Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition

by Karen Glass

She never questioned that classical scholarship, as it was generally understood (fluency in Latin and Greek and familiarity with the texts read in those languages) should continue. But that type of education was always, historically, an education for the few, the elite, and not the many. Charlotte Mason’s vision was for “a liberal education for all,” and the practical truth has always been and still is that there is not time to make a classics scholar of every pupil, besides the fact that not everyone is suited for such studies. There is time, however, to do so much more than the “three R’s,” which are no more than a utilitarian acquisition of basic skills, and to give every student a rich feast of all the best knowledge the world has to offer: a liberal or generous education. This is where she placed her focus, and she left the intense “grind” of Latin, Greek, and higher mathematics to their special schools, noting only when she thought it most appropriate to begin such work.