Minds More Awake Quotes

“So we read books just because they make us happy or because they’re fun, because they will make us sound smart, because they’ll get us into college or a good job ahead of the others? Or should we use them as a practical guide to recognizing dragons? No, they show us that we have a purpose; that we can be useful in the world, and that is our pleasure. Education gives us minds more awake, and a life that is more than just passing time.”
― Anne E. White, Minds More Awake: The Vision of Charlotte Mason

“In other words, education is for us. For our own selves, for the children, and any interested others. It is, in a way, citizenship. It shows us what it means to be people, and it teaches us how to live in the world. Charlotte listed virtues that could be mined in her Aladdin’s Cave: candour, fortitude, temperance, patience, meekness, courage, generosity. But we don’t stand in the doorway of the cave, handing those things out one moral at a time. The feast is inside: many living books. Many ideas. Many glimpses of the divine, of Eternity, of something beyond ourselves.”
― Anne E. White, Minds More Awake (Revised Edition): The Vision of Charlotte Mason

“Charlotte had her own Gifted and Talented program: Exercise, Nourishment, Change, and Rest. She said not to discourage a gifted child from doing what comes naturally; if he wants to play the violin or learn Latin at three, he’ll let you know. Let him do just so much as he takes to of his own accord; but never urge, never applaud, never show him off. (p. 77)”
― Anne E. White, Minds More Awake (Revised Edition): The Vision of Charlotte Mason

“If the ideas are there, the facts come along naturally; but denuded facts just curl up and die. We have a hard time learning them without context, or at least remembering them for longer than the term test.”
― Anne E. White, Minds More Awake (Revised Edition): The Vision of Charlotte Mason

“Our business as teachers is to make full use of what is in that treasure cave, rather than ignoring it, or pretending it doesn’t matter, or thinking that the children won’t appreciate it enough to make the effort worthwhile. The real danger is that a generation raised on grey crayons may forget that other colours even exist.”
― Anne E. White, Minds More Awake (Revised Edition): The Vision of Charlotte Mason

“I’ve become convinced that the Way of the Will is, in fact, the Start Here point on Charlotte Mason’s map.”
― Anne E. White, Minds More Awake: The Vision of Charlotte Mason

“We can’t learn for a child. We are not to think for him. And we are not to rob him of any opportunity that he has to put his own real effort, personal power, into moral action,”
― Anne E. White, Minds More Awake: The Vision of Charlotte Mason

“we can begin to build up noble principles and teach the importance of choosing, long before children are required to deal with serious decisions themselves.”
― Anne E. White, Minds More Awake: The Vision of Charlotte Mason

“Charlotte Mason was a teacher of teachers, a writer, and a generous inspirer. She taught by principles, method, and natural laws, and hesitated to give too many specific directions in case her work turned into a “big fat cookbook.”3 She knew that people hoped for the promise of the latest foolproof parenting and teaching system, no matter what the cost; but she had no interest in marketing the educational equivalent of an overloaded sport vehicle. Nonetheless, she did produce six volumes on education—her links in the chain of the classical tradition.”
― Anne E. White, Minds More Awake: The Vision of Charlotte Mason