Creature of habit
The Gist of Charlotte Mason: Good habits and good books shape your children for life.
Part of my How Homeschool? Series.
The basic idea of Charlotte Mason is that integrity is more important than integrals. Much education worships reason - but intelligent people can reason their way to all kinds of bad. What you really need to cultivate is judgment.
Charlotte Mason prioritizes virtue, to the point of recommending you should spend a third of your time developing and enforcing good habits that shape your children for life. Charlotte Mason herself said that “The mother who takes pains to endow her children with good habits secures for herself smooth and easy days; while she who lets their habits take care of themselves has a weary life of, endless friction with the children.” Crucially, however, making life easier for parents is just a substantial side benefit; ultimately, good habits compound most for the children themselves. Indeed, Mason goes so far as to say that mothers “despise” their children if they fail to train them to overcome their bad habits that will otherwise curse them for life. Reading that, you won’t be surprised to learn that Charlotte Mason was a leading educator of the Victorian era - and if you find yourself sympathizing with Victorian values, Mason is your woman (though even if you don’t, stick around for her ideas on reading).
Figure 1. Just imagine what your children could be capable of when instilled with the seven habits of highly effective imperialists.
Mason insisted that we are always developing habits and that good ones require intentionality. She advised that "formation is easier than reformation" but that the latter is nearly inevitable given the state of man. Mason insisted on tolerating zero lapses because the longer a habit was perfectly executed, the more automatic and stronger it became. Initially, a child must understand the difference between a temptation and their response and then willfully choose to do the right thing. The Charlotte Mason interpreter Leslie Noelani Laurio says “We should be masters over our appetites, not their slaves.” But then if a child was faced with a decision every single time, they’d suffer fatigue and falter; instead, they should just always follow a rule to the point where they cease to think about it. Zero-tolerance can sound harsher than intended - Mason encouraged a love of goodness by dispatching children on errands of kindness that would allow them to bask in gratitude (bringing dad a freshly baked cookie, helping grandfather in the garden, etc.) Ideally, expressing disappointment in a lapse is sufficient, i.e. “if your child pitches a fit, demonstrate broken fellowship until he shows true repentance.” Or to cite an aspirational example from Sonya Shafer:
“‘Matthew, please put that candlestick down,’ she instructed in a quiet but firm voice. ‘You can't get it from me,’ Matthew replied with a smirk and a mischievous twinkle in his eyes. ‘You're right, Matthew, I can't,’ said Amber, ‘And I don't want to get it from you. I want you to choose to put it down because you know it's the right thing.’ Matthew's expression changed as his mommy's words sunk in. Then he set down the candlestick. ‘I'm sorry,’ he said.”
Mason mentioned dozens upon dozens of habits to cultivate (Shafer’s book of excerpts runs 241 pages) but her three most important habits were obedience, attention, and truthfulness. Obedience is the one most questionably to the benefit of the child; it certainly makes parenting (and the development of all other habits) easier but Charlotte also relates it to obedience to God. One might reasonably question whether this was also a prized ask in Britain’s class society but an American might easily be satisfied with obedience to just authority. Attention we’ll revisit in a moment because it’s crucial to Mason’s approach to academics. Truthfulness more or less sells itself and might be considered a core character feature. Mason thought that lapses were a bad combination of selfishness (to avoid negative consequences) and carelessness (accuracy and conscientiousness being vital to education). She suggests confronting a child when you have proof of a lie, “Emphasize how much the lie has come between you two. Assure him of your forgiveness and love for him, but communicate your disappointment in his obvious lack of trust in you.”
Figure 2. Instead of these three, modern American children develop the habits of obstinance, attention-seeking, and trivialness.
Lots of the other Mason habits are charming: a gentleness in speech free from harshness; a general cheerfulness and sweet, even temper to make the best of things, especially bearing hardship and discomfort with courage so as not to miss out on the joy of living; an alertness to seize opportunities to help others; a reverent attitude and regularity in devotions of prayer and reading the Bible; thoroughness and perfect execution; finishing (fully embracing the sunk cost fallacy!); and lots more. Mason laments “dawdling” and demands it be corrected to attentiveness (and indeed, a lot of her good habits are corrective opposites). Very Victorian, she also advises modesty in dress even around family members; after all, without decency and propriety, you’re bound to be a social outcast.
You can easily see how managing all these might take up at least a third of your time! Maybe you have a different top three habits or maybe you have a different set of habits - but fundamentally, if Charlotte Mason is right that such formation is more important than academics, you need to pick your priorities and have a plan. When Children Love to Learn suggests the constant question: which habits are we actively fostering, which are we passively allowing?
Academically, Charlotte Mason teaches through “living books” - literature with stories and heroes by single authors who deeply know their subjects, care about them, and write beautifully. She contrasted this especially against textbooks merely regurgitating facts written by committees approved by other committees bought by still other committees. Mason would feel vindicated by the fact that adults who love nonfiction don’t buy the latest academic textbook, they buy biographies and well-told tales. When children learn about Italy, Mason wants them to be able to read books that imaginatively allow them to taste its famous food, hear its church choirs, smell Venetian canals, touch the statue of David, and see how the Coliseum is constructed. When children learn about science, they should learn about the drama of discovery, feel present with genius, and then know all the intricate ways that it describes and influences our world. Karen Andreola advises “Children should be taught to recognize and admire the righteous, the pure, the heroic, the beautiful, the truthful, and the loyal in their educational life.”
Figure 3. Might we say of Mary Shelley’s book Frankenstein… It’s alive! It’s alive! It’s ALIVE! But while you may read that (and discover its substantial differences from subsequent cinematic interpretations), the real fictional vibe of Charlotte Mason education is going on a journey through Narnia to produce someone like Atticus Finch.
Some Charlotte Mason originalists think you should stick to her original reading list, others note that Mason herself changed the list from time to time and incorporated contemporary books - but any faithful adherent of Mason rejects interest as the basis for book selection. Instead, you should select for your children the very best living books available and trust that they will become interesting because they are so good. Mason advised you must "guard the nursery; let nothing in that has not the true literary flavour; let the children grow up on a few books read over and over, and let them have none, the reading of which does not cost an appreciable mental effort. This is no hardship. Activity, effort, whether of body or mind, is joyous to a child." Most children’s books today Mason would dismiss as “twaddle” - she wanted to cultivate realistic imagination without nonsense (she specifically rejected the “ludicrous” Alice in Wonderland, which would now be considered an elevated classic); she has suspicion of any book which relies too heavily on pictures to tell its story - Mason demands language to carry the burden and activate the mind. Indeed, about 3/4 of any list of the best 100 books ever might be accessible to a 9 year old (though they may need to be bowdlerized and you have to be careful about Lewis Caroll’s inclusion!). Mason thought even 6 year olds could appreciate Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, the Odyssey, and, most important of all, the King James Bible, which they should start and never stop reading twenty minutes a day of. Karen Andreola suggests that elementary school children should work through three Shakespeare plays a year.
And yet, almost incredibly, Charlotte Mason adherents, the type of homeschoolers who love books, may actually read comparatively less because they slow down and pay attention. One Mason elementary history curriculum went through a single book at 10 pages a month, requiring 4 years to complete. In the Mason method, starting at 6 years old, parents read (exactly once) from a book just enough (a sentence, a paragraph, a chapter) to hold a child’s attention and then ask the child to narrate back what just happened in his own words. Mason thought this technique constantly checked understanding, dramatically helped memory, and allowed each child to find her own unique voice. Mason thought this was so powerful that formal writing did not need to take place until 14 years old - whereupon a child would do basically the same thing, continuously reading on his own and then writing a summary in his own words. Such a pace dramatically raises the stakes for ensuring that you have really good books. Interestingly, Mason also used the technique for art appreciation, showing a child a piece for some time and then taking it away and asking for a full description.
Figure 4. Stop reading! If you want to actually remember any of this, summarize what I’ve written so far in your own words and tell someone else immediately. What do you remember about what you’ve read just now? If fairly little, you need to work on your habit of attention.
What’s harder for me to grasp is exactly how interactive narration is supposed to be. At one point, Mason suggests that a child’s attention is dissipated by too much questioning and that you need to keep a child’s interest in the story going, not stress them out by quizzing them on the definitions of unfamiliar words that they’ll understand in context and with more reading or otherwise may appropriately ask you for help. You are not to ask “riddles” but you can ask questions that involve them in the story, such as: what would you do in such a situation? Some of the resistance to questions is based on the fact that they can give support clues when you’re trying to ensure that children pay attention to the first and only read. If a child’s narration is factually wrong, corrections are supposed to be gentle with an encouragement to pay ever closer attention. I don’t know how much ultimate discussion is permitted, but the questions Charlotte Mason herself expected children to answer on subsequent tests are hard. To give a few of her real examples:
Describe the condition of (a) the clergy, (b) the army, (c) the navy, (d) the general public in and about 1685 [England].
What theories of government were held by Louis XIV? Give some account of his great ministers.
We find Plutarch’s Lives exceedingly inspiring. These are read aloud by the teacher (with suitable omissions) and narrated with great spirit by the children. They learn to answer such questions as, — “In what ways did Pericles make Athens beautiful? How did he persuade the people to help him?”
Write a short sketch of Central Asia, with map.
Compare Palestine with the Yorkshire moors. Describe the valley of the Jordan.
What do you understand by,—(a), electrical attraction, (b), repulsion, (c), conductors, (d), insulators, (e), methods of obtaining electricity?
Show how the discovery of the New World affected England in commerce and war.
Describe the Siege of Mexico by Cortes, and its surrender.
Show how the Restoration affected our American possessions.
Show accurately how longitude is determined.
How has the war [WW1] affected (a), Luxembourg, (b), the Eastern frontier of Belgium, (c), Antwerp and the Scheldt?
Figure 5. Contrast that to modern education which asks: Identify the land parts on a globe. How does electricity work? (a) magic; (b) a switch on the wall; (c) black magic. We find Instagram lives exceedingly inspiring. In what ways did the influencer make herself beautiful? How did she persuade the people to like her post? What theories of governance are held by your group chat admin? Was Abraham Lincoln (a) a car manufacturer; (b) president of the United States; (c) a Biblical figure.
Partially because Mason demanded full attention and best effort in every lesson, she also insisted on fairly short lessons that rapidly shifted to different subjects. So, only about 15-20 minutes for an elementary school student, climbing to 45 minutes for high schoolers (that latter number may feel “normal” but other homeschoolers go for longer). There is no homework; first there’s just instant interactions, eventually, as we noted, children write narratives to discuss. Formal academics are done by lunch everyday. Other homeschooling regimes might find that insufficient (and indeed some assert Charlotte Mason is not a good high school regime on this basis) but Sonya Shafer insists that the rigor of the program should not be judged by how overscheduled children are or how much they struggle but how prepared they are. Originalist Charlotte Mason adherents would challenge other methodologies to produce children to answer her original questions.
But there is a plan for the afternoons: children are to spend their time in nature, no matter the weather. In fact, before age 6, Mason suggested that children spending 6 hours a day outside was not too much (and was the primary thing they should do, not bothering with academics). A primary goal of this time is to fall in love with God’s creation; a lot of the time can involve free play, but parents should also work to develop their children’s senses, point out the local fauna and flora, get familiar with types of weather and geography and the seasons. At first your children may have a keepsake box, in which they can bring inside one thing they find a day. Eventually, your children should have a journal. All of this is another way for Mason adherents to pick up some science and, interestingly, Charlotte Mason may even have a credible claim for inspiring the creation of Boy Scouts. Charlotte’s original, politically incorrect take:
"It would be well for parents to educate a child, for the first half-dozen years of his life, at any rate, along 'Red Indian' lines.. He should be able to discriminate colours and shades of colour; relative degrees of heat in woolen, wood, iron, marble, ice; should learn the use of the thermometer; should discriminate objects according to their degrees of hardness; should have a cultivated eye and touch for texture; should, in fact, be able to get as much information about an object from a few minutes' study as to its form, colour, texture, size, weight, qualities, parts, characteristics, as he could learn out of many pages of a printed book."
Figure 6. As the Scandinavians say, there’s no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.
Naturally, not all Charlotte Mason adherents are strict constructionists of her advice. Indeed, perhaps most who say they are pursuing Charlotte Mason just like the idea of reading books and spending time in nature - query how many of their children can describe and draw a map of Central Asia by memory or answer any of Mason’s tough questions! But different parents have different goals and the magic of homeschooling is that you can choose a base model and adapt it to your family. If a parent wants to take a gentler approach, they can - but they should at least be aware of what aspirational standards look like. I also should mention that many secular parents are frustrated by the obvious religiosity of Charlotte Mason, who believed that the highest duty of parents is revealing God to their children. But I know of at least one secular homeschooling family that insists that Charlotte Mason reading lists are the best out there. There certainly are “literature-based” variants of Charlotte Mason that focus on reading their own version of living books to get all the knowledge they need without adhering to Mason’s particular views, including her emphasis on habit.
But the biggest problem with Charlotte Mason is the approach (or lack thereof) to math. Mason did think that some math was necessary for every person’s education but she has no enthusiasm for it, thinks it’s overrated, and has no particular thoughts on how it should be taught (except, maybe, through word problems). Mason asked directly: “Why should a boy’s success in life depend upon drudgery in Mathematics?” And she favorably quotes a general in the British army who told her “I have never found any Mathematics except simple addition of the slightest use in a work-a-day life except in the Staff College examinations.” Among Charlotte Mason adherents, math may be good but is not necessary for orderly, accurate, precise thinking and, if overdone, may threaten imagination, ingenuity, and flexibility. Leslie Noelani Laurio argues that schools just like math because it’s easy to test. Some modern adherents simply say that Charlotte Mason is generally great but you should find your preferred math program somewhere else - but I suspect many discount math as much as Mason, for better and worse. Relatedly, Mason adherents are so keen on narrative structure for their subjects and resisting textbooks that science may have real gaps too. Indeed, Mason even thought grammar was too abstract to be appreciated by children and thought it ought to be introduced much later than typical - that both poor grammar and poor spelling were probably the result of insufficient reading of great works.
Ultimately, Leslie Noelani Laurio says plainly that “Our end goal is a child who is useful to the world, is trained to choose rightly, and whose love for many different things brings joy to him all his life.” You can judge for yourself whether the method succeeds.
But how might other homeschooling approaches critique and comment on Charlotte Mason? (Note that this is imaginative speculation, not quotation, from each point of view)
PhD Dad Art Robinson: Too much Life of Pi and not nearly enough π. Perhaps British generals might not have lost so many men in World War I if they had actually been numerate! Doing math first thing in the morning sets a child up for right-thinking throughout the day. Mason admirably focuses on reading real text-heavy picture-light books early (and parents would be wiser to use her original list than coming up with new versions) but otherwise underestimates children, especially in her thinking that they can only handle a few minutes of focus at a time. Narration seems like it involves an unnecessarily intense amount of time and attention from adults - though there’s definitely benefits in a child teaching a subject he’s learning to someone else (or even lecturing to an empty room). Mason seems to have been so enamored with her insights into the humanities that she attempted to stretch them too far into science and then, discovering they really didn’t work with math, nearly abandoned arithmetic. But literacy and numeracy are the keys to understanding the world and they are the basics that must be mastered. But Mason is appropriately attentive to the prerequisite of homeschooling: good habits - and her big three (obedience, attention, and truthfulness) are the most important; the others may need a bit of refashioning for academics but it’s directionally correct.
PhD Dad Bryan Caplan: Too much Walden and not enough Wealth of Nations. Living books can be nice but are overrated - what’s the best living book on labor economics? If there isn’t a living book on a subject, can you not teach it? Why must art appreciation be required? Interest is a powerful motivator and can certainly help guide formal education, even if you make sure that there’s a quality threshold; it seems especially authoritarian to limit what a child has access to outside the formal curriculum. Mason underestimates genetics in trying to train all children in the same set of habits - it’s possible that, during their childhood, kids might be a little closer to her ideal but, in adulthood, they’re likelier to return to their natural ways - and that can mean a lot of wasted time (1/3!). All that being said, Mason is unusual for an interest in economics - Ambleside Online, a popular Charlotte Mason interpreter, recommends high schoolers read Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman. At its best, Mason should be fine signaling conscientiousness (a habit!) and intelligence. Conformity is harder for all homeschoolers and Mason adherents would have to be especially careful about math.
Evidence-based Traditional: If you have Great Expectations for your child, lean into data, not novels. Admittedly, Mason’s ideas have not really been studied. But a teacher’s Direct Instruction is proven to convey ideas, so why risk leaning into a child’s narration? Diligently mastering all parts of a standard curriculum (including math!) will naturally build good academic habits that serve kids well in modern society. If you want to form additional habits, there’s a good amount of research on that (though Mason has a pretty wide definition of habit if it includes “obedience”). Textbooks are not meant to be enjoyed, they are meant to be efficient transmissions of information - and some are certainly worse than others, but they shouldn’t be abandoned. Reading the biography of Marie Curie and wandering around nature can hardly substitute for a real chemistry book. No non-fictional professional scientist learns science through “living” popular science.
Classical: You want your kid to go toe to toe with Plato, not lounge around in some trees. The acculturation you should be shooting for is not Victorian but antiquity - let Classical take your child through an Odyssey of education. Asking for a child’s narration is not nearly as powerful as an intense engagement with the Socratic method that points them to key insights. Simply reading something once is not going to provide the building blocks that memorization of facts will. Charlotte Mason does admirably focus on great books, though its “living” requirement may be too restrictive and it goes through too few too slowly. Classical very clearly lays out high aspirational standards that all followers should at least know; Charlotte Mason inspires too much gentle learning that will leave children under-educated.
Figure 7. If you must be outside, stand on a porch and argue about philosophy.
Montessori: Don’t just read the Secret Garden, get dirty in one. Deeply unpopular to say but reading is overrated, especially for the young, who crave to understand things with their hands. While nature is valuable to spend time in, Mason ludicrously underestimates children under 6 by compelling them to spend all their time there; Montessori shines in displaying just how much very young children can get with the right materials. Relatedly, switching every 15 minutes is crazy; Montessori kids can focus for hours. Mason said that education was an atmosphere but she was so focused on books that she missed out on how to create a properly prepared environment that would wholly interest children. Mason admirably wanted teachers to get out of the way of a child’s learning and she achieved that through her narration technique; but children also need to be able to choose what they’re interested in (even if it’s only from pre-approved materials) and, ideally, it would not require such a constant adult 1:1 presence. And as for habits, Montessori teaches something similar but better through actual tasks, not just abstract aspirations.
Pragmatists: Don’t get caught up in Charlotte’s Web. What is more likely to ensure you have enough for retirement: reading the Great Gatsby or the Four Pillars of Investing? What is going to more likely improve your marriage: reading Anna Karenina or the Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work? Sometimes the book you need is just an owner’s manual and you don’t need the whole story about how Henry Ford came to invent the car. Frankly, a manual can give you a whole lot more for your “living” than the Divine Comedy. Boy Scouts are admirably pretty practical within their domain but is your child going to be a park ranger? If your kid is going to spend his afternoons outside, why not work in agriculture (or at least mow your lawn)? Where Charlotte Mason shines is her appreciation for good habits: your kids do need to learn how to show up on time, work hard, embrace thrift, and earn a reputation for fair dealing. But they certainly don’t need to be prepared to join a 19th century literary salon.
Specialists: If you want your child to be Lord of the (Olympic) Rings, they need to be deliberately training, not joining some ramblers’ association. Although Mason discounts math (which is perfectly fine), Mason remains way too broad a curriculum to produce outlier performance in one subject or talent. Depending on the exact specialization, books may only get you so far, and relying only on living books may hardly get you out the door. Why read about heroes when you can be a hero? The right habits, though, are crucial to developing a champion - but the list should be pruned for that specific end. As the Bard said, “Some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them” - specialists are ready to do the thrusting.
Unit studies: Why limit yourself to how words can feed your imagination when you can actually taste Italian food, actually listen to a recording of choir music? Building your own scale model of the Coliseum or conducting scientific experiments yourself is more insightful than reading about them. Mason claimed that “education is the science of relations” and there’s no better way to explore those relationships than through unit studies. Outside of art, Mason would literally prefer 1,000 words to a picture and that seems rather narrow-minded; the world consists of more than books. But even if you really pursued a literature based curriculum, it’s better to read six books on the same subject from six different angles than very slowly working through one author’s inherently limited single point of view.
Unschoolers: To thine own self be true. Charlotte Mason’s obsession with obedience is fundamentally authoritarian, not to mention her explicit rejection of interest as a basis for learning. There are some good things at the margins of this approach - she encourages children to freely play in nature, she allows that children should be able to misspend their money and experience regret - but Mason fails to respect a child’s general need for autonomy. And if your kid is a great indoorsman, why force him out into nature as his only source of leisure? A parent can certainly invite a child on a journey through the magic of literature but, without a child’s interest governing the choices, your children are bound to become Les Miserables on The Road to Serfdom. But if a child just wants to go out and adventure like Huck Finn, that’s perfectly fine, too.
Mentors: The Count of Monte Cristo didn’t read his way to success; he had a mentor - without whom, he’d have died in prison, confused at his fate. Although reading about heroes is a good start, you should be trying to meet more of them. The fundamental trouble with books is their low interactivity - and even narration fails to take advantage of the prospect of reading alongside the best mentor possible and thoroughly discussing insights with someone much smarter and more experienced than you. Lots of brilliant people you could meet don’t have a book by or about them you can read - and even when they do, what is missing from the book? Some habits are worth cultivating if they can ensure your child can smoothly interact with the adult world - but plenty of geniuses were eccentrics not bound by convention (it’s almost inherent to a genius to not be obedient) and so be careful not to overdo the unnecessary.
Figure 8. “No, no, mom, you see, what you see as sloppiness is in fact evidence of genius.”
Pioneers: Delaying formal academics and spending a lot of time in nature are two choices very good for most boys. But you have to be careful that your Charlotte Mason regime isn’t just for Little Women. Girls tend to be more literate, boys more numerate, and Mason thus has the wrong emphasis. But Mason’s focus on heroes is great - just don't stop with Jules Verne; move into the golden age of science fiction. There are other approaches that are more hands-on and Mason is too skeptical of competition and prizes, which can really motivate boys. Mason’s approach can also too easily be managed by just mom - boys need admirable men in their lives. A regime of habits may be good structure for most boys, though one has to be careful not to strangle boyishness in the process.
Bible First: The originalist Charlotte Mason approach better accommodates a Pilgrim’s Progress than most others. Mason herself was appreciably and explicitly Christian and believed that introducing children to God was a parent’s highest duty. She admirably introduces the Bible immediately as formal education begins (though it could be done earlier than age 6) and makes the Gospel a child’s daily companion - and not just a children’s version, but the Word itself (one can quibble about whether the King James, however influential the language, is the best translation, but it certainly worked for her as an Anglican.) Christians simply need to be aware of what is actually directly Biblically derived and what Mason adds; and know that the latter (like the technique of narration or certain habits) is unnecessary. Some elements, after a parent’s deep study and prayer, might even be determined to be counterproductive or inadequate.
Cyberschoolers: Think of the last book you read - or even the best book you’ve read. How much of it can you remember and could you effectively tease out all of its arguments for others? Mason’s narration technique attempts to solve for this but it’s unclear how effectively it works (how many book reviewers fail to remember elements of their own reviews?) The main point is: books don't work. They are not efficient transmitters of knowledge and summarizing every aspect of even a good book is not the best use of your time. To be able to learn, you need to work on problems (ironically, Mason rejects math, which is reliant on this method) and you need the kind of constant, intelligent feedback that AI can now finally deliver. Mason’s attempt to build a child’s memory may have been the best idea in the 1800s but now we have algorithms that can ensure you consistently remember any set of flashcards. If parents want their kids to answer those hard Charlotte Mason questions, a program can be designed for that. Instead of preparing for a space mission with a map from Treasure Island, let’s embrace a Brave New World.
My own takeaway: if the character of your children matters to you (and it should), then you should intentionally cultivate it. Most of the homeschoolers in my own church employ Charlotte Mason for just this purpose. Sometimes Americans like to say that public schools should stick to academics and leave character to the parents - but schools have a rather large claim on children’s time to skip character. Some institutional schools insist they teach character - they may even hang fancy banners with fine slogans - but such things are often superficially and literally virtue signaling on the margins of academics, the true core function of the school. Even at home, how often are parents proactively thinking every day about how to shape their kids’ goodness versus reacting to whatever lapse they manage to catch? Other homeschooling approaches dismiss Charlotte Mason’s intense focus on character as “extra-educational” at their own peril. Compare this attitude to the 1828 dictionary definition of “education”:
“The bringing up, as of a child, instruction; formation of manners. education comprehends all that series of instruction and discipline which is intended to enlighten the understanding, correct the temper, and form the manners and habits of youth, and fit them for usefulness in their future stations. To give children a good education in manners, arts and science, is important; to give them a religious education is indispensable; and an immense responsibility rests on parents and guardians who neglect these duties.”
Otherwise, a literature-based curriculum seems much more interesting than the conventional approach but, unlike Mason, I’d be perfectly happy to think about a child’s interests and then pursue high quality books in that field. I am intrigued by Mason’s narration technique, especially for preliterate children, though I may be more interventionist and Socratic than she. I do think Mason rather badly understates the case for math, but that’s fairly easily corrected. Altogether, Mason offers a very interesting base model for a Christian family interested in education via books.
Figure 9. ChatGPT’s impression of the “most stereotypical student of Charlotte Mason education.”
Further Reading
An exceptional (free!) online resource curated by volunteers passionate about the Charlotte Mason method. At the very least worth consulting for its reading lists.
If you’re enthusiastic about Charlotte Mason, you can of course read through her life’s work of six volumes - but you may want to start with Ambleside’s Charlotte Mason Summaries, which translates all of the concepts, book by book, into easy to understand modern language in a succinct way (about 180 pages)
If you are going to read Charlotte Mason’s original text, originalists recommend starting with Volume 6, which was a reflection on her life’s work: "Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, a life.” You can easily see why conservative Christians are attracted to her views; she’s explicit about being an anti-Marxist (believing her educational method will mend class differences) and says “Students must be allowed to admire what is good before learning to criticize what is bad, so they should hear great deeds of their countrymen before hearing of the faults of their country. There is plenty of time to learn of evil; let them savor goodness as long as possible”
Another strong online resource - the main website is a business which I have not subscribed to, but their YouTube channel is full of free videos about how the method works.
In Laying Down the Rails, Sonya Shafer, the creator of Simply Charlotte Mason, finds every single mention of habit that Charlotte Mason makes in her original six volumes and excerpts them for parents to reflect on. Shafer also adds a little commentary, but it’s mostly just a convenient place to see all the habit analysis at once. Ultimately, the book is useful to understand the habits Mason had in mind, but you’re going to have to figure out a lot on your own. To that end, you ought to read more about habits - see my review of Atomic Habits here.
The Charlotte Mason Institute is a nonprofit dedicated to her method, including its Christian evangelization, but also with an explicit desire to update it for modern educational needs, specifically noting the modern emphasis on science. The institute sells its own curriculum.
Living Book Press is a publisher that explicitly aspires to produce books of the Charlotte Mason mold.
There are many more online reading lists that claim a Charlotte Mason perspective, many of them for paid subscribers, but know, as always, that just because it says “Charlotte Mason” doesn’t mean that it actually reflects her philosophy. You’ll have to make a lot of your own judgments - fairly easy when you’re dealing with short books for small kids, harder for as the books get longer and the kids get older.
For the Children’s Sake by Susan Schaeffer Macaulay
Macaulay, the daughter of the evangelical theologian Francis Schaeffer, revived Charlotte Mason for homeschooling with this book and in re-publishing Mason’s original volumes. Provides more context for Mason’s philosophy to provide a “gentle feast” for children to experience, with a strong grounding in Christian theology, but is not a practical plan.
A Charlotte Mason Companion by Karen Andreola
Essentially the next volume that Charlotte Mason adherents had the opportunity to consume after the publication of Macaulay, and starting to get more practical. Aspires to give children every day something or someone to love, something worthwhile to do, and something to think about. "We are educated by our intimacies"; “Example is the best sermon.”
When Children Love to Learn by Elaine Cooper
Not exhaustive like the guide to Classical education the Well Trained Mind but an interesting sampling of getting ever closer to a practical Charlotte Mason regime with comments on other approaches. A slight riff on an original Charlotte Mason aspiration: "I am a child of God, I ought to do His will. I can do what He tells me, and by His grace, I will."
Includes description of how school works at Ambleside, one of the few institutions in America that is explicitly built on Charlotte Mason.
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