcast we're talking about this essential tool, why Miss Mason called it the first principle of a well-managed schoolroom, and how we can make one to fit our family today. "Time-Table; Definite Work in a Given Time. -- I shall have opportunities to enter into some of these points later; meantime, let us look in at a home schoolroom managed on sound principles. In the first place, there is a time-table, written out fairly, so that the child knows what he has to do and how long each lesson is to last. This idea of definite work to be finished in a given time is valuable to the child, not only as training him in habits of order, but in diligence; he learns that one time is not 'as good as another;' that there is no right time left for what is not done in its own time; and this knowledge alone does a great deal to secure the child's attention to his work." (1/142) “In the first place, there is a time-table, written out fairly, so that the child knows what he has to do and how long each lesson is to last. This idea of definite work to be finished in a given time is valuable to the child, not only as training him in habits of order, but in diligence; he learns that one time is not 'as good as another'; that there is no right time left for what is not done in its own time; and this knowledge alone does a great deal to secure the child's attention to his work.” (1/142) “It is impossible to overstate the importance of this habit of attention. It is, ..., ‘within the reach of everyone, and should be made the primary object of all mental discipline’; for whatever the natural gifts of the child, it is only so far as the habit of attention is cultivated in him that he is able to make use of them.” (1/146) "Miss Kitching's introduction to the discussion of this subject involved the following points: "1. That the P.U.S. time-table is intended to serve simply as a guide to the teacher in making her own, for it stands to reason that no two schoolrooms are identical as regards the work done, or the time allotted it. "2. That in making her own time-table the teacher must be careful that no two lessons requiring the same mental effort follow one another in close proximity. "3. That it is better to leave the term's work unfinished, than to rush the pupils through for sake finishing the work set. "The general outcome of the discussion was to the effect that some modification of the programme and time-table is absolutely necessary, each teacher using her own discretion in the matter. Somebody very wisely remarked that Miss Mason intends the programme to fit the child, and not as some wildly imagine, the child to fit the programme." (L'Umile Pianta, May 1915, pp. 58-59) "It is evident that the young lady at home has so much in hand, without taking social claims into consideration, that she can have no time for dawdling, and, indeed will have to make a time-table for herself and map out her day carefully to get as much into it as she wishes." (5/261) ADE's Schedule Cards in , , , ADE's /episode/index/show/adelectableeducation/id/27678939

Episode 263: What Does it Mean to "Trust the Method"? 08/18/2023

Episode 263: What Does it Mean to "Trust the Method"? The theme of this season of A Delectable Education: Charlotte Mason Podcast is "Trust the Method." But what does that mean? Are we just supposed to blindly follow a dead woman's advice from the 19th Century? Emily, Liz, and Nicole discuss these questions and more to help set the stage for the year to come, starting with "Why are you choosing to educate your children in the first place?" "The object of this organisation is not merely to raise the standard of work in the schoolroom. Our chief wish is that pupils should find knowledge delightful in itself and for its own sake, without thought of marks, places, prizes, or other rewards; and that they should develop an intelligent curiosity about the past and present. Children respond and take to their lessons with keen pleasure if they have even tolerably good teaching; and the want of marks, companionship, or other stimulus is not felt in those home schoolrooms where the interest of knowledge is allowed free play." ("A Liberal Education for All" Pamphlet, 1928, p. 31) "Those who do not regard education as a vital whole but as a sort of conglomerate of good idea, good plans, traditions and experiences, do well to adopt and adapt any good idea they come across. But our conception of education is of a vital whole, harmonious, living and effective. Therefore, every plan rises out of a principle, and each such principle is a part of a living educational philosophy, and does not very well bear to be broken off and used by itself." ("A Liberal Education for All," p. 33) “The reader will say with truth,––"I knew all this before and have always acted more or less on these principles"; and I can only point to the unusual results we obtain through adhering not 'more or less,' but strictly to the principles and practices I have indicated. I suppose the difficulties are of the sort that Lister had to contend with; every surgeon knew that his instruments and appurtenances should be kept clean, but the saving of millions of lives has resulted from the adoption of the great surgeon's antiseptic treatment; that is from the substitution of exact principles scrupulously applied for the rather casual 'more or less' methods of earlier days.” (6/19) “In the matter of education, we are hovering round the truth: that education is not merely a preparation for life, but the work of the lifetime is boldly announced. And, given thus much insight, is it conceivable that the education in question is no more than the cramming of a few text-books? Like religion, education is nothing or it is everything––a consuming fire in the bones. How is it that we do not see, through the hurry of eating and drinking, getting and having, that our prime business here is to raise up a generation better than ourselves?” (5/145-46) She trusted that parents and teachers do not have to, “develop the person; he is there already, with, possibly, every power that will serve him in his passage through life.” (3/75) “Like all the great ventures of life, this that I propose to you is a venture of faith, faith in the saving power of knowledge and in the assimilative power of children. Its efficacy depends upon the fact that it is in the nature of things, in the nature of knowledge and in the nature of children. Bring the two together in ways that are sanctioned by the laws of mind and, to use a figure, a chemical change takes place and a new product appears, a person of character and intelligence, an admirable citizen whose own life is too full and rich for him to be an uneasy member of society.” (A Liberal Education for All, No. I. Theory, by Charlotte Mason, https://charlottemasonpoetry.org/a-liberal-education-for-all/) , Susan Schaeffer Macaulay John Taylor Gatto's ADE's /episode/index/show/adelectableeducation/id/27611493

A Delectable Education Charlotte Mason Podcast

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