Home Education Quotes

“The formation of habits is education, and education is the formation of habits.”
― Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education

“I am’—we have the power of knowing ourselves. “I ought’—we have within us a moral judge, to whom we feel ourselves subject, and who points out and requires of us our duty. ‘I can’—we are conscious of power to do that which we perceive we ought to do. ‘I will’—we determine to exercise that power with a volition which is in itself a step in the execution of that which we will. Here is a beautiful and perfect chain, and the wonder is that, so exquisitely constituted as he is for right-doing, error should be even possible to man. But of the sorrowful mysteries of sin and temptation it is not my place to speak here; you will see that it is because of the possibilities of ruin and loss which lie about every human life that I am pressing upon parents the duty of saving their children by the means put into their hands. Perhaps it is not too much to say, that ninety-nine out of a hundred lost lives lie at the door of parents who took no pains to deliver them from sloth, from sensual appetites, from willfulness, no pains to fortify them with the habits of a good life.”
― Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education: Volume I of Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series

“She must ask herself seriously, Why must the children learn at all? What should they learn? And, How should they learn it? If she take the trouble to fiind a definite and thoughtful answer to each of these three queries, she will be in a position to direct her children’s studies; and will, at the same time, be surprised to find that three-fourths of the time and labour ordinarily spent by the child at his lessons is lost time and wasted energy.”
― Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education: Volume I of Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series

“with a child on his first offence, 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.”
― Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education

“Diluted Knowledge.--But, poor children, they are too often badly used by their best friends in the matter of the knowledge”
― Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education: Volume I of Charlotte Mason's Homeschooling Series

“Almost as bad is the way the child’s intellectual life may be wrecked at its outset by a round of dreary, dawdling lessons in which definite progress is the last thing made or expected, and which, so far from educating in any true sense, stultify his wits in a way he never gets over. Many a little girl, especially, leaves the home schoolroom with a distaste for all manner of learning, an aversion to mental effort, which lasts her lifetime, and that is why she grows up to read little but trashy novels, and to talk all day about her clothes.”
― Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education: Volume I of Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series

“Possibilities of a Day in the Open.—I make a point, says a judicious mother, of sending my children out, weather permitting, for an hour in the winter, and two hours a day in the summer months. That is well; but it is not enough. In the first place, do not send them; if it is anyway possible, take them; for, although the children should be left much to themselves, there is a great deal to be done and a great deal to be prevented during these long hours in the open air. And long hours they should be; not two, but four, five, or six hours they should have on every tolerably fine day, from April till October. Impossible! Says an overwrought mother who sees her way to no more for her children than a daily hour or so on the pavements of the neighbouring London squares. Let me repeat, that I venture to suggest, not what is practicable in any household, but what seems to me absolutely best for the children; and that, in the faith that mothers work wonders once they are convinced that wonders are demanded of them. A journey of twenty minutes by rail or omnibus, and a luncheon basket, will make a day in the country possible to most town dwellers; and if one day, why not many, even every suitable day?”
― Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education: Volume I of Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series

“Children should be saved the Effort of Decision.—That the effort of decision is the most exhausting effort of life,”
― Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education: Volume I of Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series

“It is something to know what to do with ourselves when we are beset, and the knowledge of this way of the will is so far the secret of a happy life, that it is well worth imparting to the children. Are you cross? Change your thoughts. Are you tired of trying? Change your thoughts. Are you craving for things you are not to have? Change your thoughts; there is a power within you, your own will, which will enable you to turn your attention from thoughts that make you unhappy and wrong, to thoughts that make you happy and right. And this is the exceedingly simple way in which the will acts; this is the sole secret of the power over himself which the strong man wields—he can compel himself to think of what he chooses, and will not allow himself in thoughts that breed mischief.”
― Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education: Volume I of Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series

“Therefore, let the minds of young children be well stored with the beautiful narratives of the Old Testament and of the gospels; but, in order that these stories may be always fresh and delightful to them, care must be taken lest Bible teaching stale upon their minds. Children are more capable of being bored than even we ourselves and many a revolt has been brought about by the undue rubbing-in of the Bible, in season and out of season, even in nursery days. But we are considering, not the religious life of children, but their education by lessons; and their Bible lessons should help them to realise in early days that the knowledge of God is the principal knowledge, and, therefore, that their Bible lessons are their chief lessons.”
― Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education: Volume I of Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series

“The effort of decision, we have seen, is the greatest effort of life; not the doing of the thing, but the making up of one’s mind as to which thing to do first. It is commonly this sort of mental indolence, born of indecision, which leads to dawdling habits.”
― Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education: Volume I of Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series

“To make collections of wild flowers for the several months, press them, and mount them neatly on squares of cartridge paper, with the English name, habitat, and date of finding each, affords much happy occupation and, at the same time, much useful training: better still is it to accustom children to make careful brush drawings for the flowers that interest them, of the whole plant where possible.”
― Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education: Volume I of Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series

“Besides, life is so interesting to him, that he has no time for the faults of temper which generally have their source in ennui; there is no reason why he should be peevish or sulky or obstinate when he is always kept well amused.”
― Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education: Volume I of Charlotte Mason's Original Homeschooling Series

“Our only means of true intimacy with a child is the power of recovering our own childhood.”
― Charlotte Mason, Charlotte Mason's Home Education