“Children make large demands upon us. We owe it to them to initiate an immense number of interests. Thou 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?” (Vol. 3, pp. 170-171)
Apparently, this is an episode I needed to hear, as it is not what I ‘clicked’ on, but I am so thankful I did (as usual)!
After listening to the reply to the ‘looping’ question, I had two thoughts. One, that I ‘could not possibly just ‘skip’ a day, as we would miss so much’ of the stories in our books (I think missing history bothers me the most). But then, as I thought more about it, I realized that knowing if I DECIDE to allow something to come before our four hours of learning, that I am CHOOSING to skip those lessons! You all know that we certainly understand the ‘choas in life,’ as Nicole mentioned, but now that we are into calmer waters, I need to remember where I am and purpose to keep things in priority.
What a relief I feel to know I need never ‘be behind’ again, and a challenge to stay the course, and choose the important things instead of the impatient things.
Thank you, Emily, Liz and Nicole for all you have done to help my family. We are eternally grateful!