Episode 208: Short Synopsis Points 16-19

For every homeschool teacher, Charlotte Mason’s wisdom on the child’s personality is invaluable. This next installment of the synopsis, points 16-19, covers these two aspects, aspects the teacher has an obligation to understand and instruct their children in.

Listen Now:

Home Education (Volume 1), Part V, Chapter I

Ourselves (Volume 4), Book I, Chapter VI; Book II, Part II

An Essay Towards a Philosophy of Education (Volume 6), Chapters VIII & IX

[16] There are two guides to moral and intellectual self management to offer to children, which we may call ‘the way of the will’ and ‘the way of the reason.’

[17] The way of the will : Children should be taught, (a) to distinguish between ‘I want’ and ‘I will.’ (b) That the way to will effectively is to tum our thoughts from that which we desire but do not will. (c) That the best way to turn our thoughts is to think of or do some quite different thing, entertaining or interesting. (d) That after a little rest in this way, the will returns to its work with new vigour. (This adjunct of the will is familiar to us as diversion, whose office it is to ease us for a time from will effort, that we may ‘ will ‘ again with added power. The use of suggestion as an aid to the will is to be deprecated, as tending to stultify and stereotype character. It would seem that spontaneity is a condition of development, and that human nature needs the discipline of failure as well as of success.)

[18] The way of reason: We teach children, too, not to ‘lean (too confidently) to their own understanding’; because the function of reason is to give logical demonstration (a) of mathematical truth, (b) of an initial idea, accepted by the will. In the former case, reason is, practically, an infallible guide, but in the latter, it is not always a safe one; for, whether that idea be right or wrong, reason will confirm it by irrefragable proofs.

[19] Therefore, children should be taught, as they become mature enough to understand such teaching, that the chief responsibility which rests on them as persons is the acceptance or rejection of ideas. To help them in this choice we give them principles of conduct, and a wide range of the knowledge fitted to them. These principles should save children from some of the loose thinking and heedless action which cause most of us to live at a lower level than we need.

“…the business of reason is rather to prove for us what we think is right, than to bring us to conclusions which are right in themselves.” (4/64)

“…what the heart loves, the will chooses, and the mind justifies. The mind doesn’t direct the will. The mind is actually captive to what the will wants, and the will itself, in turn, is captive to what the heart wants.” (Dr. Ashley Null)

“Logic gives us the very formula of reason, and that which is logically proved is not necessarily right.” (6/144)

“It is madness to let children face a debatable world with only, say, a mathematical preparation. If our business were to train their power of reasoning, such a training would no doubt be of service; but the power is there already, and only wants material to work upon.” (6/147)

“Every mother knows how intensely reasonable a child is and how difficult it is to answer his quite logical and foolishly wrong conclusions. So we need not be deterred from dealing with serious matters with these young neophytes, but only as the occasion occurs; we may not run the risk of boring them with the great questions of life while it is our business to send them forth assured.” (6/150-151)

“Children should know that such things are before them also; that whenever they want to do wrong capital reasons for doing the wrong thing will occur to them. But, happily, when they want to do right no less cogent reasons for right doing will appear.” (6/142)