I've been taking a look at Teaching in the Branches again, where Miss Mason lays out a couple of foundational principles of education. It's obvious that she must have spent a great deal of time, not only teaching, but also thinking about teaching: these three principles really are foundational, but like all profound truths, it's pretty easy to go along for a long time without ever really being aware that they're there. The fact that she not only recognizes that education stands on these things, but can also put it into words so clearly, I suspect is the reflection of a great deal of work and thought and time on her part. Which fits with what we know of her, and is why there's a whole educational movement that takes its name from her. But as I'm thinking about it this morning, it makes me think what a truly remarkable teacher she was.
She talks about Authority, which I blogged about last time, and she threatens to talk about Habits, but doesn't actually get to it in the time allotted, and she also talks about Ideas.
In the matter of the Ideas that inspire the virtuous life, we miss much by our laissez-aller way of taking things for granted.
-Charlotte Mason, Teaching in the Branches
The leading brethren of the Church have, many times, spoken to this same goal of education as a means for leading the student to the virtuous life.
The Church stands for education. The very purpose of its organization is to promulgate truth among men. Members of the Church are admonished to acquire learning by study, and also by faith and prayer, to seek after everything that is virtuous, lovely, of good report, or praiseworthy. In this seeking after, they are not confined to narrow limits of dogma or creed, but are free to launch into the realm of the infinite.
But gaining knowledge is one thing, and applying it, quite another. Wisdom is the right application of knowledge, and true education—the education for which the Church stands—is the application of knowledge to the development of a noble and God-like character.
-President David O. McKay, Moral and Spiritual Values in Education, April 1968
So again, as I outlined this section of the lecture, I found that Miss Mason had offered several specific techniques for coming at the principle that she's getting at:
- Ideas Shouldn't be Taken for Granted
Correct ideas aren't the easy way. They're not going to happen by accident; we can't assume that it's happening just because our kids are "being good" most of the time. We need to take an active, rather than passive, posture toward this kind of teaching. I am reminded of one of President Monson's last talks:
In the matter of the Ideas that inspire the virtuous life, we miss much by our laissez-aller way of taking things for granted.
-Charlotte Mason, Teaching in the Branches
President Monson goes on to say:
Most of you are familiar with Alice in Lewis Carroll’s classic novel Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. You will remember that she comes to a crossroads with two paths before her, each stretching onward but in opposite directions. As she contemplates which way to turn, she is confronted by the Cheshire Cat, of whom Alice asks, “Which path shall I follow?”
The cat answers, “That depends where you want to go. If you do not know where you want to go, it doesn’t matter which path you take.”
Unlike Alice, we know where we want to go, and it does matter which way we go, for the path we follow in this life leads to our destination in the next life.
-Thomas S. Monson, Choices, April 2016
If we want our children to choose the harder right, rather than just going along with the easier wrong, then they have to be able to recognize the right. They have to learn to prize the truth. They must know why it's worth the effort. And that will never come from a "laissez-aller way of taking things for granted;" we are going to have to be active in our teaching. Miss Mason has 3 ideas for how we can do this.
May we maintain the courage to defy the consensus. May we ever choose the harder right instead of the easier wrong. -Thomas S. Monson, Choices, April 2016
FIRST, she suggests collecting "moral aphorisms": pithy sayings that express truth, such as:
"Pride goes before the fall."
"If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
"10,000 times, then begins understanding."
"Life's hard; then you die."
You can keep a list of them at the front or the back of a Commonplace book. Keeping a list is good; finding times to say them, use them, imprint them on our children's hearts is better.
When I was a child I used to read a little leather-bound volume full of moral aphorisms, from the Greek and Latin classics, translated in beautiful flowing English, and I remember that these fine rolling sentences full of matter made a great impression on me; and one can understand that the Greek or Roman boy brought up on this strong meat, developed virtues in which we are a little slack. -Charlotte Mason, Teaching in the Branches
SECOND, she encouraged the use of object lessons, which she said were, "visible signs of spiritual things signified".
THIRD, Miss Mason was very aware of the power of good art to inspire virtue in the beholder. She lamented:
We work out no schemes of ethical teaching in marble, we paint no scale of virtues on our walls, and no repellent vices. Our poets speak for us it is true; but the moral aphorisms, set like jewels though they be on the forefinger of time, are scattered here and there, and we leaven it serenely to happy chance whether our children shall or shall not light upon the couple of lines which should fire them with the impulse to virtuous living.
-Charlotte Mason, Teaching in the Branches
- Ideas come from the Lives of Great Men:
Biographies were my first love in nonfiction; they remain one of my favorite ways to meet history. As we have fallen in love with the Epics of the various cultures, we've found additional stories of greatness that have inspired my family. Thanks to Librivox, my kids move through the house doing their various activities to the sound of tales of heroism. My husband and I have observed to each other on quite a few occasions that you could do a whole lot worse than to be steeped in greatness!
It is time we set ourselves seriously to this work of moral education which is to be done, most of all, by presenting the children with high ideals. "Lives of great men all remind us we can make our lives sublime," and the study of the lives of great men and of the great moments in the lives of smaller men is most wonderfully inspiring to children, especially when they perceive the strenuousness of the childhood out of which a noble manhood has evolved itself. As one grows older no truth strikes one more than that "the child is father to the man." It is amazing how many people of one's own acquaintance have fulfilled the dreams of their childhood and early youth, and have had their days indeed "bound each to each in natural piety."
-Charlotte Mason, Teaching in the Branches
Miss Mason suggested two specific types of biographies: biographies of scriptural figures, which she said that we ought to presents so as to "bring out in each character the master thought of all his thinking" and then she suggests that "next in value to biographies from the point of view of inspiration are the burning words of the poets". - Ideas learned in the Calling of Mottoes
Honestly, I'm not entirely certain what she's getting at here, but as I have been thinking about it, this is my best guess: A "motto" is a short sentence or phrase chosen as encapsulating the beliefs or ideals guiding an individual, family, or institution. I spent a few minutes looking at the mottoes adopted by the US States and some of the Territories, which was interesting and helped me to understand better what a motto is. So, "calling mottoes" sounds like it's identifying the motto -the guiding principle- that a character in a story or a biography lives by. Mr. Bumble in Dickens' Oliver, for instance, might be said to live by the motto, "Enrichment through the veneer of virtue," while Ender Wiggin in Card's Ender's Game lives by "Fight once; win completely." If this is what she means, then calling mottoes is a challenging occupation: it requires the student to think deeply about what is the defining impulse that drives the person or character in question. To pause at the end of a tale and look at a handful of the characters and call a motto for each of them would be an interesting way of processing the lessons of the story and of that character, and to keep them in the Commonplace Book would help to make those lessons last: a single sentence or phrase would bring the whole story to mind, particularly if the student came up with it himself.
In the reading of the Bible, of poetry, of the best prose, the calling of mottoes is a delightful and most stimulating occupation, especially if a motto book be kept, perhaps under headings, perhaps not. -Charlotte Mason, Teaching in the Branches
Moral Habits, the way to form them and the bounden duty of every parent to send children into the world with a good outfit of moral habits, is a subject so much to the front in our thoughts, that I will not dwell upon it to-day. The moral impulse having been given by means of some such inspiring idea as we have considered, the parent's next business is to keep the idea well to the front, with tact and delicacy and without insistence, and to afford apparently casual opportunities for moral effort on the lines of the first impulse. Again, let us keep well before the children that it is the manner of thoughts we think which matter...
-Charlotte Mason, Teaching in the Branches
This post is part of a series. Feel free to visit the series index for more thoughts on the Charlotte Mason's 20 Principles of Education.
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