“No education, but self-education,” said Charlotte Mason. What does this mean in our schoolroom, in our daily lives? Listen to the discussion of what we are really aiming for in the education of our children.

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An Essay Towards a Philosophy of Education (Volume 6), Book I, Chapter I

“No one knoweth the things of a man but the spirit of a man which is in him; therefore, there is no education but self-education, and as soon as a young child begins his education he does so as a student.” (6/26)

“[G]ive your child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information; for the child who grows up with a few dominant ideas has his self-education provided for, his career marked out.” (1/174)

“Our deadly error is to suppose that we are his showman to the universe; and, not only so, but that there is no community at all between child and universe unless such as we choose to set up.” (3/188)

“The children, not the teachers, are the responsible persons; they do the work by self-effort. The teachers give sympathy and occasionally elucidate, sum up or enlarge, but the actual work is done by the scholars.” (6/6)

“A person is not built up from without but from within, that is, he is living, and all external educational appliances and activities which are intended to mould his character are decorative and not vital.” (6/23)

“One thing at any rate we know with certainty, that no teaching, no information becomes knowledge to any of us until the individual mind has acted upon it, translated it, transformed, absorbed it, to reappear, like our bodily food, in forms of vitality. Therefore, teaching, talk and tale, however lucid or fascinating, effect nothing until self-activity be set up; that is, self-education is the only possible education; the rest is mere veneer laid on the surface of a child’s nature.” (6/240)

“…no effort at self-education can do anything until one has found out this supreme delightfulness of knowledge.” (6/347)

“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?” (3/170-171)

“…the motto-” I am, I can, I ought, I will,” has had much effect in throwing children upon the possibilities, capabilities, duties and determining power belonging to them as persons.” (6/29)

“Naturally, each of us possesses this mind-stuff only in limited measure, but we know where to procure it ; for the best thought the world possesses is stored in books ; we must open books to children, the best books ; our own concern is abundant provision and orderly serving.” (6/26)

“If the list be short, the scholar will not get enough mind-stuff; if the books are not various, his will not be an all-round development ; if they are not original, but compiled at second hand, he will find no material in them for his intellectual growth.” (6/303)

“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.” (3/226)

“Our part is to remove obstructions and to give stimulus and guidance to the child who is trying to get in touch with the universe of things and thoughts which belongs to him.” (3/188)

“Attention is not the only habit that follows due self-education. The habits of fitting and ready expression, of obedience, of good-will, and of an impersonal outlook are spontaneous by-products of education in this sort. So, too, are the habits of right thinking and right judging; while physical habits of neatness and order attend upon the self-respect which follows an education which respects the personality of children.” (6/100)

“In proportion as he is made aware of the laws which rule every relationship, will his life be dutiful and serviceable: as he learns that no relation with persons or with things, animate or inanimate , can be maintained without strenuous effort, will he learn the laws of work and the joys of work.” (3/187-188)

“…so soon as the child can read at all, he should read for himself, and to himself, history, legends, fairy tales, and other suitable matter.” (1/227)

“People are naturally divided into those who read and think and those who do not read or think ; and the business of schools is to see that all their scholars shall belong to the former class; it is worth while to remember that thinking is inseparable from reading which is concerned with the content of a passage and not merely with the printed matter.” (6/31)

“Knowledge is not sensation, nor is it to be derived through sensation ; we feed upon the thoughts of other minds ; and thought applied to thought generates thought and we become more thoughtful. No one need invite us to reason, compare, imagine; the mind, like the body, digests its proper food, and it must have the labour of digestion or it ceases to function.” (6/26)

12 Ways Your Phone is Changing You, Tony Reinke

The April Q&A episode discusses the usual variety of questions: Did Charlotte Mason use textbooks? Is her parenting advice valid? How can we get more rest? Plus, strategies for lesson planning.

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“I shall touch later upon the burning question of a curriculum which shall furnish children, not with dry bones of fact, but with fact clothed upon with the living flesh, breathed into by the vital spirit of quickening ideas.” (3/124)

“The interpreter is too much with us. We lean on him-whether in commentary, essay, sermon, poem, critique-and are content that he should think for us.” (4/84)

“My endeavor in this and the following volumes of the series will be to sketch out roughly a method of education which, as resting upon a basis of natural law, may look, without presumption, to inherit the Divine blessing.” (1/41)

“What is education? The answer we accept is that Education is the Science of Relations.
“We do not use this phrase in the Herbartian sense, that things or thoughts are related to each other and that teachers must be careful to pack the right things, in together, so that, having got into the pupil’s brain, each may fasten on its kind, and, together, make a strong clique or apperception mass.
“What concerns us personally is the fact that we have relations with what there is in the present and with what there has been in the past, with what is above us, and about us ; and that fulness of living and serviceableness depend for each of us upon how far we apprehend these relationships and how many of them we lay hold of.” (3/217-218)

“…it is possible to bring up a child entirely according to natural law, which is also Divine Law, in the keeping of which there is great reward.” (1/135)

“The teacher’s part is, in the first place, to see what is to be done, to look over the work of the day in advance and see what mental discipline, as well as what vital knowledge, this and that lesson afford; and then to set such questions and such tasks as shall give full scope to his pupils’ mental activity.” (3/180-181)

For the Love of Physics, Lewin

In Memoriam, The PNEU

The Sciences, Holden

Geikie’s Textbook of Geology

Green’s Short History of the English People

Some Wonders of Matter, Mercer

Notes of Lessons

Lesson Planning Teacher Training Video

Imagine a traditional classical approach to homeschooling, having eight children, and then discovering the life-giving education of Charlotte Mason. Join Nicole Williams as she interviews Toni Onks, who courageously made a revolutionary switch to Charlotte Mason and rediscovered the joy of learning together as a family.

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For the Children’s Sake, Macaulay

The Boy Who Harnessed the Wind, William Komkwamba

ADE Consulting Services

Looking for a Study Group near you?

“Education, said Charlotte Mason, is an “atmosphere, a discipline, and a life.” Habit formation, the discipline, is fundamental to our function as persons. Miss Mason offers descriptions of habit formation as well as counsel on habit training. Emily, Liz, and Nicole discuss the essentials for building those habits that make for “the good life.”

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Home Education (Volume 1): Part III, Habit is Ten Natures and Part IV, Some Mental and Moral Habits

Parents and Children (Volume 2): Chapter XVI: Discipline

“Consideration made the reason of the failure plain: there was a warm glow of goodness at the heart of every one of the children, but they were all incapable of steady effort, because they had no strength of will, no power to make themselves do that which they knew they ought to do. Here, no doubt, come in the functions of parents and teachers; they should be able to make the child do that which he lacks the power to compel himself to.” (1/99-100)

“The problem before the educator is to give the child control over his own nature, to enable him to hold himself in hand as much in regard to the traits we call good, as to those we call evil:––many a man makes shipwreck on the rock of what he grew up to think his characteristic virtue––his open-handedness, for instance.” (1/103-104)

“We are all mere creatures of habit. We think our accustomed thoughts, make our usual small talk, go through the trivial round, the common task, without any self-determining effort of will at all. If it were not so––if we had to think, to deliberate, about each operation of the bath or the table––life would not be worth having; the perpetually repeated effort of decision would wear us out. But, let us be thankful, life is not thus laborious. For a hundred times we act or think, it is not necessary to choose, to will, say, more than once. And the little emergencies, which compel an act of will, will fall in the children’s lives just about as frequently as in our own. These we cannot save them from, nor is it desirable that we should. What we can do for them is to secure that they have habits which shall lead them in ways of order, propriety, and virtue, instead of leaving their wheel of life to make ugly ruts in miry places.” (1/110-111)

“Every day, every hour, the parents are either passively or actively forming those habits in their children upon which, more than upon anything else, future character and conduct depend. ” (1/118)

“[L]et me say that the education of habit is successful in so far as it enables the mother to let her children alone, not teasing them with perpetual commands and directions–a running fire of Do and Don’t; but letting them go their own way and grow, having first secured that they will go the right way, and grow to fruitful purpose.” (1/134)

“…to point out the miseries that must arise from this fault, and the duty of over-coming it…” (1/120)

“The mother devotes herself to the formation of one habit at a time, doing no more than keep watch over those already formed.” (1/136)

“It is evident that to administer rewards and punishments on this principle requires patient consideration and steady determination on the mother’s part. She must consider…what fault of disposition the child’s misbehaviour springs from; she must aim her punishment at that fault, and must brace herself to see her child suffer present loss for his lasting gain.” (1/148)

“Boys and Girls are generally Dutiful-It would be better for boys and girls to suffer the consequences of not doing their work, now and then, than to do it because they are so urged and prodded on all hands that they have no volition in the matter. The more we are prodded the lazier we get, and the less capable of the effort of will which should carry us to, and nearly
carry us through, our tasks. Boys and girls are, on the whole, good, and desirous to do their duty. If we expect the tale of bricks to be delivered at the due moment without urging or entreating, rewarding or punishing, in nine cases out of ten we shall get what we look for. Where many of us err is in leaning too much to our own understanding and our own efforts, and not trusting sufficiently to the dutiful impulse which will carry children through the work they are expected to do.” (3/39-40)

“…the incessant watchfulness and endeavour which go to the forming and preserving of the habits of the good life…” (2/173)

“Knowing that the brain is the physical seat of habit and that conduct and character alike, are the outcome of the habits we allow; knowing, too, that an inspiring idea initiates a new habit of thought, and hence, a new habit of life; we perceive that the great work of education is to inspire children with vitalising ideas as to every relation of life, every department of knowledge, every subject of thought, and to give deliberate care to the formation of those habits of the good life which are the outcome of vitalising ideas. In this great work we seek and assuredly find the co-operation of the Divine Spirit, whom we recognise, in a sense rather new to modern thought, as the supreme Educator of mankind in things that have been called secular, fully as much as in those that have been called sacred.” (3/172-173)

Mental Physiology, Carpenter

Episode 4: Three Tools of Education

Episode 30: The Way of the Will and The Way of Reason