Charlotte Mason Quotes

Kindergarten "In this time of extraordinary pressure, educational and social, perhaps a mothers first duty to her children is to secure for them a quiet and growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life, the waking part of it for the most part spent out in the fresh air."

Language arts “But one who tries this method on himself will find that in the act of narrating every power of his mind comes into play."

Picture Study “We cannot measure the influence that one artist or another has on the child’s sense of beauty, upon his power of seeing, as in a picture, the common sight of life..."

Nature Study "We are all meant to be naturalists, each in his own degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things."

“There is no part of a child's education more important than that he should lay - by his own observation - a wide basis of facts towards scientific knowledge in the future."

"Let them once get in touch with nature and a habit is formed which will be a source of delight and habit through life."

History "Imagination does not stir at the suggestion of the feeble, much diluted stuff that is too often put into children’s hands."

"Ideas are held in that thought-environment which surrounds the child as an atmosphere, which he breathes as his breath of life...."

Geography "The peculiar value of geography lies in its fitness to nourish the mind with ideas and furnish the imagination with pictures."

Will and habit "Let children alone-...the education of habit is successful in so far as it enables the mother to let her children alone, not teasing them with perpetual commands and directions - a running fire of Do and Don’t ; but letting them go their own way and grow, having first secured that they will go the right way and grow to fruitful purpose."

The child and God “We are probably quite incapable of measuring the religious receptivity of children."

"Let the child grow up aware of the constant, immediate, joy-giving, joy-taking Presence in the midst of them."

"Let them grow up too with the shout of a King in the midst of them.”

"Children should be taught their duty toward God. It is their duty. That which they owe, to love Him "with all their heart, with all their mind, with all their strength" these things are seldom taught as they should be."

Heart, head, hand "A child is a person in whom all possibilities are present - present now at this very moment - not to be educed after many years and efforts manifold on the part of the educator"

Time for mother. "If mothers could learn to do for themselves what they do for their children when these are overdone, we should have happier households. Let the mother go out to play! If she would have the courage to let everything go when life becomes too tense, and just take a day, or half a day, out in the fields, or with a favourite book, or in a picture gallery looking long and well at just two or three pictures, or in bed, without the children, life would go on far more happily for both children and parents. The mother would then be able to hold herself in "wise passiveness’ and would not fret her children by continual interference even of hand or eye - she would let them be."

Other Charlotte Mason "How To" articles:
Nature Study
Art Appreciation
Education: an atmosphere, a discipline, a life
Music Appreciation
Poetry Tea Times

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