A Full Life: The Works of Charlotte Mason

The Divine Order for the Family as regards other Nations––Nor are the interests of the family limited to those of the nation. As it is the part of the nation to maintain wider relations, to be in touch with all the world, to be ever in advance in the great march of human progress, so is this the attitude which is incumbent on each unit of the nation, each family, as an integral part of the whole. Here is the simple and natural realisation of the noble dream of Fraternity: each individual attached to a family by ties of love where not of blood; the families united in a federal bond to form the nation; the nations confederate in love and emulous in virtue, and all, nations and their families, playing their several parts as little children about the feet and under the smile of the Almighty Father. Here is the divine order which every family is called upon to fulfil: a little leaven leaveneth the whole lump, and, therefore, it matters infinitely that every family should realise the nature and the obligations of the family bond, for as water cannot rise above its source, neither can we live at a higher level than that of the conception we form of our place and use in life.

The Family must serve the Nation––But it is not enough that the family commune maintain neighbourly relations with other such communes, and towards the stranger within the gates. The family is the unit of the nation; and the nation is an organic whole, a living body, built up, like the natural body, of an infinite number of living organisms. It is only as it contributes its quota towards the national life that the life of the family is complete. Public interests must be shared, public work taken up, the public welfare cherished––in a word, its integrity with the nation must be preserved, or the family ceases to be part of a living whole, and becomes positively injurious, as decayed tissue in the animal organism.

The Family must be Social––It by no means follows from this communistic view of the family that the domestic policy should be a policy of isolation; the contrary, it is not too much to say a nation is civilised in proportion as it is able to establish close and friendly relations with other nations; and that, not with one or two, but with many and, conversely, that a nation is barbarous in proportion to its isolation; and does not a family decline in intelligence and virtue when from generation to generation it ‘keeps itself to itself’?

The Family must serve Neighbours––Again, it is probable that a nation is healthy in proportion as it has its own proper outlets, its colonies and dependencies, which it is ever solicitous to include in the national life. So of the nation in miniature, the family: the struggling families at ‘the back,’ the orphanage, the mission, the necessitous of our acquaintance, are they not for the sustenance of the family in the higher life?

The Family a Commune––’The family is the unit of the nation.’ This pregnant saying suggests some aspects of the parents’ calling. From time to time, in all ages of the world, communistic societies have arisen, sometimes for the sake of co-operation in a great work, social or religious, more recently by way of protest against inequalities of condition; but, in every case, the fundamental rule of such societies is, that the members shall have all things in common. We are apt to think, in our careless way, that such attempts at communistic association are foredoomed to failure. But that is not the case. In the United States, perhaps because hired labour is less easy to obtain than it is with us, they appear to have found a congenial soil, and there many well-regulated communistic bodies flourish. There are failures, too, many and disastrous, and it appears that these may usually be traced to one cause, a government enfeebled by the attempt to combine democratic and communistic principles; that is, to dwell together in a common life, while each does what is right in his own eyes. A communistic body can thrive only under a vigorous and absolute rule.

A favourite dream of socialism is––or was until the idea of collectivism obtained––that each State of Europe should be divided into an infinite number of small self-contained communes. Now, it sometimes happens that the thing we desire is already realised had we eyes to see. The family is, practically, a commune. In the family the undivided property is enjoyed by all the members in common, and in the family there is equality of social condition, with diversity of duties. In lands where patriarchal practices still obtain, the family merges into the tribe, and the head of the family is the chief of the tribe––a very absolute sovereign indeed. In our own country, families are usually small, parents and their immediate with the attendants and belongings which gather to a household, and, let it not be forgotten, form part of the family. The smallness of the family tends to obscure its character, and we see no force in the phrase at the head of this chapter; we do not perceive that, if the unit of the nation is the natural commune, the family; then, is the family pledged to carry on within itself all the functions of the State, with the delicacy, precision, and fulness of detail proper to work done on a small scale.

‘The family is the unit of the nation.’––F. D. MAURICE.

Rousseau succeeded in awaking Parents––It is probable that no other educational thinker has succeeded in affecting parents so profoundly as did Rousseau. Emile is little read now, but how many current theories of the regimen proper for children have there their unsuspected source? Everybody knows––and his contemporaries knew it better than we––that Jean Jacques Rousseau had not enough sterling character to warrant him to pose as an authority on any subject, least of all on that of education. He sets himself down a poor thing, and we see no cause to reject the evidence of his Confessions. We are not carried away by the charm of his style; his ‘forcible feebleness’ does not dazzle us. No man can say beyond that which he is, and there is a want of grit in his philosophic theories that removes most of them from the category of available thought.

But Rousseau had the insight to perceive one of those patent truths which, somehow, it takes a genius discover; and, because truth is indeed prized above rubies, the perception of that truth gave him rank as a great teacher. Is Jean Jacques also among the prophets? people asked, and ask still; and that he had thousands of fervent disciples amongst the educated parents of Europe, together with the fact that teaching has filtered into many a secluded home our own day, is answer enough. Indeed, no other educationalist has had a tithe of the influence exerted by Rousseau. Under the spell of his teaching, people in the fashionable world, like that Russian Princess Galitzin, forsook society, and went off with their children to some quiet corner where they could devote every hour of the day, and every power they had, to the fulfilment of the duties which devolve on parents. Courtly mothers retired from the world, sometimes even left their husbands, to work hard at the classics, mathematics, sciences, that they might with their own lips instruct their children. ‘What else am I for?’ they asked; and the feeling spread that the bringing-up of their children was the one work of primary importance for men and women.

Whatever extravagance he had seen fit to advance, Rousseau would still have found a following, because he had chanced to touch a spring that opened many hearts. He was one of the few educationalists who made his appeal to the parental instincts. He did not say, ‘We have no hope of the parents, let us work for the children!’ Such are the faint-hearted and pessimistic things we say today. What he said was, in effect, “Fathers and mothers, this is your work, and you only can do it. It rests with you, parents of young children, to be the saviours of society unto a thousand generations. Nothing else matters. The avocations about which people weary themselves are as foolish child’s play compared with this one serious business of bringing up our children in advance of ourselves.”

People listened, as we have seen; the response to his teaching was such a letting out of the waters of parental enthusiasm as has never been known before nor since. And Rousseau, weak and little worthy, was a preacher of righteousness in this, that he turned the hearts of the fathers to the children, and so far made ready a people prepared for the Lord. But alas! having secured the foundation, he had little better than wood, hay, and stubble to offer to the builders.

Rousseau succeeded, as he deserved to succeed, in awakening many parents to the binding character, the vast range, the profound seriousness of parental obligations. He failed, and deserved to fail, as he offered his own crude conceits by way of an educational code. But his success is very cheering. He perceived that God placed the training of every child in the hands of two, a father and a mother; and the response to his teaching proved that, as the waters answer to the drawing of the moon, so do the hearts of parents rise to the idea of the great work committed to them.

Though it is true, no doubt, that every parent is conscious of unwritten laws, more or less definite and noble according to his own status, yet an attempt, however slight, to codify these laws may be interesting to parents.

Our conduct is the outcome of our principles, even if these be only such as––’It does not matter’; ‘What’s the good?’

Every office implies the observance of certain fundamental principles in its discharge.

These two considerations lead me to think that a careful examination of the principles which naturally and necessarily underlie the office of parents may be of some little use to those who take their great work seriously.

Believing that the individuality of parents is a great possession for their children, and knowing that when an idea possesses the mind, ways of applying it suggest themselves, I have tried not to weight these pages with many directions, practical suggestions, and other such crutches, likely to interfere with the free relations of parent and child. Our greatness as a nation depends upon how far parents take liberal and enlightened views of their high office and of the means to discharge it which are placed in their hands.

The following essays have appeared in the Parents’ Review, and were addressed, from time to time, to a body of parents who are making a practical study of the principles of education––the ‘Parents’ National Educational Union.’ The Parents’ Union exists to advance, with more or less method and with more or less steadfastness, a definite school of educational thought of which the two main principles are––the recognition of the physical basis of habit, i.e., of the material side of education; and of the inspiring and formative power of ideas, i.e., of the immaterial, or spiritual, side of education. These two guiding principles, covering as they do the whole field of human nature, should enable us to deal rationally with all the complex problems of education; and the object of the following essays is, not to give an exhaustive application of these principles––the British Museum itself would hardly contain all the volumes needful for such an undertaking––but to give an example or a suggestion, here and there, as to how such and such a habit may be formed, such and such a formative idea be implanted and fostered. The intention of the volume will account to the reader for the iteration of the same principles in various connections. The author ventures to hope that the following hints and suggestions will not prove the less practically useful to busy parents, because they rest on profound educational principles; and also, that they may prove in some degree, suggestive and inspiring to teachers.

Tomorrow I will begin posting excerpts from Charlotte Mason’s Volume 2: Parents and Children.  Volume 2 is a collection of 26 articles from the original Parent’s Review magazines.

You can find this volume in one plain text file or one html page courtesy of Ambleside Online.

We have completed the main text to Volume 1: Home Education.  I am going to go against my “a little bit a day” philosophy to copy in total the appendix to Volume 1 here, which contains study questions for this volume.  They can also be found here.  

 I’m going to take a short break (a few days?) to allow those who want to ponder these questions to do so.

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APPENDICE:S

Vol 1 pg 353

APPENDIX A

Questions for the Use of Students

PART I

SOME PRELIMINARY CONSIDERATIONS

1. Show that children are a public trust. What follows?
2. What questions does Pestalozzi put to mothers?
3. What is Mr Herbert Spencer’s argument for the study of education?
4. How do parents usually proceed?
5. What is the strenuous part of a parent’s work?

1. A METHOD OF EDUCATION

1. Contrast four or five older theories with later and perhaps sounder notions.
2. Point out the opposite characters of a system and a method.
3. Why is a system tempting to parents?

II. THE CHILD’S ESTATE

1. What do the Gospel sayings about children indicate?
2. What are the three commandments of the Gospel code of education?

Vol 1 pg 354

III. OFFENDING THE CHILDREN

1. Distinguish between ‘offending’ and ‘despising’ children.
2. What is to be said of parents whose children have ‘no sense of ought’?
3. Trace the steps by which a mother’s ‘no’ comes to be disregarded.
4. Why must parents themselves be law-compelled?
5. Show that parents may offend their children by disregarding the laws of health.
6. By disregarding the laws of the intellectual life.
7. Of the moral life.

IV. DESPISING THE CHILDREN

1. Show that children may be despised in the choice of a nurse.
2. By taking their faults too lightly.

V. HINDERING THE CHILDREN

1. In what ways may parents hinder their children’s access to God?

VI. CONDITIONS OF HEALTHY BRAIN ACTIVITY

1. What is the first condition of successful education?
2. Show that daily efforts, intellectual, moral, and physical, are necessary for children.
3. On what principle is the blood-supply regulated?
4. Show the importance of rest after meals.
5. What is the best time for lessons? Why?
6. On what principle should a time-table be arranged?
7. Show that brain activity is affected by nourishment.  [Vol 1 pg 355]
8. Under what conditions does food increase the vital quality of the blood?
9. Why must food be varied?
10. Show that children are spendthrifts of vitality.
11. Give a few useful hints concerning meals.
12. Why should there be talk at meals?
13. Give some rules to secure variety.
14. Show fully that air is as important as food.
15. What have you to say of the children’s daily walk ?
16. What is meant by the oxygenation of the blood?
17. Show that oxygen has its limitations.
18. What are the dangers of unchanged air in spacious rooms?
19. ‘I feed Alice on beef-tea.’ Why?
20. What of Alice’s mind?
21. What are the joys of Wordsworth’s ‘Lucy’?
22. Show the danger of stuffy rooms.
23. What principle must regulate ventilation?
24. Why is night air wholesome?
25. Upon what physical facts does the need of sunshine depend?
26. Show that the skin does much scavenger’s work.
27. Why do persons die of external scalds or burns?
28. Why is a daily bath necessary?
29. Give some instructions for clothing children.

VII. ‘THE REIGN OF LAW’ IN EDUCATION

1. What should be the method of all education?
2. Why are common sense and good intentions not sufficient?
3. How may we meet the danger to religion arising from the blameless lives of some non-religious persons?
4. Account for the superior morality of such nonbelievers. [Vol 1 pg 356]
5. Show that all observance of law brings its reward.
6. Show that parents should not lay up crucial difficulties for their children.
7. Why should parents study mental and moral science?

PART II  OUT-OF-DOOR LIFE FOR THE CHILDREN

I. A GROWING TIME

1. Why is out-of-door life for young children especially important in these days?
2. What are the gains of meals out of doors?
3. What might be accomplished by dwellers in towns and suburbs?
4. What five or six points should be remembered in a day in the open?
5. What of story-books or tale-telling on such occasions?
6. What of ‘the baby’?

II. ‘SIGHT-SEEING’

1. Give an example of ’sight-seeing.’
2. What five or six educational uses may be made of ’sight-seeing’?
3. Show the value of discriminating observation.

III. ‘PICTURE PAINTING’

1. What is meant by ‘picture painting’?
2. Give an example.
3. Show the value of this exercise. [Vol 1 pg 357]
4. What caution must be borne in mind?
5. What invaluable habit should this play tend to form?
6. What is the mother’s part in the play?
7. What is the after-reward for taking pains in the act of seeing?

IV. FLOWERS AND TREES

1. With what field crops may children become acquainted in your neighbourhood?
2. What should a child know about any wild flower of his neighbourhood?
3. How should children take up the study of trees?
4. Show how the seasons should be followed in this study.
5. What does Leigh Hunt say about flowers?
6. What use should be made of calendars and notebooks?
7. What of the child who says, ‘I can’t stop thinking’?

V. ‘LIVING CREATURES’

1. What part of the pleasure in living creatures may be secured for town dwellers?
2. Of what ‘creatures’ may children observe the habits?
3. What points about an insect should children observe?
4. How did White of Selborne and Audubon get their bent towards nature?
5. What can town children do in getting a knowledge of ‘living creatures’?
6. Show that nature-knowledge is the most important knowledge for young children.
7. What intellectual powers are trained in the child naturalist?
8. Show that nature-work is especially valuable for girls.

[Vol 1 pg 358]

VI. FIELD LORE AND NATURALISTS’ BOOKS

1. Should young children be taught the elements of natural science?
2. Show the value of rough classifications.
3. Contrast with classifications learnt from books.
4. What are the uses of Naturalists’ books?
5. Name a few.
6. Why should mothers and teachers have some knowledge of nature?

VII. THE CHILD GETS KNOWLEDGE BY MEANS OF HIS SENSES

1. Show, from the behaviour of a baby, that a child gets knowledge by means of his senses.
2. Characterise Nature’s teaching.
3. Wherein lies the danger of over-pressure?
4. Why are object lessons inefficient?
5. Why does a child learn most from things?
6. Give some examples showing that a sense of beauty comes from early contact with nature.
7. What does Dickens say on the subject of a child’s observing powers ?

VIII. THE CHILD SHOULD BE MADE FAMILIAR WITH NATURAL OBJECTS

1. Compare town and country as to things worth observing.
2. How does the fact that every natural object is a member of a series affect education?
3. ‘Power win pass more and more into the hands of scientific men’–how should this influence parents and teachers?
4. In what ways does intimacy with nature make for personal well-being?

[Vol 1 pg 359]

IX. OUT-OF-DOOR GEOGRAPHY

1. Show that small things may suggest great in pictorial geography.
2. What should children be taught to observe about the position of the sun?
3. What, of clouds, rain, snow, and hail?
4. Show how, by pacing, a child should get the idea of distance.
5. What is the first step towards a knowledge of direction?
6. What practice should a child have in finding direction?
7. What compass-drill would you give him?
8. How should a child get the notion of boundaries?
9. When should he begin to make ‘plans’?
10. What geographical ideas should he get from his own neighbourhood?

X. THE CHILD AND MOTHER NATURE

1. Why must the mother refrain from much talk?
2. How is a new acquaintance begun?
3. What are the two things permissible to the mother?

XI. OUT-OF-DOOR GAMES, ETC.

1. Why should not the French lesson be omitted?
2. Why should children indulge in cries and shouts out of doors?
3. Why should rondes be preserved?
4. What are the best ways of using skipping-rope and shuttlecock?
5. What is to be said for climbing?
6. What, for woollen garments?

[Vol 1 pg 360]

XII. WALKS IN BAD WEATHER

1. Why are winter walks as necessary as summer walks?
2. What pleasures are connected with frost and snow?
3. How may children be kept alert on dull days?
4. How does winter lend itself to observation?
5. Why are wet weather tramps wholesome and necessary?
6. What sort of garments are necessary? Why?
7. What precautions should be borne in mind?

XIII. ‘RED INDIAN’ LIFE

1. What do you understand by ’scouting’? Show the value of scouting.
2. Describe a ‘bird-stalking’ expedition.
3. In what ways should these things afford training?

XIV. THE CHILDREN REQUIRE COUNTRY AIR

1. How may the essential proportion of oxygen be diminished?
2. How is excess of carbonic acid gas produced?
3. Why do children, especially, need unvitiated, unimpoverished air?
4. Show that children require solar light.
5. Describe a physical ideal for a child, and show the use of having such an ideal.

PART III  ‘HABIT IS TEN NATURES’

I. EDUCATION BASED UPON NATURAL LAW

1. Show that a healthy brain and outdoor life are conditions of education.
2. Show that habit is the instrument by which parents work.

[Vol 1 pg 361]

II. THE CHILDREN HAVE NO SELF-COMPELLING POWER

1. Show that education is commonly a cul-de-sac.
2. Name three great educational forces.
3. Why are not these forces sufficient?
4. Why are children incapable of steady effort?
5. Why should young children be, to some extent, saved the effort of decision?

III. WHAT IS ‘NATURE’?

1. What may we state of the child as a human being?
2. Show that all persons are born with the same primary desires.
3. And affections.
4. Name affections common to us all.
5. What does the most elemental notion of human nature include?
6. What have you to say of the strength of nature plus heredity?
7. What manner of differences may physical conditions bring about?
8. Of what is human nature the sum?
9. Why must not the child be left to his human nature?
10. What is the problem before the educator?
11. Show that divine grace works on the lines of human effort.
12.. Why must not the trust of parents be supine?

IV. HABIT MAY SUPPLANT ‘NATURE’

1. Show that habit runs on the lines of nature.
2. How must habit work to be a lever?
3. Show that a mother forms her children’s habits involuntarily.  [Vol 1 pg 362]
4. Illustrate the fact that habit may force nature into new channels.
5. To what end must parents and teachers lay down the lines of habit?

V. THE LAYING DOWN OF LINES OF HABIT

1. Show that parents initiate their children’s habits of thought and feeling by their own behaviour.
2. Does education in habit interfere with free-will?
3. Show how good it is that habit should rule our thoughts.
4. Show that habit is powerful even when the will decides.

VI. THE PHYSIOLOGY OF HABIT

1. Illustrate the fact that growing tissues form themselves to the modes of action required of them.
2. Show fully and exactly why children should learn dancing, swimming, etc., at an early age.
3. To what fact is the strength of moral habits probably due?
4. Show the danger of persistent trains of thought.
5. What does the incessant regeneration of brain tissue imply to the educator?
6. Show that to acquire artificial reflex action in certain directions is a great part of education.
7. What are the aims of intellectual and moral education?
8. Show that character is affected by the acquired modification of brain tissue.
9. Show the need for care with regard to outside influences.

[Vol 1 pg 363]

VII. THE FORMING OF A HABIT–’SHUT THE DOOR AFTER YOU’

1. What remains to be tried when neither time, reward, nor punishment is effective in curing a bad habit?
2. Show that habit is a delight in itself.
3. Show that misguided sympathy is a hindrance in the formation of habits.
4. What are the qualities necessary in the mother who would form habits in her children?
5. What are the stages in the formation of a habit?
6. Which is the dangerous stage?

VIII. INFANT HABITS

1. Show the necessity for cleanliness in the nursery.
2. How do cleanliness, order, etc., educate a child?
3. Why is the training of a sensitive nose an important part of education?
4. Why should nurses know that the baby is ubiquitous?
5. Show that personal cleanliness should be made an early habit.
6. How may parents approach the subjects of modesty and purity?
7. Show how the habit of obedience and the sense of honour are safeguards.
8. What manner of life is the best safeguard?
9. Give some suggestions with regard to ‘order’ in the nursery.
10. Show how and why the child of two should put away his playthings.
11. Distinguish between neatness and order.
12. What occasions are there for regularity with an incant?
13. Show that irregularity leads to self-indulgence.

[Vol 1 pg 364]

IX. PHYSICAL EXERCISES

1. Show the importance of daily physical exercises.
2. What moral qualities appear in alert movements?
3. Suggest a drill of good manners.
4. How would you train the ear and voice?
5. How may the habit of music be cultivated?
6. Show that the mother who trains habits can let her children alone.

PART IV  SOME HABITS OF MIND–SOME MORAL HABITS

1. What can a knowledge of the science of education effect?
2. Show that education in habit favours an easy life.
3. Show how the mother’s labours are eased by the fact that training in habits becomes a habit.
4. Instance some habits inspired with the home atmosphere.

I. THE HABIT OF ATTENTION

1. Why is the habit of attention of supreme importance?
2. Instance minds at the mercy of associations.
3. Give instances from literature of the habit of wandering attention.
4. Where is the harm of wandering attention?
5. How may the habit of attention be cultivated in the infant?
6. How would you cultivate attention to lessons?
7. What principles should help the teacher to. make lessons attractive?
8. Show the value of definite work in a given time.
9. On what principle must a time-table be drawn up? [Vol 1 pg 365]
10. What is the natural reward of attention at lessons?
11. What is to be said for and against emulation?
12. What is the risk in employing affection as a motive?
13. Show that the attractiveness of knowledge is a sufficient motive to the learner.
14. What is attention?
15. How would you induce self-compelled attention?
16. What is the secret of over-pressure?
17. How may parents be of use in the home-work of the day-schoolboy?
18. Describe a wholesome home-treatment for ‘mooning.’
19. What have you to say of the discipline of consequences?
20. Show that rewards and punishments should be relative, rather than natural, consequences of conduct.
21. Distinguish between natural and educative consequences.

II. THE HABITS OF APPLICATION, ETC.

1. How may rapid mental effort be secured?
2. How may zeal be stimulated?

III. THE HABIT OF THINKING

1. Give the example of thinking cited.
2. What operations are included in ‘thinking’?

IV. THE HABIT OF IMAGINING

1. What is the double danger of many books ministering to the sense of the incongruous?
2. Show that commonplace tales leave nothing to the imagination.
3. In what way do tales of the imagination afford children a second life?  [Vol 1 pg 366]
4. Show that we can have great conceptions only as we have imagination.
5. Upon what does imagination grow?
6. What lessons should feed imagination?
7. Why?
8. Show the educative value of the right story-books.
9. How would you promote the habit of thinking?

V. THE HABIT OF REMEMBERING

1. Distinguish between remembering and recollecting.
2. Describe what is here called a ’spurious’ memory.
3. What results from the fact that memory is a record on the brain substance?
4. Made under what conditions?
5. Show that recollection depends upon the law or association of ideas.
6. What is the condition for recollecting a course of lessons?
7. Given what conditions may we say there is no limit to the recording power of the brain?
8. Show that links of association are a condition of recollection. Where are these to be discovered?

VI. THE HABIT OF PERFECT EXECUTION

1. What national error hinders us from the effort to throw perfection into all we do?
2. Show the danger of the habit of turning out imperfect work.
3. How may a child be taught to execute perfectly?

VII. SOME MORAL HABITS–OBEDIENCE

1. What is the whole duty of a child?
2. What is the state opposed to obedience?
3. Show that a parent has no right to forego obedience. [Vol 1 pg 367]
4. What is the true motive for obedience?
5. Account for the fact that strictly brought up children are often failures.
6. Why may parents and teachers expect obedience?
7. How may children be brought up to ‘do as they choose’?
8. What manner of obedience is of lasting value to the child?
9. How may children be trained towards liberty?

VIII. TRUTHFULNESS, ETC.

1. What are the causes of lying?
2. Show that all kinds of lying are vicious.
3. How is it that only one kind is visited on children?
4. How would you train a child in accuracy of statement?
5. How would you deal with exaggeration?
6. With ludicrous embellishments?
7. Show that reverence, consideration, etc., claim special attention in these days.
8. Is temper born in a child?
9. Show that, not temper, but tendency is ‘born.’
10. How must parents correct such tendency?
11. Show fully the efficacy of changing the child’s thoughts.
12. Distinguish between changing a child’s thoughts and conveying to him the thought you intend him to think.

<>PART V  LESSONS AS INSTRUMENTS OF EDUCATION

I. THE MATTER AND METHOD OF LESSONS

1. Discuss the statement, This is ‘an age of pedagogy.’
2. Why must parents reflect on the subject-matter of instruction?  [Vol 1 pg 368]
3. Show that home is the best growing ground for young children.
4. Why must a mother have definite views?
5. What are the three questions for the mother?
6. Show that children learn, to grow.
7. Show that any doctoring of the material of knowledge is unnecessary for a healthy child.
8. What is an idea?
9. Show that an idea feeds, grows, and produces.
10. What did Sir Walter Scott and George Stephenson each do with an idea?
11. Show the value of dominant ideas.
12. Why must lessons furnish ideas?
13. What quality of knowledge should children get?
14. What is the evil of ‘diluted knowledge’?
15. Illustrate a child’s power of getting knowledge (Dr Arnold).
16. What is the harm of lesson-books with pretty pictures and easy talk?
17. What are the four tests which should be applied to children’s lessons?
18. Give a resume of six points already considered.

II. THE KINDERGARTEN AS A PLACE OF EDUCATION

1. Show that the mother is the best Kindergartnerin,
2. How may the child get education out of his daily nursery life?
3. Show that the children’s pursuit of real knowledge may be hindered by the kindergarten.
4. Show that a just eye and a faithful hand may be trained at home.
5. In what respects does the kindergarten give a hint of the discipline proper for the nursery.
6. What temper should be cultivated in the nursery?  [Vol 1 pg 369]
7. What general conclusion may we come to as to the principles and practices of the kindergarten?

III. FURTHER CONSIDERATION OF THE KINDERGARTEN

1. What anecdote of a child is quoted from Tolstoi’s Childhood, Boyhood, and Youth?
2. Why are such tales as Miss Deland’s The Story of a Child valuable?
3. What do we owe to Froebel?
4. What may we learn from the true Kindergartnerin?
5. Comment upon, ‘Persons do not grow in a garden.’
6. Show that we must leave opportunity for the work of nature in education.
7. Give instances showing the intelligence of children.
8. Account for the pleasure children take in kindergarten games.
9. In what ways do teachers mediate too much?
10. Show the danger of personal magnetism in the teacher.
11. Show fully that the name ‘kindergarten’ implies a false analogy.
12. What might be said concerning the Froebel ‘mothergames’?
13. Is the society of a large number of his equals in age the best for a young child?
14. Show the dangers of supplanting nature.
15. What would you say regarding the importance of personal initiative?
16. In what ways must parents and teachers sow opportunities?
17. Do ‘only’ children profit by the kindergarten?
18. In what ways should children be allowed some ordering of their lives?
19. Give a few of the lessons we may learn from the autobiography of Helen Keller.  [Vol 1 pg 370]
20. What conclusions does Miss Sullivan, Helen Keller’s teacher, arrive at with regard to systems of education?
21. Account for the success of the kindergarten in the United States.
22. What changes does Mr Thistleton Mark observe?
23. Give some of the comments of Dr Stanley Hall.

IV. READING

1. Discuss the question of the age at which children should learn to read.
2. How did Mrs Wesley teach her children to read?
3. Give a few hints for teaching the alphabet.
4. How would you introduce a child to word-making?
5. Describe a lesson in word-making with long vowels, etc.
6. How should the child’s first reading lessons help him to spell?
7. Give the steps of a reading lesson on ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star.’
8. Why is prose better in some ways than verse for early lessons?
9. Describe a second reading lesson on ‘Twinkle, twinkle, little star.’
10. Show that slow and steady progress tends to careful enunciation.
11. Show how much a child might gain in a year’s work on these lines. .
12. Contrast this steady progress with the casual way in which children generally learn to read.

V. FIRST READING LESSON (Two Mothers Confer)
[No questions]

[Vol 1 pg 371]

VI. READING BY SIGHT AND BY SOUND

1. Why is learning to read hard work?
2. What are the symbols children must learn ?
3. What do we definitely propose in teaching a child to read?
4. Can the symbols he learns be interesting?
5. Describe the stages of a lesson on ‘I like little Pussy.’
6. How does Tommy learn to read sentences?
7. Describe Tommy’s first spelling lesson.
8. How would you deal with the fact that like combinations have different sounds?
9. Show that his reading lesson should afford moral training to a child.

<>VII. RECITATION  ‘THE CHILDREN’S ART’

1. What should we aim at in teaching children to recite?
2. How should we proceed?
3. What should we avoid?
4. Why may we expect success?
5. Distinguish between reciting and memorising.
6. Show that children have a, natural capacity for memorising.
7. How would you teach them to memorise a poem?

VIII. READING FOR OLDER CHILDREN

1. To what two points must the teacher attend?
2. What is the most common and the monstrous defect in the education of the day?
3. How may we correct this defect? [Vol 1 pg 372]
4. What points require attention when the child is reading aloud?
5. What must the teacher be careful to avoid?
6. What is to be said for and against reading to children?
7. Should children be questioned about the meaning of what they read?
8. Why not?
9. Suggest a better test of their intelligence.
10. Why is the selection of a child’s early lesson-books a matter of great importance?
11. What general rule should help in the choice of these?
12. How may the attention of children be secured during a reading lesson?
13. Give two or three hints with regard to careful pronunciation.

IX. THE ART OF NARRATION

1. Prove from your own observation that children narrate by nature.
2. How should this power be used in their education?
3. What points must be borne in mind with regard to a child’s narrations?
4. Describe the method of a lesson.

X. WRITING

1. How would you avoid the habit of careless work?
2. What printing should a. child do before he comes to write?
3. What stages should be followed in teaching writing?
4. What is to be said about copperplate headlines?
5. Why should children practise in text-hand?
6. What arguments are advanced in favour of a beautiful handwriting?  [Vol 1 pg 373]
7. What is to be said for a beautiful basis for characteristic handwriting?
8. Suggest a way of using A New Handwriting.

XI. TRANSCRIPTION

1. Show the use of transcription before children write dictation.
2. What should children transcribe?
3. How should transcription help children to spell?
4. Why should text-hand and double-ruled lines be used?
5. Describe the proper position in writing.
6. How should children hold their pens?
7. What are the points of a good desk?
8. Describe a school-table for little children.

XII. SPELLING AND DICTATION

1. Show how dictation may be made a cause of bad spelling.
2. What is the rationale of spelling?
3. What are the steps of a dictation lesson as it should be?
4. Show clearly what principle is involved.
5. What are the two causes of illiterate spelling?

XIII. COMPOSITION

1. Show that the exaction of original composition from school-boys and school-girls is a futility.
2. And a moral injury to the children.
3. Illustrate the sort of teaching that should be regarded as a public danger.
4. Upon what condition does composition ‘come by nature’?

[Vol 1 pg 374]

XIV. BIBLE LESSONS

1. Illustrate the religious receptivity of children.
2. What Bible knowledge should children of nine have?
3. What would you say with regard to Bible narratives done into modern English?
4. Show fully why children should be made familiar with the text.
5. What conception should gradually unfold itself to them?
6. Distinguish between essential and accidental truth.
7. In what event may it be said that’ the truths themselves will assuredly slip from our grasp’?
8. Why should care be taken lest Bible teaching stale upon the minds of children?
9. Describe the method of a Bible lesson.
10. What use would you make of illustrations?
11. What is to be said as to the learning by heart of Bible passages ?

XV. ARITHMETIC

1. Why is arithmetic important as a means of education?
2. How would you test a child’s knowledge of principles?
3. Why are long sums mischievous?
4. What mental exercise should a problem offer?
5. What caution must be observed?
6. How may arithmetic become an elementary training in mathematics?
7. How should a child demonstrate 4 x 7 = 28?
8. How would you use buttons, beans, etc.?
9. Show how you would teach a child to work out an addition and subtraction table with each of the digits.
10. When would you introduce multiplication and division tables?
11. How would you teach division? [Vol 1 pg 375]
12. What is the step between working with things and with abstract numbers?
13. How would you introduce our system of notation?
14. Why?
15. Show fully how you would deal with ‘tens.’
16. How long should a child work with ‘tens’ and units only?
17. What should follow?
18. What rule must be observed throughout?
19. How would you apply the same principle to weights and measures?
20. What part should parcels play at this stage, and why?
21. Show how the child should use a foot-rule.
22. How would you exercise his judgment as to measures and weights.
23. How does the idea of a fraction occur in this work with concrete quantities?
24. What should be the moral value of the study of arithmetic?
25. How does the inferior teacher instill a disregard of truth and common honesty in this study?
26. How would you deal with a ‘wrong’ sum?
27. What should the daily arithmetic lesson be to the children?
28. Discuss the ABC Arithmetic.
29. What is to be said against accustoming young children to the sight of geometrical forms and figures?

XVI. NATURAL PHILOSOPHY

1. Show that childhood is the time for gathering materials for classification.
2. What does Mr Herbert Spencer say as to the value of scientific pursuits?
3. Show that children are able to comprehend principles.  [Vol 1 pg 376]
4. Mention some of the phenomena they might readily understand.
5. From the subjects taught successfully in a village school, write a list of questions which intelligent children should be able to answer.
6. ‘The principles of natural philosophy are the principles of common sense.’ Show how this statement should be a key to our educational practice.

XVII. GEOGRAPHY

1. Wherein lies the peculiar educational value of geography?
2. How is geography commonly taught?
3. What sort of information about places do children and grown-up people enjoy?
4. Why is the geography learnt at school of little use in after life?
5. What should a child learn in geography?
6. How should he get his rudimentary notions?
7. How should children be introduced to maps?
8. Why should a child be made ‘at home’ in some one region?
9. Why is it well to follow the steps of a traveller?
10. Mention a few books useful in this connection.
11. How should maps be used in this kind of work?
12. How should a child get his first notion of a glacier, a canon, etc.?
13. What course of reading might parents aim at between a child’s fifth and his tenth year?
14. How should young children get their lessons on Place?
15. How should they arrive at definitions?
16. What fundamental ideas should a child receive?
17. How should he be introduced to the meaning of a map?

[Vol 1 pg 377]

XVIII. HISTORY

1. What is the intellectual and what the moral worth of history as an educational subject?
2. What is to be said of the usual ways of teaching English history?
3. What, if the little text-book be moral or religious in tone?
4. What is the fatal mistake as regards the early teaching of history?
5. What is the better way?
6. What should a child know of the period in which any person, about whom he is reading, lived?
7. What moral gain may he get from such intimate knowledge?
8. What manner of books must be eschewed?
9. What is the least that should be done to introduce children to the history of England?
10. Why is the early history of a nation better fitted for children than its later records?
11. Why are the old Chronicles profitable reading for them?
12. Name and comment upon a few of the Chronicles upon which children’s knowledge of history should rest.
13. What effect on a child should the reading of such old Chronicles have?
14. Show that children should know something of the heroic age of their own nation.
15. What use may be made of Geoffrey of Monmouth’s History of the British Kings?
16. From what authority should a child get the story of the French wars?
17. Why do Plutarch’s Lives afford the best preparation for the study of Grecian and Roman history?
18. Give two counsels which should regulate the teaching of history.  [Vol 1 pg 378]
19. Upon what principles should history books for children be selected?
20. Mention one or two books that lend themselves to narrating.
21. Comment upon Mr Arnold Forster’s History of England.
22. How would you help children to clearness with regard to dates?
23. Mention two or three ways in which children’s minds work if their history books are of the proper quality.

XIX. GRAMMAR

1. Why is grammar uninteresting to a child?
2. Why is English grammar peculiarly hard?
3. Show that the Latin grammar is easier.
4. Show that the Latin, affords some help in the learning of English grammar.
5. Why should a child begin with a sentence and not with the parts of speech?
6. Write notes of one or two introductory lessons.

XX. FRENCH

1. How should French be acquired?
2. Show that the learning of French is an education of the senses.
3. What are our two difficulties in speaking French?
4. Show that these hindrances should be removed in childhood.
5. How?
6. How might the difficulty of accent be dealt with?
7. What half-dozen principles has M. Gouin made plain to us?
8. Show that the Series method enables a child to think in the new language  [Vol 1 pg 379]
9. Trace fully the steps by which the author worked out his theory.
10. How does he treat the difficulty of spelling?
11. Illustrate the facility with which a child learns a new language.

XXI. PICTORIAL ART, ETC.

1. Upon what two lines should the art training of children proceed?
2. How should picture-talks be regulated?
3. What gains may we hope for from this kind of teaching?
4. Discuss the use of blobs in early drawing lessons.
5. What should be our aim in these lessons?
6. Children have ‘art’ in them. How should this fact affect our teaching?
7. What should we bear in mind in teaching clay-modelling to children?
8. Name methods of teaching singing and the piano which are to be commended.
9. What physical exercises would you recommend?
10. Name some handicrafts suitable for young children.

PART VI  THE WILL–THE CONSCIENCE–THE DIVINE LIFE IN THE CHILD

I. THE WILL

1. How is the government of Mansoul carried on?
2. Show that the executive power is vested in the will.
3. What is the will?
4. In what respects may persons go through life without a deliberate act of will ?  [Vol 1 pg 380]
5. Show that character is the result of conduct regulated by will.
6. What are the three functions of the will?
7. What limitation of the will is disregarded by certain novelists?
8. Show that parents blunder into this metaphysical error.
9. Show that wilfulness indicates want of will-power.
10. What is wilfulness?
11. What are the superior and inferior functions of the will?
12. Show that the will does not always act for good.
13. Show that a disciplined wilt is necessary to heroic Christian character.
14. How would you distinguish between effective and non-effective persons?
15. How does the will operate?
16. Show how incentives, diversion, change of thought are severally aids to the will.
17. What should be taught to children as to the ‘way of the will’?
18. Show that power of will implies power of attention.
19. Show that habit may frustrate the will.
20. Show the necessity for the reasonable use of so effective an instrument.
21. By what line of conduct should parents strengthen the wills of their children?
22. How may children be taught to manage themselves?
23. Show that the education of the will is more important than that of the intellect.

II. CONSCIENCE

1. What are the functions of conscience?
2. What is implied in ‘I am, I ought, I can, I will’? [Vol 1 pg 381]
3. What mistake is made by the inert parent with regard to the divine grace?
4. Show that conscience is not an infallible guide.
5. How does Adam Smith illustrate the fact that conscience is a real power?
6. What do we know of conscience?
7. Distinguish between a nascent and a trained conscience.
8. Show that refinement of conscience cannot coexist with ignorance.
9. What are the processes implied in a ‘conscientious’ decision?
10. What may be said of the instructed conscience?
11. What may be expected of the good conscience of a child?
12. Show that children play with moral questions.
13. How would you impart any of the moral ideas contained in the Bible to a child?
14. Show the use of tales in the training of conscience.
15. Show the extreme ignorance of a child’s conscience.
16. How would you instruct children in the duty of ‘kindness,’ for example?
17. What is to be said of the conscience made effective by discipline?

III. THE DIVINE LIFE IN THE CHILD

1. What is the ‘very pulse of the machine’?
2. Show that parents have some power to enthrone the King.
3. Define as far as you can the functions of the soul.
4. What is the life of the soul?
5. Show by the illustration of the bee and the apple-tree what is the parent’s part in quickening the Divine life in his child.  [Vol 1 pg 382]
6. Show where the similitude of the bee and the apple tree fails.
7. By what two deterrent ideas is God most often presented to children?
8. What precautions must a mother take to secure that her children get inspiring ideas of God?
9. What considerations should help us to select the quickening thoughts proper for children?
10. How would you select fitting and vital ideas?
11. Show the danger of confounding ‘being good’ with knowing God.
12. What cautions will the mother observe as to the times and the manner of religious instruction?
13. Make some suggestions for the reading of the Bible.
14. How might a mother give her child the idea of God as Father and Giver?
15. How may children be brought up in allegiance to Christ?
16. How would you bring the thought of their Saviour home to children?
17. Show that the indwelling of Christ is a thought fit for children.

The Essence of Christianity is Loyalty to a Person.––Christ, our King. Here is a thought to unseal the fountains of love and loyalty, the treasures of faith and imagination, bound up in the child. The very essence of Christianity is personal loyalty, passionate loyalty to our adorable Chief. We have laid other foundations––regeneration, sacraments, justification, works, faith, the Bible––any one of which, however necessary to salvation in its due place and proportion may become a religion about Christ and without Christ. And now a time of sifting has come upon us, and thoughtful people decline to know anything about our religious systems; they write down all our orthodox beliefs as things not knowable. Perhaps this may be because, in thinking much of our salvation, we have put out of sight our King, the divine fact which no soul of man to whom it is presented can ignore. In the idea of Christ is life; let the thought of Him once get touch of the soul, and it rises up, a living power, independent of all formularies of the brain. Let us save Christianity for our children by bringing them into allegiance to Christ, the King. How? How did the old Cavaliers bring up sons and daughters, in passionate loyalty and reverence for not too worthy princes? Their own hearts were full of it; their lips spake it; their acts proclaimed it; the style of their clothes, the ring of their voices, the carriage of their heads––all was one proclamation of boundless devotion to their king and his cause. That civil war, whatever else it did, or missed doing, left a parable for Christian people. If a Stuart prince could command such measure of loyalty, what shall we say of “the Chief amongst ten thousand, the altogether lovely”?

Jesus, our Saviour. Here is a thought to be brought tenderly before the child in the moments of misery that follow wrong-doing. ‘My poor little boy, you have been very naughty to-day! Could you not help it?’ ‘No, mother,’ with sobs. ‘No, I suppose not; but there is a way of help.’ And then the mother tells her child how the Lord Jesus is our Saviour, because He saves us from our sins. It is a matter of question when the child should first learn the ‘Story of the Cross.’ One thinks it would be very delightful to begin with Moses and the prophets: to go through the Old Testament history, tracing the gradual unfolding of the work and character of the Messiah; and then, when their minds are full of the expectation of the Jews, to bring before them the mystery of the Birth in Bethlehem, the humiliation of the Cross. But perhaps no gain in freshness of presentation would make up to the children for not having grown up with the associations of Calvary and Bethlehem always present to their minds. One thing in this connection: it is not well to allow the children in a careless familiarity with the Name of Jesus, or in the use of hymns whose tone is not reverent. “Ye call Me Master and Lord; and ye say well, for so I am.”

The Indwelling of Christ is a thought particularly fit for the children, because their large faith does not stumble at the mystery, their imagination leaps readily to the marvel, that the King Himself should inhabit a little child’s heart. ‘How am I to know He is come, mother?’ ‘When you are quite gentle, sweet, and happy, it is because Christ is within,––

     ”And when He comes, He makes your face so fair,
     Your friends are glad, and say, ‘The King is there.”

I will not attempt to indicate any more of the vital truths which the Christian mother will present to her child; having patience until they blossom and bear, and his soul is as a very fruitful garden which the Lord hath blessed. But, once more, “This kind cometh forth only by prayer.”

The Reading of the Bible.––A word about the reading of the Bible. I think we make a mistake in burying the text under our endless comments and applications. Also, I doubt if the picking out of individual verses, and grinding these into the child until they cease to have any meaning for him, is anything but a hindrance to the spiritual life. The Word is full of vital force, capable of applying itself. A seed, light as thistledown, wafted into the child’s soul will take root downwards and bear fruit upwards. What is required of us is, that we should implant a love of the Word; that the most delightful moments of the child’s day should be those in which his mother reads for him, with sweet sympathy and holy gladness in voice and eyes, the beautiful stories of the Bible; and now and then in the reading will occur one of those convictions, passing from the soul of the mother to the soul of the child, in which is the life of the Spirit. Let the child grow, so that,

     ”New thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven,”

are a joy to him, too; things to be counted first amongst the blessings of a day. Above all, do not read the Bible at the child: do not let any words of the Scriptures be occasions for gibbeting his faults. It is the office of the Holy Ghost to convince of sin; and He is able to use the Word for this purpose, without risk of that hardening of the heart in which our clumsy dealings too often result.

The matter for this teaching of divine things will come out of every mother’s own convictions. I will attempt to speak of only one or two of those vital truths on which the spiritual life must sustain itself.