Charlotte Mason summed up her underpinning principles of education in a few succinct points. This episode is the first in a series that will take a related group of principles and unfold them one by one. Find a friend or share with your study group to discuss the questions after listening to the content and thinking through the accompanying questions.
Listen Now:
(1) Children are born persons.
(2) They are not born either good or bad, but with possibilities for good and evil.
(3) The principles of authority on the one hand, and of obedience on the other, are natural, necessary and fundamental; but–
(4) These principles are limited by the respect due to the personality of children, which must not be encroached upon, whether by the direct use of fear or love, suggestion or influence, or by undue play upon any one natural desire.
“…the fact is, that a few broad essential principles cover the whole field, and these once fully laid hold of, it is as easy and natural to act upon them as it is to act upon our knowledge of such facts as that fire burns and water flows.” (1/10)
“Questions there will always be, but if we continually keep in touch with Miss Mason’s thought by constant reading of all her books, we shall have a sheaf of principles at command by which we can test the value of this or that criticism, this or that book.” (Franklin. PR 36 p. 419)
“We believe that the first article of our PNEU educational creed–’children are born persons’–is of a revolutionary character; for what is a revolution but a complete reversal of attitude?” (Children Are Born Persons Pamphlet/2)
“…that all children bring with them much capacity which is not recognized by their teachers, chiefly intellectual capacity, ([which is] always in advance of motor power), which we are apt to drown in deluges of explanation, or dissipate in futile labours in which there is no advance.” (6/31)
“But the educator has to deal with a self-acting, self-developing being, and his business is to guide, and assist in, the production of the latent good in that being, the dissipation of the latent evil, the preparation of the child to take his place in the world at his best, with every capacity for good that is in him developed into a power.” (1/9)
“Sin, name we it, wherein we all have part
If any way be open to save his way,
Willful, we make our choice to disobey.
In man’s first disobedience shine we all;
That little thing we’re bidden works our fall.”
(SOTW)
“He knows better, it is true, but then he does not trust his own intuitions; he shapes his life on any pattern set before him, and with the fatal tint of human nature upon him he is more ready to imitate a bad pattern than a good.” (1/18)
“One of many ways in which parents are apt to have too low an opinion of their children is in the matter of their faults. A little child shows some ugly trait––he is greedy, and gobbles up his sister’s share of the goodies as well as his own; he is vindictive, ready to bite or fight the hand that offends him; he tells a lie;––no, he did not touch the sugar-bowl or the jam-pot. The mother puts off the evil day: she knows she must sometime reckon with the child for those offenses, but in the meantime she says, “Oh, it does not matter this time; he is very little, and will know better by-and-by.” To put the thing on no higher grounds, what happy days for herself and her children would the mother secure if she would keep watch at the place of the letting out of waters! If the mother settle it in her own mind that the child never does wrong without being aware of his wrong-doing, she will see that is not too young to have his fault corrected or prevented. Deal with a child on his first offense, and a grieved look is enough to convict the little transgressor; but let him go on until a habit of wrong-doing is formed, and the cure is a slow one; then the mother has no chance until she has formed in him a contrary habit of well-doing. To laugh at ugly tempers and let them pass because the child is small, is to sow the wind.” (1/19)
“The man who can make himself do what he wills has the world before him, and it rests with parents to give their children this self-compelling power as a mere matter of habit.” (3/20)
“The man who can make himself do what he wills has the world before him, and it rests with parents to give their children this self-compelling power as a mere matter of habit.” (3/20)
“…laying ourselves out for the thanks of our children….has more share in the undoing of families than any other single cause.” (2/12)
“The centurion in the Gospels [who] says: “I also am a man set under authority, having under me soldiers, and I say unto one, ‘Go,’ and he go; another, ‘Come,’ and he comes; and to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” (3/15)
“Now, the first thing we ask for in a ruler is, ‘Is he able to rule? Does he know how to maintain his authority?’ A ruler who fails to govern … fails in the essential attribute of his office. This is even more true in the family than in the State” (2/10)
“Children are quick to discriminate between the mere will and pleasure of the arbitrary teacher or parent and the chastened authority of him who is himself under rule.” (6/71)
“…must see without watching, know without telling, be on the alert always, yet never obviously, fussily so…choose to obey of their own accord, their power of initiative is strengthened.” (3/31)
“Nobody knows better than the wise mother the importance of giving a child time to collect himself for a decisive moment.” (3/22)
“Obedience to conscience, law, and divine direction are the whole duty of man (1/161)
“Only at home can children be trained in the chivalrous temper of ‘proud submission and dignified obedience‘; and if the parents do not inspire and foster deference, reverence, and loyalty, how shall these crowning graces of character thrive in a hard and emulous world? (2/13)
“Docility implies equality as both are pursuing the same ends” (6/71)
“It is the part of the teacher to secure willing obedience, not so much to himself as to the laws of the school and the claims of the matter in hand. If a boy have a passage to read, he obeys the call of that immediate duty, reads the passage with attention and is happy in doing so.” (6/70)
“To give a child this power over himself — first in response to the will of another, later, in response to his own, is to make a man of him,” (3/20)
“…habit of ‘proud subjection and dignified obedience’ which distinguishes great men and noble citizens. (6/70)
Bestowing the Brush: Foundations in Drawing Video Course
Synopsis Reflection Questions–printable PDF with Reflection Questions to use personally or with a Discussion Group
Episode 2: Children are Born Persons
Episode 4: Three Tools of Education
Episode 115: Authority & Docility, Part I
