Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition

by Karen Glass

Until the person is able to abstract and define rationally the idea of good, and unless he can run the gauntlet of all objections, and is ready to disprove them, not by appeals to opinion, but to absolute truth, never faltering at any step of the argument—unless he can do all this, you would say that he knows neither the idea of good nor any other good; he apprehends only a shadow, if anything at all, which is given by opinion and not by science. (Plato, The Republic, Book VII)

every philosophy, including every philosophy of education, must begin and develop naturally around a chosen understanding of man and remain consistent with that conception.

It is not a difference merely of methods, but a difference of purpose.

purpose of education is not the assimilation of facts or the retention of information, but the habituation of the mind and body to will and act in accordance with what one knows.” This idea, that education is more about doing what is right rather than merely knowing information, is founded on a long tradition. When our knowledge is transformed into action, it becomes virtue, and virtue was the goal of the classical educators.

It was their desire to teach children not only to know what was right, but to love what was good, true, and beautiful so that their conduct would reflect their wise understanding.

process of learning how to live rightly.

conduct by which they will desire to live. Education, as conceived in our earliest records and understood through many centuries, was never about intellectual achievement alone, or even primarily. The development of the intellect was meant to serve in the formation of good character, and good conduct was the desired end of wise thinking.

The task of fashioning the young is made up of many parts, the first and consequently the most important part of which consists of implanting the seeds of piety in the tender heart; the second in instilling a love for, and thorough knowledge of, the liberal arts; the third in giving instructions in the duties of life; the fourth in training in good manners right from the very earliest years. (Erasmus, Upon the Right Method of Instruction)

we are humble, we are teachable. If we are not humble, we are not teachable.

has a tendency to make educational efforts more a matter of performing well than of achieving wisdom. If virtue is the true goal of classical education, pride in intellectual achievement is the perfect stumbling block to ensure that the goal is never reached. In other words, we must not only become humble, but remain humble if we want to continue our pursuit of wisdom and virtue.

Neither children nor their teachers are immune to intellectual pride, and if our goal is the classical goal—wisdom and virtue—we must take care to avoid that ever-present danger and “barrier to all improvement.”

The note of childhood is, before all things, humility.

nay, so active and pleasant is the conception of self that an important school of philosophy has demonstrated that the real world is no more than a simulacrum, a mirage, as it were, projected from the conscious self.…But when we learn to realise that—God is, Self is, the World is, with all that these existences imply, quite untouched by any thinking of ours, unprovable, and self-proven,—why, we are at once put into a more humble attitude of mind. We recognise that above us, about us, within us, there are “more things…than are dreamt of in our philosophy.” (School Education, p. 115)

of relations the “captain idea” which defines the nature of our educational pursuits, because it applies to every area of knowledge, academic and otherwise.

We should not begin taking apart the things that we learn until we have put them together first, and so solidly unified our understanding of the world that we will not lose sight of the relationships between things when we do begin to analyze.

It is the task of the educator to introduce a child to all areas of knowledge, so that he may develop relationships of his own—so that he may love or care about many things.

All knowledge is connected.

everything fitted into something within himself. (Philosophy of Education, p. 157)

First, the primary purpose of education is wisdom and virtue, and every part of the program should serve to teach learners how to think and act rightly.

Second, humility is vital to the pursuit of virtue because it keeps us teachable.

Third, our approach to knowledge should be relational, synthetic, so that we develop a foundational understanding of the unity of knowle...

When we break things down analytically and lose connections, one of the connections that is lost is the connection between ourselves and the things we are learning.

The entire object of true education is to make people not merely do the right things, but enjoy the right things—not merely industrious, but to love industry—not merely learned, but to love knowledge—not merely pure, but to love purity—not merely just, but to hunger and thirst after justice. (John Ruskin, The Crown of Wild Olive)

These three things—pursuit of virtue, humility, and synthetic thinking that motivates to right action—form a complete circle that is the essence, the heart of what motivated the classical educators.

Every aspect of knowledge may play a role in virtuous thinking and acting, and only a synthetic approach to education allows those relationships to be formed.

the outcome of education was meant to influence character and conduct, not intellect alone.

classical practice—doing what they did, but not for the reason why they did

Captain Idea of establishing relationships as a guide, the unwisdom of choosing or rejecting this or that subject, as being more or less useful or necessary in view of a child’s future.

We are not obliged to learn a foreign language in order to read great books and be inspired by the best thinkers, to pursue virtue and develop synthetic thinking.

have a child till he is seven; but we want him till he is twelve or fourteen, if we may not have him longer. You may do what you like with him afterwards. Given this period for the establishing of relations, we may undertake to prepare him for the world a man, vital and vigorous, full of living interests, available and serviceable.

Those of us who want to revive a vital education according to the classical ideal in our own times, as Charlotte Mason did, must look past the practices and understand the purposes for classical learning.

“his mind is the instrument of his education and that his education does not produce his mind.” (Philosophy of Education, p.

So, in our educational pursuits, our job is to provide the right mental food, and trust to the children’s natural ability to process knowledge and make it a part of themselves. If

If we devote our educational efforts to teaching them “how to learn” before we offer them real knowledge, we starve them intellectually. Their hunger to know is just as real as their hunger for food.

atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit, and the presentation of living ideas. The

The educational benefits of “atmosphere” make the business of teaching or bringing up children seem to be a carefree and pleasant affair.

If we do not take care to form good habits, the bad ones establish themselves without effort, just as desirable plants require care while weeds thrive in untended soil.

Everything that a person learns becomes a part of himself, and as his character is formed, he recognizes that he is made up of those experiences he has had, the people he has met, the books he has read, and the things that he has thought. This is not a process that ends with a semester, or a graduation, but goes on and on as long as we are alive and learning.

it will teach us to choose to work for others, and inspire us by ordering our affections so that we desire to do so.

The studies of the quadrivium should do the same in their way—work together to provide a sharper, more precise understanding of the universe and the relationships in it. The

If we can get a vision of grammar, logic, and rhetoric not as subjects to be studied but as arts to be practiced and refined in the process of reading, narrating, and writing, we can see how beautifully Charlotte Mason’s methods may be considered a synthetic implementation of the trivium of classical instruction, more especially when the ultimate goal of forming character and virtue is recalled.

By this time in a child’s education, the love of learning and knowledge has been instilled—that “ordering of the affections”—and the mind has reached a level of discipline which will allow it to apply itself and work much faster and more efficiently through such material, with the added benefit that the learner already knows exactly where and how such knowledge will be useful to him, and where it will shed light and understanding upon other things.

Allowing a child time—as much as fifteen years—to develop relationships with knowledge and grow into a synthetic understanding of the universe is more important than hurrying to the analytical activities that seem more important to us only when we place more value on test results than character formation.

We must get rid of the notion that to learn the ‘three R’s’ or the Latin grammar well, a child should learn these and nothing else. It is as true for children as for ourselves that, the wider the range of interests, the more intelligent is the apprehension of each. (School Education, p. 209)

During the earlier, synthetic years of education our task is to open as many doors as possible for them, to set their feet in a “large room” which it will be their privilege to explore in depth later, according to their own inclinations.

bulk of our educational efforts are going to take place within the context of words—reading them, thinking about them, and then producing our own words.

In Science, or rather, nature study, we attach great importance to recognition, believing that the power to recognise and name a plant or stone or constellation involves classification and includes a good deal of knowledge. To know a plant by its gesture and habitat, its time and its way of flowering and fruiting; a bird by its flight and song and its times of coming and going; to know when, year after year, you may come upon the redstart and the pied fly-catcher, means a good deal of interested observation, and of, at any rate, the material for science. The children keep a dated record of what they see in their nature note-books, which are left to their own management and are not corrected. (School Education, p. 236)

“translate, transform, and absorb” for our nourishment, so that we are able to tell back what we know, then this must be a vital part of our educational methods.

“teaching is an art, and an art, though it has a variety of practical devices to choose from, cannot be reduced to a science.” (Jacques Barzun, Begin Here) Charlotte Mason

A teacher, in the role of guide, leads his pupils through the books, allowing them time to assimilate each lesson, and making sure that each lesson is assimilated by requiring narration and lending a sympathetic ear to the pupil’s efforts.