Charlotte Mason’s book for students, Ourselves, is valuable to homeschool parents and all teachers, too. This episode in the series highlighting sections of Ourselves addresses a hot topic in our culture today: justice. Specifically, what do the opinions we hold have to do with doing what is right to others?
Listen Now:
Ourselves (Volume 4), Book I: Part III (pp. 136-203)
“Justice requires that we should take steady care every day to yield his rights to every person we come into contact with; that is, ‘to do unto others as we would that they should do unto us…’; therefore we must show gentleness to the persons of others, courtesy to their words, and deference to their opinions, because these things are due.” (4/I/137)
“Every person has many opinions, either his own, honestly thought out, or picked up from his pet newspaper, or from his favorite companion. The person who thinks out his opinions modestly and carefully is doing his duty as truly as if he helped to save a life…it is a great part of our work in life to do our duty in our thoughts and form just opinions.” (4/I/180-181)
“The lectures we hear, the books we read, are of no use to us, except as they make us think.” (4/I/182)
“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. He holds them fast, but he holds them modestly…” (4/I/184)
The Coddling of the American Mind, Jonathan Haidt
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