Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition

by Karen Glass

Although she encourages teachers to give children “freedom,” this is not a child-led method of education. Charlotte Mason tells us that children are no more fit to choose their own schoolbooks than their physical diet, and that what they like is no fit guide—“they like lollipops but cannot live upon them.” (Philosophy of Education, p. 117) So the teacher is a guide—a sort of “intellectual dietician” who selects the most nourishing and appetizing dishes to be found and sets them before the learner. Then, too, the teacher’s own enthusiasm for the knowledge to be consumed will be communicated to the learners. This is part of the “atmosphere of environment” that the teacher must create—a sense of delightful, purposeful effort to acquire knowledge.