Disenchanted?

by Anne White

In the midst of a widespread January cold snap, it's easy to feel that it's always winter and never Christmas. C. S. Lewis's White Witch made it her goal to disenchant Narnia, even through the use of magic (which is perhaps why Father Christmas was allowed to appear when the imprisoning snow began to melt away). In Prince Caspian, a similar program of disenchanting was carried out not through spells but through forgetting (and punishing those who spread the old tales).

In the last post I wrote here, I referred to what has become one of my favourite Charlotte Mason quotes: 

…therefore we do not interpose ourselves between the book and the child. We read him his Tanglewood Tales, and when he is a little older his Plutarch, not trying to break up or water down, but leaving the child's mind to deal with the matter as it can. (Parents and Children, pp. 231-232) 

Now, there are all kinds of good reasons why we should read Plutarch and Tanglewood Tales, as well as reasons why we shouldn’t “break up or water down.” But here is one less common reason: by imposing ourselves and our ideas on the story, we risk disenchanting it.

In his recent book Living in Wonder, Rod Dreher writes this:

The social world that sustained this everyday view of enchantment has disappeared. This is not to say that no one still believes in God. It is to say, however, that even for many Christians in this present time the vivid sense of spiritual reality that our enchanted ancestors had has been drained of its life force…without the living experience of enchantment present and accessible, and at the pulsating center of life in Christ, the faith loses its wonder. And when it loses its wonder, it loses its power to console us, change us, and call us to acts of heroism. (Living in Wonder, p. 9)

Let’s turn that around, and say that when we allow wonder, we allow that “living experience of enchantment” to console us, change us, and call us to acts of heroism. Like those acts of heroism we read about in Tanglewood Tales and Plutarch.

Dreher also writes:

If the cosmos is constructed the way the ancient church taught, then heaven and earth interpenetrate each other, participate in each other’s life. The sacred is not inserted from outside, like an injection from the wells of paradise; it is already here, waiting to be revealed. (Living in Wonder, p. 10)

Does that sound familiar?

We allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and 'spiritual' life of children, but teach them that the Divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their Continual Helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life. (Charlotte Mason, Principle of Education #20)

In other words, we have been given a task that is both sacred and intellectual. We are not to deny, or forget, or let our children grow up without understanding, that this world is, in its own way, every bit as enchanted as Narnia, and where, if we allow it, a painted Dawn Treader can spray real salt water in our faces.

We are careful not to dilute life for them, but to present such portions to them in such quantities as they can readily receive...[we] do not take too much upon ourselves, but leave time and scope for the workings of Nature and of a higher Power than Nature herself. (Parents and Children, p. 232)

Hold fast to those enchanted workings of Nature. Even in the snow.

A Tangle of Tales

Storytime for rabbits?

by Anne White

In her early book Parents and Children, Charlotte Mason takes a side path from talk about nature study and object lessons, to point out the existence of “a storehouse of thought wherein we may find all the great ideas that have moved the world,” and says that to access that storehouse, “We read [a child] his Tanglewood Tales, and when he is a little older his Plutarch, not trying to break up or water down, but leaving the child's mind to deal with the matter as it can” (pp. 231-232).

From that brief statement, we can draw a couple of important points. First, I think we can take it that Mason was not singling out Tanglewood Tales from its predecessor, A Wonder Book. We might wonder if perhaps Mason preferred the second book, without its framing stories about the children of Tanglewood; but as she didn’t seem to object to such devices in other books, it seems more likely that she was just reaching for a familiar title. That confusion is eliminated, though, when we discover that the book Mason was probably thinking of was the Blackwood edition (described below), which combines stories from both books under the title Tanglewood Tales.

So, we might assume that, with that much weight given to Hawthorne’s book, that it would have played an important and long-lasting part in the later PNEU curriculum. Strangely enough, it didn’t. In the Programme for Term 43, Form IB ( in the era when Mason wrote School Education), we do have this under the subject heading of Tales: “Tanglewood Tales by Nathaniel Hawthorne (Blackwood, 1/-), pages 1-40.” (Two stories, “The Gorgon’s Head” and “The Golden Touch.”) As a point of interest, this particular British edition contains three stories from the first book and three from the second, with a publisher’s note explaining that the framing stories have been omitted because they were “full of allusions to American scenery and American customs.”

But by the time of the more readily available PNEU Programmes, around 1921, Hawthorne had been supplanted by Andrew Lang’s Tales of Troy and Greece or (as a second option) Lamb’s Adventures of Ulysses. As Lamb’s book was published decades before Hawthorne’s, this is clearly not just a case of wanting to use a newer book. Troy and Greece might have been chosen because it covers a wider variety of material than Hawthorne’s stories, so it would have been easier to keep on plugging it in from term to term. However, there may be one extra reason that Mason recommends Tanglewood Tales so ardently early on, but then does not keep it in the curriculum, and that is simply that she may not have cared that much about which good storyteller was read, be it Hawthorne, Kingsley, Lamb, or Lang. The real point was to open the storehouse, to offer a child’s mind that vital matter, not broken into “little bits of everything” (p. 231), but leaving him/her “receptive and respectful,” wanting to engage with the story, as humans have done through the centuries. She speaks of concrete things a child observes in the outside world which offer “real seed to [his] mind,” and compares them to the world of ideas, given through books, which (to change similes) must be offered in as large and meaty a portion as possible, not pre-cut or pureed.

And how does that line up with Hawthorne’s choice, for example, to cast Pandora and Epimetheus as children rather than adults? Are we contradicting ourselves by offering a “chicken-nuggets” version of an adult tale? Eustace Bright, the fictional narrator of the stories, is criticized for this by the older scholar Mr. Pringle, so perhaps we should let Eustace defend himself:

"I described the giant as he appeared to me," replied the student, rather piqued. "And, sir, if you would only bring your mind into such a relation with these fables as is necessary in order to remodel them, you would see at once that an old Greek had no more exclusive right to them than a modern Yankee has. They are the common property of the world, and of all time."

And this is exactly Mason’s point about the “keys to the storehouse.” These stories, even “remodeled” to allow young children access, are accepted by them as the real goods, the OG of tales, if you like. They contain themes that we begin to recognize in childhood (getting your wish can go terribly wrong; curiosity blew up the box; a simple life of love and hospitality brings its own rewards); and others that can make us tearful long afterwards.

All their eyes were dancing in their heads, except those of Primrose. In her eyes there were positively tears; for she was conscious of something in the legend which the rest of them were not yet old enough to feel. Child’s story as it was, the student had contrived to breathe through it the ardor, the generous hope, and the imaginative enterprise of youth. (Epilogue to "The Chimera")

All That Glitters

by Anne White 

He took one of the nice little trouts on his plate, and, by way of experiment, touched its tail with his finger. To his horror, it was immediately transmuted from an admirably fried brook-trout into a gold-fish, though not one of those gold-fishes which people often keep in glass globes, as ornaments for the parlor. No; but it was really a metallic fish, and looked as if it had been very cunningly made by the nicest goldsmith in the world. Its little bones were now golden wires; its fins and tail were thin plates of gold; and there were the marks of the fork in it, and all the delicate, frothy appearance of a nicely fried fish, exactly imitated in metal. A very pretty piece of work, as you may suppose; only King Midas, just at that moment, would much rather have had a real trout in his dish than this elaborate and valuable imitation of one. (Nathaniel Hawthorne, "The Golden Touch" in A Wonder Book)

We have heard a great deal lately on the topic of imitation (via AI) vs. real. AI may create something cunning, delicate, even frothy, with marks of the fork in it; but it's still not fish.

However, for educators, the story of Midas can hold even deeper meaning. Charlotte Mason did not write about serving children metallic fish, but she did mention feasts of "smoke and lukewarm water," or, more literally, "stale commonplaces" (V.6, p. 44). We might even say that when administrators and curriculum developers touch the king's breakfast with their well-intentioned fingers, they almost invariably turn the food into something glittering but inedible. At the very least, they affect the trout; at the worst (as in the story of Midas and his daughter), they transform the children themselves.

It had been a favorite phrase of Midas, whenever he felt particularly fond of the child, to say that she was worth her weight in gold. And now the phrase had become literally true. And now, at last, when it was too late, he felt how infinitely a warm and tender heart, that loved him, exceeded in value all the wealth that could be piled up betwixt the earth and sky!

What shall we do to repair this damage, to restore life to these warm and tender hearts? Midas was told to sprinkle river water over the affected objects (and people) in his palace. Mason has a few similar suggestions, which, perhaps not coincidentally, includes the early reading of Hawthorne's stories.

Nature-Knowledge––Thus our first thought with regard to Nature-knowledge is that the child should have a living personal acquaintance with the things he sees. 

Object-Lessons––...we should rather leave him receptive and respectful for one of those opportunities for asking questions and engaging in talk with his parents about the lock in the river, the mowing machine, the ploughed field, which offer real seed to the mind of a child, and do not make him a priggish little person able to tell all about it. 

We trust much to Good Books––...We are determined that the children shall love books, therefore we do not interpose ourselves between the book and the child. We read him his Tanglewood Tales, and when he is a little older his Plutarch... 

We do not recognise [an artificial] 'Child-Nature.'––We endeavour that all our teaching and treatment of children shall be on the lines of nature, their nature and ours...  [we]  leave time and scope for the workings of Nature and of a higher Power than Nature herself. (V.2, pp. 231-232)

The healing of King Midas began with the recognition that a real trout could be even more beautiful than one made of gold. The restoration of education also requires that we recognize the value of the "lines of nature," that we allow Nature and the Holy Spirit their proper "time and scope."

And that can be...an epiphany.