This week’s episode of A Delectable Education podcast reviews what Charlotte Mason had to say about Sunday school. Since many listeners write to ask about the application of Mason’s method in their church programs, we tackled the why, what and how of implementing a living
education for children outside our home.

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“That parents should make over the religious education of their children to a Sunday School is, no doubt, as indefensible as if they sent them for their meals to a table maintained by the public bounty.” (Vol. 2, p. 92)

“Nothing should do more to strengthen the bonds of family life than that the children should learn religion at the lips of their parents; and to grow up in a Church which takes constant heed of you from baptism or infancy, until, we will not say confirmation, but through manhood and womanhood, until the end, should give the right tone to corporate life.” (Vol. 2, p. 94)

Parents and Children (Volume 2), Chapter 10

Formation of Character (Volume 5), Part 3, Chapter 2

An Essay Towards a Philosophy of Education (Volume 6), Book 2, Chapter 3

The Bible for School and Home, J. Paterson Smyth

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The PNEU Method in Sunday Schools, Miss Wix (PR Article)

A Letter Towards Sunday School with Charlotte Mason, Brittney McGann

Charlotte Mason included a category named “Sunday Reading” on her programmes and this week’s podcast discusses the purpose for this set-apart reading. In addition, there are plenty of suggestions for what to read, so listen for great titles and ideas for including them,
as well as check out the lists in the show notes.

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“I would suggest special books only to be given out on Sundays, and not kept in the same shelf with the other books read during the week, if possible, so as to have special associations for that day. … We want the children to have bright and happy associations with their Sunday, but at the same time we want to make the distinction between that and the other six days of the week.” (Our Children’s Play, Mrs. Hatchell)

“Novels are divisible into two classes––sensational, and, to coin a word, reflectional. Narrations of hairbreadth escapes and bold adventures need not be what I should call sensational novels; but those which appeal, with whatever apparent innocence, to those physical sensations which are the begetters of lust,––the ‘his lips met hers,’ ‘the touch of her hand thrilled him in every nerve’ sort of thing which abounds in goody-goody storybooks, set apart in many families for Sunday reading, but the complete absence of which distinguishes our best English novels.” (Vol. 5, pp. 374-75)

“What is proper food for the mind, has already been discussed but we may assume that education should make our boys and girls rich towards God.” (Vol. 6, p. 281)

Parables from Nature, Gatty

Child’s Book of Saints, Canton

Book of Golden Deeds, Yonge

Pilgrim’s Progress, Bunyan

The Holy War, Bunyan

The Christian Year, Keble

Cloud of Witness, Gell

Ecclesiastical History, Bede

Confessions of St. Augustine

Paradise Lost, Milton

The Valley of Vision

George Herbert Poetry

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Our Children’s Play: Their Toys and Books, Mrs. C. Hatchell (PR Article)

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For the Children’s Sake, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis

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The Imagination in Childhood, Charlotte Mason (Parents’ Review no. 27)

Imagination as a Powerful Factor in a Well-Balanced Mind, E.A. Parish (Parents’ Review, no. 25)

The Living Education Retreat

The Idyll Challenge

Jason Fiedler’s Blog

“And now the boy will probably leave the home schoolroom for the Preparatory School, either day or boarding, and, as I am dealing with the early training of children, I will not follow the time-tables of the home schoolroom through Classes III. (eleven to fourteen or fifteen) and IV. (fourteen to sixteen or seventeen). Must the entrance to the Preparatory School mean the abandonment of many of these subjects, and the teaching on quite other lines? I do not believe that this is in any way necessary. I have not been dealing with any special system nor advocating any special fad. I have tried to lay down certain more or less accepted educational principles, and have tried to show how these should be carried out from infancy up to the home schoolroom, and thence up to the Preparatory School. These principles are briefly the furnishing of the mind with living ideas on which to grow and develop, instead of trusting to the memory to assimilate only a daily pabulum of facts; the offering of opportunity to the mind to exercise itself in various directions, the formation of good habits which will go towards the building up of character, and the belief in the intrinsic interest to furnish the necessary stimulus for learning.” (“Liberal Education” PR Article)

“Many Preparatory Schoolmasters are shortening the hours of work, and are including in their curriculum nature lore, handicrafts, art teaching, and better methods of language teaching. Some only are making use of the books recommended in the programmes of the Parents’ Union School and enrolling themselves on the P.N.E.U School Register. [For particulars of the Parents’ Union School apply to Miss Mason, House of Education, Ambleside.] That the reform is not more rapid, is, I believe, due to the fact that such methods of teaching are not calculated to inspire confidence in the parents, who may not have had the opportunity of studying educational problems. More showy and more direct results are often demanded, and hence the true educationalist is hampered.” (“Liberal Education” PR Article)

“We cannot, moreover, hope for satisfactory results in the four years, which the boys usually spend at their Preparatory School, unless the ground has been well prepared, and not in a slovenly, amateurish manner. Just as the best teachers are required in the bottom of the school, so parents must prepare themselves for the training of character, the formation of habits, and the inspiration of ideas, and must be willing to seek out and to pay adequately nurses and governesses who are trained to cope with the real needs of the children. We have almost forgotten the days when through ignorance of the laws of health the children’s bodies were under-nourished and otherwise neglected. We may hope that the days are also rapidly passing away when “lessons at home with a governess” means mind and soul starvation. With reform in the foundation, we may hope for some reform and progress all the way up the educational ladder.” (“Home Training” PNEU Pamphlet)

“We are astonished to read of the great irrigation works accomplished by the people of Mexico before Cortes introduced them to our eastern world. We are surprised to find that the literature and art of ancient China are things to be taken seriously. It is worth while to consider why this sort of naive surprise awakes in us when we hear of a nation that has not come under the influence of western civilization competing with us on our own lines. The reason is, perhaps, that we regard a person as a product.” (“Children are Born Persons,” PNEU Pamphlet)

“Let him know what other nations were doing while we at home were doing thus and thus. If he come to think…that the people of some other land were, at one time, at any rate, better than we, why, so much the better for him.” (Vol. 1, p. 281)

“Our knowledge of history should give us something more than impressions and opinions.” (Vol. 6, p. 171)

“We introduce children as early as possible to the contemporary history of other countries as the study of English history alone is apt to lead to a certain insular and arrogant habit of mind.” (Vol. 6, p. 175)

An Essay Towards a Philosophy of Education (Volume 6), Book II, Chapter 2

A Liberal Education in Secondary Schools, Parents’ Review Article

The Home Training of Children, Parents’ Review Article

Episode 80: Charlotte Mason through High School

Episode 48: Writing: Copywork, Dictation, and Written Narration

Subjects by Form

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“Does it, or does it not, make any appreciable difference to a baby to be in a home where music is part of the every-day life, where it is put to sleep with simple songs, where cheerful little musical games are introduced in their natural place, where it is led to find rhythmical expression in dances and songs, and where it hears much beautiful sound which it docs not attempt to account for or understand ? I think that all teachers of experience will agree that it does make an enormous difference, and that it is possible to pick out from a roomful of children, by their very bearing, those who come from homes where music exists.” (Holland, “Music as an Educational Subject” Parents’ Review)

“Some of the most important habits for a child to acquire, are (1) observation ; (2) concentration ; (3) imagination ; and (4) reasoning. … [and Music] trains simultaneously, as no other single subject does, ear, eye, and hand, it awakens and naturally develops the imagination, and insists upon concentration and reasoning.” (Holland)

” Music is the language of the soul, but it defies interpretation. It means something, but that something belongs not to this world of sense and logic, but to another world, quite real, though beyond all definition. … Is there not in music, and in music alone of all the arts, something that is not entirely of this earth ? Whence comes melody ? Surely not from anything that we hear with our outward ears and are able to imitate, to improve, or to sublimise. . . . Here if anywhere, we see the golden stairs on which angels descend from heaven and whisper sweet sounds into the ears of those who have ears to hear. . . .” (Holland)

“Training of the Ear and Voice is an exceedingly important part of physical culture, which began with basic enunciation, and French lessons. She also pointed out that that every child may be, and should be, trained to sing through carefully graduated ear and voice exercises, to produce and distinguish musical tones and intervals.” (Vol. 1, p. 133)

“If possible, let the children learn from the first under artists, lovers of their work: it is a serious mistake to let the child lay the foundation of whatever he may do in the future under ill-qualified mechanical teachers, who kindle in him none of the enthusiasm which is the life of art.” (Vol. 1, p. 31)

“Intelligent love of music is one of the great joys and privileges of life, but it is denied to quite half the community, and I would argue that the cultivation thereof is in its way quite as important as technical instrumental instruction, as it is one of the greatest factors in elevating mankind.” (A Musical Baby, Mrs. Glover, Parents’ Review)

The Child Pianist–Teacher’s Guide (Curwen Method)

Listener’s Guide to Musics, Scholes

Second Book of Great Musicians, Scholes

*The Planets, Sobel

The Growth of Music, Colles

Elements of Music, Davenport

Studies of Great Composers, Parry

Enjoyment of Music, Pollitt

Musical Groundwork, Shera

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Episode 74: Singing

Episode 76: Drill and Physical Training

Episode 34: Composer Study

Heidi Buschbach’s Articles on CMP (Here and Here)

Sabbath Mood Homeschool’s Middle School Astronomy Guide