by Anne White
In 1919,
twenty-six schools using the PNEU curriculum (i.e. the correspondence school
based on Charlotte Mason’s methods) were surveyed as to their impressions of
the books, methods, the success of the curriculum with their students, etc. The
results were compiled into an article that was included in a booklet, Impressions
of the Ambleside Method.
On the topic of
Plutarch, the survey drew mixed responses.
“The study of Plutarch's Lives,” says another [teacher], “seems
suitable only for riper minds. If the Lives
as a whole were studied the scholar might get an idea of the foundation of
the Roman and Grecian Empires.”
“But,” said [the
editor] Mr. Household, “he has missed the whole purpose of the study, which is
by no means to give them ‘an idea of the foundation of the Roman and Grecian
Empires,’ but something very different.”
Mr. Household quoted the French
philosopher Montaigne:
“He
(the teacher) shall by the help of Histories inform himself of the worthiest
minds that were in the best ages. It is a frivolous study if a man list, but of
invaluable worth to such as can make use of it...What profit shall he not reap
touching this point, reading the lives of our Plutarch? Always conditioned the
master bethink himself whereto his charge tendeth, and that he imprint not so
much in his scholar's mind the date of the ruin of Carthage, as the manners of
Hannibal and Scipio, nor so much where Marcellus died, as because he was
unworthy of his devoir he died there; that he teach him not so much to know
Histories, as to judge of them...” (Of
the Institution and Education of Children. Essays, Book I, Chap. xxv)
[One teacher] found
that “Narration has greatly improved their English. The children have a larger
vocabulary. They have a clearer way of expressing themselves, and are not
afraid of speaking in front of the other scholars...Then again there are many
subjects for Compositions and the Compositions have certainly improved; they
are not as scrappy as they used to be. The subjects of their essays are more
interesting.”
“The children very much appreciated the
story of Romulus
To sum up, another
teacher said,
“There is no disguising that the
children find Plutarch difficult, but they are meant to find him difficult. The
joy comes when the difficulties are mastered, and they are being mastered at
[our school]. ”
