Anne E. White's Blog

A lot of years ago, I read Charles Kingsley’s The Water-Babies to my youngest daughter (and she was very young). I took notes about how and where I edited “on the fly,” as they say. In some respects we turned it into a choose-your-own story, as I would say, “OK, now Mr. Kingsley is going to give us a long speech about doctors who give children bad medicine. Should we read that or jump to the next bit?” Sometimes we jumped, other times we read on. At any rate, my notes became a trimmed-down version of W-B on the AmblesideOnline website, and they sat there until this year, when I had another look at them and realized I’d left several cringeworthy things intact while (just possibly) omitting other good stuff. So that was a first thought on “Time to do something different with this.”

The Water-Babies is not a core book for AO Year Three, but Kingsley’s The Heroes (a book of ancient Greek hero-tales) is. And I wondered–do the two books work together in ways that we haven’t thought about much? The thread that connected them for me was the emphasis on fairy tales, something that Kingsley often uses to describe his stories (including the subtitles of both the books). Much of the discussion that homeschoolers have about mythology is about teaching children what is real–specifically, what is really real, and how we can know what is really really real. And that question is one that we get all through Kingsley’s books, both here and also in Madam How and Lady Why, which is used in AO Years Four and Five.

So the idea of making Kingsley’s Year Three books a little more accessible became one with multiple heads (like a hydra). First, and to do right by Kingsley, we have to make it first: the books should be enjoyable. Sometimes, especially because it’s Kingsley, that means we have to take certain things out. But, second, it turns out that The Water-Babies is actually a great preparatory book for Madam How and Lady Why. (Just for starters, you will actually learn what a glen is.) And The Heroes is a good solid book to read not only to prepare for Age of Fable in Year Four, but also for Plutarch’s Lives. In what way, I hear you asking? Well…it’s a book divided into the lives of three people, each with tasks to do. It has lots of ancient Greek cultural stuff, and even geography–all of which is going to make Plutarch’s more historical study of great lives feel way less strange. (Of course, since you’ve done this whole year of Greek lives, you could balance that out with a year of Emily Beesly’s Stories From the History of Rome instead.)

So, if you have a rising Year Three student, do check Kingsley out. Because, as it turns out, he’s much less optional than we might have assumed.

Where can you do this? I’m so glad you asked. You can find the edited-text-plus-notes version of The Heroes here on the AO website. The Water-Babies is here, also free on the website. We are even planning (I don’t think they’re up yet) to have text-only versions available for those who want them (no vocabulary, no questions).

But if you want to buy the studies as a book (it’s a two-in-one volume), yes, you can do that too! Here is the link on U.S. Amazon.

“Now, was not that very odd? So odd, indeed, that you will, no doubt, want to know how it happened, and why Tom could never find a water baby till after he had got the lobster out of the pot. And, if you will read this story nine times over, and then think for yourself, you will find out why. It is not good for little boys to be told everything, and never to be forced to use their own wits.” (The Water-Babies)

In the first and most recent of events, a short time ago we on the AmblesideOnline Advisory sat our virtual selves down with Cindy Rollins and Dawn Duran, and recorded an episode of The New Mason Jar. Woo hoo!

Since it’s been awhile, I should also mention that I did another New Mason Jar episode on the subject of my book that was published earlier this year, A Bit of the World’s Work: The Adventure of Charlotte Mason. I’m pretty much talked out for the next while, but I am looking forward to being part of L’HaRMaS in Kingsville, ON, on October 18-19th.

Oh, and last but not least: The Plutarch Primer: Publicola is now available in a revised, expanded, better-than-2015 edition. As in the original edition, you can access it for free on the AmblesideOnline website. Even if you have the older version, you might want to check out that link, because there is some new introductory material that could make getting started a bit easier.

(I’ll try not to make it another year before I post next time.)

Revitalized will be free-for-Kindle on Wednesday, April 5, and Thursday, April 6. Download away!

I recently had the privilege of participating in an episode of the New Mason Jar podcast. Cindy Rollins and I chatted about Offering Ourselves (and its inspiration, Charlotte Mason’s Ourselves), and also about celebrating Lent and Easter in our families. There are many great episodes of this podcast, so do check out the others as well!

“…education is of the spirit and is not to be taken in by the eye or effected by the hand; mind appeals to mind and thought begets thought and that is how we become educated. For this reason we owe it to every child to put him in communication with great minds that he may get at great thoughts; with the minds, that is, of those who have left us great works; and the only vital method of education appears to be that children should read worthy books, many worthy books.” 

Charlotte Mason, Philosophy of Education

To continue with Adler’s Ten Philosophical Mistakes: the second problem he takes on is whether all knowledge comes through the senses, or whether we have a separate “intellectual” function of the mind that is not directly related to what we see, hear, remember, or imagine.  Sherlock Holmes, in the Sherlock T.V. series, has a “mind palace” from which he can dredge up information; but his “palace” is storage for facts he has amassed, not a vehicle for abstract thought. Is it possible for us to have another sort of “mind palace,” devoted to universals instead of particulars? Do humans have a side of the brain that handles only the abstract, that thinks about “love” or “God” or other things that don’t depend on what we can see or hear?

Adler says yes:  if we couldn’t think beyond sensory input, then we could have no general concept of “cow” or “triangle.” Although you can’t imagine a triangle without particular attributes, you still have a general idea of “triangle,” otherwise you wouldn’t know it’s a triangle. Charlotte Mason agreed (see the first chapter of Philosophy of Education, quoted above). Mason’s school-related twist on this was that although we can learn many things through our physical senses, the “mind to mind” component is vital (and potentially neglected).

I wonder if this is why Marva Collins’ first school, the one her husband built upstairs in their house, was successful in spite of being so crowded with desks that there was almost no room for the children to move around. The focus was on books and big ideas (Adler prefers “objects of thought”). The students’ minds were busy, so they didn’t seem to miss the frills of a public school classroom. Not that atmosphere and comfort don’t matter, but just that when the mind is engaged, sometimes the body can put up with a hard seat.

It was for the sake of others that I first commenced writing biographies; but I find myself proceeding and attaching myself to it for my own; the virtues of these great men serving me as a sort of looking-glass, in which I may see how to adjust and adorn my own life. Indeed, it can be compared to nothing but daily living and associating together; we receive, as it were, in our inquiry, and entertain each successive guest, view—

Their stature and their qualities,

And select from their actions all that is noblest and worthiest to know.

(Plutarch’s Life of Timoleon, Dryden’s translation)

Professor Intellect is a busy man; his desk is covered with memos and folders, all reminding him of the many things he should be doing in the House of Mind. At the minute, however, he is feeling bored and confined, “unwilling to begin to think of anything but the small matters of everyday life.” He’s fed up to tears, bored to the teeth, and can’t even manage to keep his metaphors straight. Someone gives him an equation to work on, and “Intellect bestirs himself, strong and eager for his work…”; “yet the next time we come to the same fence, Intellect jibs and we have to spur him to the leap; then all goes well” (Ourselves, p. 45). And then again, and again.

Thinking that he might take on some extra research, he goes to see the head of his department; but that office has been taken over by new management from the Habit Corporation. Well, that explains that. We have described Habit as a good servant, particularly in the House of Body; but he can be more of a problem in the House of Mind.

It is when he is allowed to play the bad master and override Intellect that he spoils and narrows life. Under Habit, Intellect cannot be said to be slothful; he goes briskly enough, but he goes over the same ground, day after day, year in, year out. The course may be a good one and it may be quite necessary to follow it. (pp. 45-46)

What is the remedy for Professor Intellect’s autopilot status? He doesn’t like to be lazy, but it’s as if one part of him says “Get to work,” and the other says “Don’t bother, what’s the use?” His first thought is that he needs to gain more Self-Control. He calls up a colleague who, he has heard, went through much the same problem recently, and asks where or how Self-Control can be obtained. “It’s not something that you can just order online,” his friend says. “Before we can have Self-Control we must know a good deal about ourselves, that is, we must get Self-Knowledge.” And where does one get that?

“You are in a rut, my friend. Habit’s mistake is to keep you on the always on the same ground.”

”But I do enjoy my work in physics,” Intellect protests.

“It is possible for a person to go into any one of the great fields of thought, and to stay there with steady work and constant delight until he becomes incapable of finding his way into any other of these great fields. The happiness of the intellectual life comes of knowing and thinking, imagining and perceiving or rather, comes of the range of things which we know and think about, imagine and perceive.

“‘To search, to endeavour, and to feel our way to a foothold from point to point is also exhilarating; and every step that is gained is a resting-place and a house of ease for Mansoul.’ (p. 39) Therefore, the proper remedy for Intellect-on-autopilot is not so much a vacation as an adventure.”

Offering Ourselves: A Lenten Journey with Charlotte Mason is now available on Amazon.com, in print and Kindle editions.

…to be born a human being is like coming into a very great estate; so much in the way of goodness, greatness, heroism, wisdom, and knowledge, is possible to us all.

(Ourselves, p. 9)

People wanting to read Charlotte Mason’s original writings are often daunted by seeing that the Series takes up six volumes of small print. Which one do we read first? Are there key volumes, and (we hope) one or two that can be shelved for much later? Home Education and Philosophy of Education usually get the most votes as places to start. Home Education takes first spot not only for its emphasis on the daily life of the young child, and also for its teaching on habit and its (sometimes forgotten) end portion on the government of “Mansoul” and the Way of the Will. Philosophy ranks second for its orderly examination of Mason’s principles, as well as her late-in-life conclusions about it all. Parents and Children, of course, has much to say about authority and docility, and what parents (and teachers) may do to train children in good character; and Formation of Character has more of the same. School Education has its supporters, especially among those who notice that, again, it is not a random book about curriculum, but an unpacking of the principles.

What’s missing here? Ourselves. If we see that it’s something “to read to the students,” we may assume it is simply a rehash of what may be found in the other books, and so put on the bottom of the pile. Not so! This volume needs to be treated as more than just a treatise on eating what’s on your plate.

We see that we, too, live in a great age and a great country, in which there is plenty of room for heroes; and if these should be heroes in a quiet way, who the world never hears of, that does not make much real difference.

(Book I, p. 37)

School Education and Philosophy of Education analyze what we believe about knowledge (Principles #9-12), the “syllabus” or curriculum (#13), and the practices of narration, a single reading, etc. (#14, 15). Ourselves, on the other hand, is the book of “moral and intellectual self-management” (#16). Mason revives the Mansoul idea begun in Home Education, summarizing her thoughts in Principle 19:

Therefore, children should be taught, as they become mature enough to understand such teaching, that the chief responsibility which rests on them as persons is the acceptance or rejection of ideas. To help them in this choice we give them principles of conduct, and a wide range of the knowledge fitted to them. These principles should save children from some of the loose thinking and heedless action which cause most of us to live at a lower level than we need.

As some of the other volumes specialize in that “wide range of knowledge,” so Ourselves focuses on the “principles of conduct,” which “should” save us from “loose thinking” and “heedless action.” Mason puts it bluntly on page 143 of Book I: “Nobody is born a Hooligan.” In other words, Ourselves asks us, in that interestingly modern PNEU phrase, to “mix it with brains”; but not only brains, but also heart, and finally soul.

20. We allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and ‘spiritual’ life of children, but teach them that the Divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their Continual Helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life.

Ourselves is the book of Mind, Will, and Conscience. It is the book that speaks most directly to contemporary issues, although in ways that Miss Mason couldn’t have imagined. Shopping addiction, clutter, and materialism? She covered it. Wasting time on mindless games or novels? Idolizing friends? Exposing ourselves (and our children) to media violence and horror? It’s all in there. We are capable, Miss Mason says, of educating the conscience, and of using the power of the individual will to deal with inevitable toxic fumes that blow in our faces or (more dangerously) seep in without being noticed.

“There is no fall of which we are not capable…But let us take courage.”

Notice and think!, Mason begs. Take trouble! Make choices! Care about things! Serve others! Fight for justice!

Would I recommend that someone brand-new to Charlotte Mason begin with this, when there is much to discuss about choosing toys, teaching reading, and rediscovering the joys of mud puddles? No, likely not; Home Education and Philosophy are still the tried-and-true introductions. But for those who are ready for more, I would urge a careful reading of Book I (the first half of the book, in most editions) for its examination of the interaction between the physical, mental and emotional powers that make us “born persons”; and Book II for its “graduate level” work on the Conscience, the Will, and the maturing of our spiritual nature in our “House of Soul.” Ourselves bookends the rest because it is, in the end, about our lives, our selves.

In the mid 1970’s, in my early days of orange shag carpets, Brownie crafts and Barbie campers, Dennis Lee was trying to redefine Canadian children’s poetry with his books Nicholas Knock and Other People and Alligator Pie. Fortunately or unfortunately, I missed out on most of it at the time, except maybe for the poem “Alligator Pie,” which immediately became popular with schoolteachers because its silly rhymes were easy for students to riff on. And that brings us right away to the point, but I have to go around a bit to get there.

Do you know what an Ookpik is? You can look it up, but basically it’s an Inuit handcrafted owl, popular as a souvenir in the 1960’s and ’70’s. Dennis Lee included four poems about Ookpik in those books, and Jean Little quoted one of them, “A Song for Ookpik,” in her novel Mama’s Going to Buy You a Mockingbird.  These are the first and last stanzas:

A SONG FOR OOKPIK

Ookpik,     

    Ookpik

Dance with

    Us

    Till our

Lives Go

    Luminous.

Ookpik,

    Ookpik

By your

    Grace,

Help us

     Live in

Our own

    Space.

I’ve always been intrigued by the lines “Help us / Live in / Our own / Space” (although I’m ambivalent about addressing them to a fur and sealskin toy). In many ways, they encapsulate what Ourselves is about. We need the compassion, sympathy, generosity, and benevolence that allows us to  see that any given person—even the most irritating, selfish person we know—that that someone inhabits a certain space, not our space, but it’s their space nevertheless, and they’re still figuring out how to live in it. As are we. Recognizing that changes the way we interact with others. And beginning to understand that each of us ourselves also inhabits a space—our own space—is also a bit mind-blowing. Some of us grew up with boundaries that were a little less understood, with people who made a habit of stepping in our space or suggesting we should live in someone else’s better version. We learn that we don’t all have to lay down orange shag carpet, or copy Dennis Lee’s poetry.

But in Charlotte Mason’s terms, we also all inhabit a common human space. We are born persons, and education is the science of relations. Ourselves is about “my own self,” but it is also about “all our selves.” That also is a lesson to be learned slowly, “till our lives go luminous.”

Coming soon: a new book project!

August 16, 1904

You were asking about the principle of authority in the home. Perhaps parents, great as they are and should be in the eyes of their children, should always keep well to the front the fact that their authority is derived. “God does not allow” us to do thus and thus should be a rarely expressed, but often present, thought to parents who study the nature of the divine authority where it is most fully revealed, that is, in the Gospels. They see there that authority works by principles and not by rules, and as they themselves are the deputy authorities set over every household, it becomes them to consider the divine method of government. They should discern the signs of the times too, such as the current doctrine of the unknowable God––who, if He exists, does not exist for us, because we have no relations with Him. It is extremely important that parents should keep this tendency of the day in view, and counteract it if need be.

On the other hand, it is well that parents should understand the limitations of authority. Even the divine authority does not compel. It indicates the way and protects the wayfarer, and strengthens and directs self-compelling power. It permits a man to make free choice of obedience rather than compels him to obey. In the moral training of children, arbitrary action almost always produces revolt. Parents believe that they are doing well to rule their households, without considering the pattern, the principles, and the limitations of parental authority. (And we adults, so far as the nursery and schoolroom go, are we not fatally docile ourselves in yielding obedience to anyone who will take the trouble to tell us we had better do this or that?)

It is in their early years at home that children should be taught to realize that duty can exist only as that which we owe to God; that the law of God is exceeding broad and encompasses us as the air we breathe, only more so, for it reaches to our secret thoughts; and this is not a hardship but a delight. That mothers should love their little children and make them happy all day long––this is part of the law of God: that children are glad when they are good, and sad when they are naughty––this, too, is the law of God: that, if Beatrice drops her spoon and it falls to the ground, that is a law of God too, of a different kind. Mother or teacher cannot give children a better inheritance than the constant sense of being ruled and encompassed by law, and that law is another name for the Will of God.

Yours affectionately…