Listen Now:

“They are expected to do a great deal of out-of-door work … They keep records and drawings in a Nature Note Book and make special studies of their own for the particular season with drawings and notes.” (6/219)

“The consideration of out-of-door life, in developing a method of education, comes second in order; because my object is to show that the chief function of the child––his business in the world during the first six or seven years of his life––is to find out all he can, about whatever comes under his notice, by means of his five senses; that he has an insatiable appetite for knowledge got in this way; and that, therefore, the endeavour of his parents should be to put him in the way of making acquaintance freely with Nature and natural objects; that, in fact, the intellectual education of the young child should lie in the free exercise of perceptive power, because the first stages of mental effort are marked by the extreme activity of this power; and the wisdom of the educator is to follow the lead of Nature in the evolution of the complete human being.” (1/96-97)

“Nature knowledge is the most important for young children — It would be well if we all persons in authority, parents and all who act for parents, could make up our minds that there is no sort of knowledge to be got in these early years so valuable to children as that which they get for themselves of the world they live in. Let them once get in touch with nature, and a habit is formed which will be a source of delight through life. We were all meant to be naturalists, each in his degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things.” (1/61)

“The mother cannot devote herself too much to this kind of reading, not only that she may read tit-bits to her children about matters they have come across, but that she may be able to answer their queries and direct their observations. And not only the mother, but any woman, who is likely ever to spend an hour or two in the society of children, should make herself mistress of this sort of information; the children will adore her for knowing what they want to know, and who knows but she may give its bent for life to some young mind designed to do great things for the world.” (1/65

Home Education, Part II, Chapter V

An Essay Towards a Philosophy of Education, Book I, Section III (a)

The Changing Year, Florence Haines

A Nature Study Guide, William Furneaux

Countryside Rambles, William Furneaux

Special Studies Rotation

Sabbath Mood Homeschool Nature Lore List

Sabbath Mood Homeschool Special Studies

ADE Teacher Training Video: Nature Study–Special Studies and Object Lessons

In A Large Room Retreat

“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)

Living Books Library

A Delectable Education Consultations

“If mothers could learn to do for themselves what they do for their children when these are overdone, we should have happier households. Let the mother go out to play! If she would only have courage to let everything go when life becomes too tense, and just take a day, or half a day, out in the fields, or with a favourite book, or in a picture gallery looking long and well at just two or three pictures, or in bed, without the children, life would go on far more happily for both children and parents. The mother would be able to hold herself in ‘wise passiveness,’ and would not fret her children by continual interference, even of hand or eye––she would let them be.” (Vol. 3, pp. 33-34)

“In venturing to speak on this latter subject, I do so with the sincerest deference to mothers, believing that, in the words of a wise teacher of men, “the woman receives from the Spirit of God Himself the intuitions into the child’s character, the capacity of appreciating its strength and its weakness, the faculty of calling forth the one and sustaining the other, in which lies the mystery of education, apart from which all its rules and measures are utterly vain and ineffectual.” But just in proportion as a mother has this peculiar insight as regards her own children she will, I think, feel her need of a knowledge of the general principles of education, founded upon the nature and the needs of all children. And this knowledge of the science of education, not the best of mothers will get from above, seeing that we do not often receive as a gift that which we have the means of getting by our own efforts.” (Vol. 1, p. 10)

“He observes that great men have great mothers; mothers, that is, blest with an infinite capacity of taking pains with their work of bringing up children. He likens this labour to a second bearing which launches the child into a higher life; and as this higher life is a more blessed life, he contends that every child has a right to this birth into completer being at the hands of his parents.” (Vol. 2, p. 19)

“Blessed are the souls that endure temptation from without; who endure grinding poverty without hardness or greed, uncongenial tempers without bitterness, contrary circumstances without petulance; who possess their souls in patience when all things are against them: these are temptations from which we cannot escape, and which are part of the education of a trusty spirit. But this education is accomplished by resisting the temptations that reach us from within––the offences in thought suggested by trying circumstances. For, let us not make a mistake, all sin, even all crime, is accomplished in thought. Word and act are but the fruit of which the received and permitted thought is the seed.” (Vol. 4, p. 118)

Time-Tables

Parents and Children (Volume 2), chapter 25

Parents’ Review

Listen Now:

“It should be said at once that no teacher can hope to get out of the programmes and the methods all that can be got, unless he reads and re-reads what Miss Mason herself has said about them. As I have said before, a copy of School Education or Home Education should be in every school, and should be in constant use. There should be no member of the staff who has not read it. Where I see wrong methods being employed-excessive explanation, excessive questioning, interruption of reading or narration–it is almost always found that the teacher does not know what Miss Mason taught, and has therefore no grasp of the principles that underlie the method that he is supposed to be employing.” (Mr. Household, Parents’ Review, Volume 36, p. 757)

For the Children’s Sake, Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

Charlotte Mason’s Complete Series published by Living Books Press

The Original Homeschooling Series published by Simply Charlotte Mason

The Truth About Volume 6 by Morgan Conner

“We are waking up to our duties and in proportion as mothers become more highly educated and efficient, they will doubtless feel the more strongly that the education of their children during the first six years of life is an undertaking hardly to be entrusted to any hands but their own. And they will take it up as their profession––that is, with the diligence, regularity, and punctuality which men bestow on their professional labours.” (Vol. 1, pp. 2-3)

“‘The mother is qualified,” says Pestalozzi, ‘and qualified by the Creator Himself, to become the principal agent in the development of her child; … and what is demanded of her is––a thinking love … God has given to the child all the faculties of our nature, but the grand point remains undecided––how shall this heart, this head, these hands be employed? to whose service shall they be dedicated? A question the answer to which involves a futurity of happiness or misery to a life so dear to thee. Maternal love is the first agent in education.'” (Vol. 1, p. 2)

“One of the greatest difficulties of women living at home is that of securing consecutive hours of work; for our lives (especially lives lived in towns) are very full of interruptions and conflicting duties.” (The Mother’s Educational Course, PR, Vol. 8)

“And this knowledge of the science of education, not the best of mothers will get from above, seeing that we do not often receive as a gift that which we have the means of getting by our own efforts.” (Vol. 1, p. 10)

“The attention of Members [of the PNEU] is called to the New Course of Reading, which is free to all members of the Union. It is confined to the distinctive teaching of the Union, and therefore to the volumes of the ‘Home Education’ Series…The method of these volumes is a progressive amplification of the principles of the Union.  It is , therefore, desirable that the books should be studied in numerical order.” (PNEU Pamphlets)

“For, while many topics are interesting, and it is good to learn about anything which lifts us to a higher level, these four are really indispensable for every mother who wishes to be thoroughly equipped for her work.” (The Mother’s Educational Course, PR, Vol. 8)

“The mother cannot devote herself too much to this kind [Naturalists’ books] of reading, not only that she may read tit-bits to her children about matters they have come across, but that she may be able to answer their queries and direct their observations.” (Vol. 1, p. 64)

“That the mother may know what she is about, may come thoroughly furnished to her work, she should have something more than a hearsay acquaintance with the theory of education, and with those conditions of the child’s nature upon which such theory rests.” (Vol. 1, p. 3)

“And this true living interest is what we want to share with our children, with the aim of giving them an inspiration rather than with the expectation of being able to supply all the teaching they will need. Few mothers could qualify themselves to teach physiology, astronomy, botany, geology, and the knowledge of birds and insects; but all can learn enough of the alphabet of these subjects to answer intelligently the questions of young children, and to sympathize with the lessons of the older ones, or to work with them.”  (The Mother’s Educational Course, PR, Vol. 8)

“For to be honestly pursuing a course of study, however simply, makes a mother feel that she is trying in some measure to live worthily of her calling. She will feel that she is doing her best to prepare herself for the bringing up and training of useful men and women, thoroughly developed in body, mind, and spirit, who may by God’s blessing leave the world a little better than they found it.” (The Mother’s Educational Course, PR, Vol. 8)

The Mother’s Educational Course, by Mrs. Anson (Parents’ Review, Volume 8)

Copies of the MEC Curriculum

Philip Yancey’s Article

New Testament Studies articles here and here