A Charlotte Mason Teacher

By Karen Glass

Not long ago, a homeschool mom on our AmblesideOnline Facebook group (link is in the menu above) was struggling with all that a Charlotte Mason education entails. She is not alone in feeling a bit overwhelmed! This is part of her dilemma:

“"Now I've signed on to CM's philosophy of education. So this means I simultaneously believe ON TOP OF TEACHING ALL BASIC SUBJECTS I need to:
•Secure AT THE LEAST a half day a week in a rural setting, and even in this I’m failing my younger children who ought to have 4 hours a day or more.
•Sustain constant vigilance in habit training
•Feed my own knowledge of wildlife so I have something to pass down
•Feed my own intellectual life so I have something to offer my children as they grow
•Constantly be modeling good habits in everything
•Lead my children in daily devotions

While teaching my 6yo:
•A foreign language
•Art appreciation
•Watercoloring painting
•To play an instrument
•Music appreciation
•A purposeful handicraft
•Shakespeare
•Poetry
•Dendrology
•Folk songs
•Hymns

AND I'M PROBABLY LEAVING STUFF OFF!
This is on top of the basic responsibilities of caring for my 4 yo and infant son."

I couldn't put my finger on it at first, but then it hit me. There is a philosophical problem here, and I'm writing this is because I hope it will help bring things into focus for this mom and others like her. The problem (I think) is the word "teach." That implies a certain picture, in which you, the teacher, are imparting knowledge to your student, and that he is receiving it from you. That’s not the relationship between teacher and pupil in a Charlotte Mason paradigm.

Let me recast your question in a different context. Suppose you were feeling conflicted in a different area, and you felt like this:

“You mean in addition to providing seasonally appropriate clothing, shoes and outerwear for my six-year-old 365 days of the year and maintaining a safe shelter adequate to protect him and keep him warm, I also have to insure that he grows taller and heavier? That his hands and feet grow, and his bones? That his blood supply increases as he grows to meet his larger size? That his heart and lungs develop greater strength to support his larger body? How am I supposed to do all that for him, and my two younger children as well??”

Do you see the problem? You aren’t responsible for insuring that your child grows larger, let alone looking after specific details like making sure his blood supply increases. He will do those things for himself—all of them—under the right conditions, and the condition is that you provide him adequate and nourishing meals. And yes, several times per day, 365 days per year, and if you think of it all at once, it’s overwhelming. But you do it one day at time and one meal at a time. You consider what kind of food will make the most nutritious meals, and you will even take your child’s taste into account, but you’ll also make it a point to introduce him to a wide variety of things and give him a chance to learn to like all the best kinds of food. And it’s a big job—it takes time and money—but it’s done in small increments and one “off” day in appetite or indulging in extra junk food doesn’t ruin the long term effect. Your child is fed and grows physically, as he is made to do.

Now, that is the right picture for a Charlotte Mason paradigm. You aren’t going to “teach” your child all those things, any more than you are going to eat and digest your child’s meals. You are just going to put that food in front of him—you might insist that he eat, but hunger is on your side—and he does all the rest himself. You are going to spread a wide feast for your child—an intellectual banquet—and make him sit down to the table. His natural appetite for knowledge works in your favor, but you don’t force-feed him. He’ll take what he needs, intellectually, and he’ll grow—oh, how he’ll grow. Long before he is old enough to leave home, you will come face to face with a situation in which your child knows more than you do about something, and how did that happen? Because that’s how this works. You feed them; they do the growing themselves.

In that context, a Charlotte Mason education becomes no more complex than some basic meal planning. You aren’t making your child’s liver function properly—you’re just making him a sandwich. You aren’t “teaching art appreciation”—you’re just looking a painting. Or a tree. Or reading an interesting bit of history or singing a song or enjoying a great story.

Education is the science of relations is the principle that lies underneath what we do, and ties everything together. When you break it down into all its component parts—as you must do when  put it on paper with labels like “history” and “science” and “art”—it can feel a bit overwhelming,  just as it would if you had to break down all the necessary vitamins, minerals, phyto-nutrients, etc, that your child needs to grow properly. But what it still looks like, on a day to day basis, is breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and healthy snacks (most of the time). When we talk about the theory and philosophy of what we do—nutritional science or educational philosophy—it sounds more complicated than it actually is.

You can over-complicate anything. Suppose you approached the making of a single meal with the same analytical micro-focus. You have to make sure that you have 20 separate ingredients, as well as bowls, pans, knives, and other utensils. You have to wash and chop carrots AND onions AND celery. You have to peel eight potatoes and cut them into pieces. You have to measure five different seasonings; you have to keep the heat at the correct temperature, etc, etc, etc, and that’s just the soup course. In practice, it’s far less complex than it sounds on paper, and that’s true for education, too. When we talk about it and look at all the different bits individually it feels like a huge, overwhelming job, but when you get in there and start doing it, it all falls into place. You feel how forgiving some things can be. You have two carrots instead of four? It will be okay. Throw in some extra celery or onions, or half of a chopped bell pepper. Some things are less flexible. Don’t mess with the baking powder measurement if you’re making a cake, but experience will teach you (quickly) which things are flexible, and which things needs to be firmly adhered to.

This is firmly embedded in the principles. The twelfth principle is “Education is the science of relations.” That’s a little bit like “Hungry growing children need to be fed meals.” You absolutely can do this if you keep “education is the science of relations” firmly in mind and don’t let yourself get bogged down or overwhelmed by the details.

“Education is the Science of Relations”; that is, that a child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts: so we train him upon physical exercises, nature lore, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books, for we know that our business is not to teach him all about anything, but to help him to make valid as many as may be of––
          “Those first-born affinities; That fit our new existence to existing things.” (Principle #12)

Did you catch that? Our business is not to teach him all about anything. That’s a principle (or part of one). Just fix the plate and set it in front of him. Encourage him to take a bite. Take a bite yourself and let your children know it’s delicious. Listen to music. Read a book. Talk to each other about it. Observe the ants on the sidewalk. Take delight in a sunset. You don’t really remind yourself every day that your children are hungry and need to be fed—that becomes a part of your life and you live it. If you can embed “education is the science of relations” that deeply and intuitively into your educational life, you will be a Charlotte Mason teacher.

Challenge 3

Challenge 1 is here. We read about Undine and a bit about the difference between interest in lessons and ardour for knowledge.

  Challenge 2 is here. We read about some of Miss Mason's principles.

Here we are with Challenge 3!  We will continue reading from volume VI:
 Miss Mason is writing shortly after WW1 and several years before WW2. Just as she previously used the story of Undine as an illustration for one aspect of her philosophy, now she compares and contrasts German and English approaches to education and the human mind.

 She is particularly concerned that education not be made utilitarian- a word I do not think we understand as Miss Mason understood it. So forgive me if I digress a moment to give some historical background:

 "a tradition stemming from the late 18th- and 19th-century English philosophers and economists Jeremy Bentham and John Stuart Mill according to which an action is right if it tends to promote happiness and wrong if it tends to produce the reverse of happiness—not just the happiness of the performer of the action but also that of everyone affected by it. Such a theory is in opposition to egoism, the view that a person should pursue his own self-interest, even at the expense of others, and to any ethical theory that regards some acts or types of acts as right or wrong independently of their consequences"

 "Bentham and Mill both believed that human actions are motivated entirely by pleasure and pain, and Mill saw that motivation as a basis for the argument that, since happiness is the sole end of human action, the promotion of happiness is the test by which to judge all human conduct."  taken from here. 

 Keep that definition of utilitarianism in mind as you read the next section from Mason's sixth volume:

 "We fail to recognize that as the body requires wholesome food and cannot nourish itself upon any substance so the mind too requires meat after its kind.(emphasis added)  If the War (World War 1) taught nothing else it taught us that men are spirits, that the spirit, mind, of a man is more than his flesh, that his spirit is the man, that for the thoughts of his heart he gives the breath of his body. As a consequence of this recognition of our spiritual nature, the lesson for us at the moment is that the great thoughts, great events, great considerations, which form the background of our national thought, shall be the content of the education we pass on. The educational thought we hear most about is, as I have said, based on sundry Darwinian axioms, out of which we get the notion that nothing matters but physical fitness and vocational training. However important these are, they are not the chief thing. A century ago when Prussia was shipwrecked in the Napoleonic wars it was discovered that not Napoleon but Ignorance was the formidable national enemy; a few philosophers took the matter in hand, and history, poetry, philosophy, proved the salvation of a ruined nation, because such studies make for the development of personality, public spirit, initiative, the qualities of which the State was in need, and which most advance individual happiness and success. On the other hand, the period when Germany made her school curriculum utilitarian marks the beginning of her moral downfall. History repeats itself. There are interesting rumours afloat of how the students at Bonn, for example, went in solemn procession to make a bonfire of French novels, certain prints, articles of luxury and the like; things like these had brought about the ruin of Germany and it was the part of the youth to save her now as before. Are they to have another Tugendbund?" 

 Note: The Tugendbund was a semi-secret society, loosely connected with a Masonic lodge, formed in response to the Napoleon empire for the purpose of reforming German society and freeing parts of what is now Germany from French control. According to Sparknotes,

"In June 1808, professors in Konigsberg started an anti-French, Prussian nationalist movement called the "Moral and Scientific Union", or Tugenbund (League of Virtue). Prussian national pride soared, the nation increased its resolve to fight Napoleon, and Prussia became a focal point for German nationalism." The members of the Tugendbund sought physical and military superiority in order to fight the French and win back the land they believed was rightly Prussia's. Toward that end it was utilitarian in nature, as the goal of all reforms and improvements was ultimately military strength as a nation.)
So Mason is concerned that this might be the direction Germany is heading again, and she does not want this for any country, and especially not for her own.  Rather than a 'Tugenbund,' she says,

 "We want an education which shall nourish the mind while not neglecting either physical or vocational training; in short, we want a working philosophy of education. 

I think that we of the P.N.E.U. have arrived at such a body of theory, tested and corrected by some thirty years of successful practice with thousands of children. This theory has already been set forth in volumes [The Home Education Series] published at intervals during the last thirty-five years; so I shall indicate here only a few salient points which seem to me to differ from general theory and practice,––
 (a) The children, not the teachers, are the responsible persons; they do the work by self-effort. 
 (b) The teachers give sympathy and occasionally elucidate, sum up or enlarge, but the actual work is done by the scholars. 
 (c) These read in a term one, or two, or three thousand pages, according to their age, school and Form, in a large number of set books. 
The quantity set for each lesson allows of only a single reading; but the reading is tested by narration, or by writing on a test passage. 
When the terminal examination is at hand so much ground has been covered that revision [review] is out of the question; what the children have read they know, and write on any part of it with ease and fluency, in vigorous English; they usually spell well.

 Much is said from time to time to show that 'mere book-learning' is rather contemptible, and that "Things are in the saddle and ride mankind." May I point out that whatever discredit is due to the use of books does not apply to this method, which so far as I can discover has not hitherto been employed.

 Has an attempt been made before on a wide scale to secure that scholars should know their books, many pages in many books, at a single reading, in such a way that months later they can write freely and accurately on any part of the term's reading?"

Another editorial comment here- it is my opinion that she is rather specific about which part of her method has not hitherto been employed- it's not the whole approach, it's not the books used, it's not the subjects- it's the single reading and the method that ensures they can call to mind the material from that single reading months later.
 She continues with the parts of her approach which she believes differ most sharply from the educational practices more common in schools in her day:

 "(d) There is no selection of studies, or of passages or of episodes, on the ground of interest. The best available book is chosen and is read through perhaps in the course of two or three years. 

 (e) The children study many books on many subjects, but exhibit no confusion of thought, and 'howlers' are almost unknown.

 (f) They find that, in Bacon's phrase, "Studies serve for delight"; this delight being not in the lessons or the personality of the teacher, but purely in their 'lovely books,' 'glorious books.'

 (g) The books used are, whenever possible, literary in style. 

 (h) Marks, prizes, places, rewards, punishments, praise, blame, or other inducements are not necessary to secure attention, which is voluntary, immediate and surprisingly perfect. 

 (i) The success of the scholars in what may be called disciplinary subjects, such as Mathematics and Grammar, depends largely on the power of the teacher, though the pupils' habit of attention is of use in these too.

 (j) No stray lessons are given on interesting subjects; the knowledge the children get is consecutive." 

You might pause a minute or two here and try to narrate.
 One easy but effective idea is to set a timer for 3-5 minutes and write down as much as you can remember as quickly as you can.
You could make a list of the points that seem to you most important to remember, that you want most to apply.
 Or you could make a list of anything that stood out to you as quite surprising.
 Make a note of questions you have or things you want to think about more.

 Don't spend too long on this.   I don't want you to get bogged down.  I just want you to practice applying Mason's methods and to think about some of the key ideas in this method.  Come back and read more when you've written down some thoughts (you can jot them in the comments below if you like!) and when you have time to read more.

  Mason continues, pointing out the advantageous results she's seen with this method:

 "The unusual interest children show in their work, their power of concentration, their wide, and as far as it goes, accurate knowledge of historical, literary and some scientific subjects, has challenged attention and the general conclusion is that these are the children of educated and cultivated parents. It was vain to urge that the home schoolroom does not usually produce remarkable educational results; but the way is opening to prove that the power these children show is common to all children; at last there is hope that the offspring of working-class parents may be led into the wide pastures of a liberal education. Are we not justified in concluding that singular effects must have commensurate causes, and that we have chanced to light on unknown tracts in the region of educational thought. At any rate that GOLDEN RULE of which Comenius was in search has discovered itself, the RULE, "WHEREBY TEACHERS SHALL TEACH LESS AND SCHOLARS SHALL LEARN MORE."

That's quite an impressive list of results, yes?
For those wondering, " Who was Comenius?" A Czech educator and churchman born in 1592 According to Wikipedia, "was a Czech philosopher, pedagogue and theologian from the Margraviate of Moravia and is considered the father of modern education. He served as the last bishop of Unity of the Brethren and became a religious refugee and one of the earliest champions of universal education, a concept eventually set forth in his book Didactica Magna. As an educator and theologian, he led schools and advised governments across Protestant Europe through the middle of the seventeenth century. Comenius was the innovator who first introduced pictorial textbooks, written in native language instead of Latin, applied effective teaching based on the natural gradual growth from simple to more comprehensive concepts, supported lifelong learning and development of logical thinking by moving from dull memorization, presented and supported the idea of equal opportunity for impoverished children, opened doors to education for women, and made instruction universal and practical. Besides his native Bohemian Crown, he lived and worked in other regions of the Holy Roman Empire, and other countries: Sweden, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, Transylvania, England, the Netherlands and Hungary." Comenius was searching for an educational principle or method by which the students did more of the learning and teachers did less teaching- and Charlotte says she's found it.

 She read widely and deeply and did not develop her ideas without reference to these who went before her. She continues, further distinguishing the touches that she thinks are unique to her method:
"Let me now outline a few of the educational principles which account for unusual results.  

III PRINCIPLES HITHERTO UNRECOGNIZED OR DISREGARDED I have enumerated some of the points in which our work is exceptional in the hope of convincing the reader that unusual work carried on successfully in hundreds of schoolrooms––home and other––is based on principles hitherto unrecognized. The recognition of these principles should put our national education on an intelligent basis and should make for general stability, joy in living, and personal initiative." 

There is a somewhat silly notion passed about recently that Mason intended volume VI to be read only by those who were already familiar with her methods and who had already read all of her previous five volumes on education. There are many reasons why we can see this isn't so from her own words. The above section is one of them- she wouldn't need to explain these educational principles or convince the reader that 'unusual work is being carried out successfully' if her intended audience was only those who had already read the previous volumes.

 That last sentence is quite the high standard, isn't it?  When I am reading for personal study, that is the sort of thing I like to underline, highlight, or make a note of in the margins.

 "Education built on an intelligent basis."   Some of the goals for that education include: general (i.e. national) stability, joy in living, personal initiative. Hmmm. I find that when I compile such lists it gives me new ways of assessing what I'm doing, and new ways of thinking about how to work toward those ends, a clearer understanding of Mason's own goals and ideas.  Isn't it sad that some people consider this elitist? How far we've fallen.

 Mason continues, and here's another section rich with ideas to list, highlight, enumerate, underline, and think about:

 "May I add one or two more arguments in support of my plea,–– The appeal is not to the clever child only, but to the average and even to the 'backward' child."

['backward' child is very jarring to the modern ear, and even hurtful. It was the best term they had at the time for the child who lagged behind his age-mates for reasons they didn't fully understand. Don't let the Victorianisms and Edwardianisms get in the way of understanding the timeless principles.]

 "This scheme is carried out in less time than ordinary school work on the same subjects. There are no revisions (reviewing), no evening lessons, no cramming or 'getting up' of subjects; therefore there is much time whether for vocational work or interests or hobbies. All intellectual work is done in the hours of morning school, and the afternoons are given to field nature studies, drawing, handicrafts, etc. Notwithstanding these limitations the children produce a surprising amount of good intellectual work. No homework is required. It is not that 'we' (of the P.N.E.U.) are persons of peculiar genius; it is that, like Paley's man who found the watch, "we have chanced on a good thing."

Paley was an anti-Darwinist who presented the idea that if we stumble on a watch on the moor, we know that a designer of that watch is involved, and the natural world is complex and intricate enought that it indicates enough evidence of a designer as well.  Charlotte seems to be saying that these ideas are not original to her, they already existed, they are part of the wisdom built into the world by its Designer, and she and her fellow PNEU persons have found what God has already placed- like discovering gravity or the gulf stream.


 "'No gain that I experience must remain unshared.'
 We feel that the country and indeed the world should have the benefit of educational discoveries which act powerfully as a moral lever, for we are experiencing anew the joy of the Renaissance, but without its pagan lawlessness." 

Educational discoveries which bring joy as well as act as a moral lever.   Wow!!  Think about that for a moment or two, at least.


 * Regarding my bad habit of interrupting your reading with my commentary, it's probably okay. “Van den Broek, Tzeng, Risden, Trabasso, and Basche (2001) studied the effects of influential reading comprehension questioning on students in the fourth, seventh, and tenth grades, as well as on college undergraduates. They found that questions posed during the reading of the text aided in shifting attention to specific information for older and more proficient readers. However, it interfered with the comprehension of the fourth- and seventh-grade students, who performed better when the questions came after, not during, the reading." (Fisher, Frey & Hattie, 2016, p. 38) Isn't that amazing? This is why we don't interrupt our students to have them answer questions in the middle of a reading- we read an episode, ask for a narration at the end, then,if we have any questions or comments we can add them. But for 'older, more proficient readers,' and I presume that includes all y'all, we can handle the little interruptions and can even benefit from them!

Well, that was a lot of reading.  What shall we do with it?

Here are a few questions- you can come up with your own questions (and answers), these are just suggestions for those who prefer to get a bit of a jump-start:

Mason talks about educating the poor Miners' children with these ideas.  who would be the equivilant of the Miners' children today? Are there any?

What are some of her claims for this method that you'd like to see in your families?

What does she mean by no selection on the basis of interest, and lessons in consecutive order?

Mason talks about each of these pieces of education (narrating, single readings, living books, etc) as part of the unified whole where teachers do less and learners do more of their own work of learning.  Homeschoolers are fiercely independent and we like to take things apart and put them back together in our own way- but sometimes, I think we take apart things before we fully understand their purpose and how they work together and what the parts are even supposed to do- so when we put things back together we end up with a different sort of whatcha-ma-callit that doesn't do everything we expected it to do.  If you are able to, consider putting back in something you've been leaving out and see how that works.  Ask some CM veterans if they know the purpose of this gear or that whats-it, and what might happen if you discard it.

Mason says the content of her education must be "great thoughts, great events, great considerations."  If this is true, what does it say for the notion that it doesn't matter what children read so long as they are reading?  Could we substitute Wisdom and the Millers for Pilgrim's Progress and expect the same results?  It's okay if something your child reads is obscure to him, if there are things he does not understand.  Elsewhere, she points out that we usually get far more out of a story we have to think about, ponder, and dig a bit in order to understand it. 

Keep in mind that Mason is talking about end results while many of you may be in your first year of homeschooling using her methods.  That could be discouraging if you expect to find these same pleasant results at the end of the first week rather than playing the long game and working toward them at the end of the year, or maybe even next year.

What do you think is meant by the following:  "The teachers give sympathy and occasionally elucidate, sum up or enlarge, but the actual work is done by the scholars?"  How might that look in one of your lessons?




Challenges:
If you have not joined the forum yet, give it a shot.  Once you've joined, you might dip your feet in at entry level by just looking at the most recent posts of the day- click on the button toward the top right of center that says 'View Today's Posts', then scroll down and see what people are talking about.

Have you read Leslie's Patio Chats?  These are short vitamin bursts of CM information that will take less than 20 minutes to read.  You could subscribe to them at the forum: https://amblesideonline.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?fid=100

Continue singing at least twice this week- do you notice any change in the atmosphere of your school after singing?  Add singing to a third day of your week.  You could sing after a math lesson, while getting out the history or science books, or while transitioning from Bible to Literature.  It's a good way to clear the mind for the next subject.  Here's my folksong playlist for this year. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2j-Ai4pQ4f0&list=PL2IR3x_bkyR55kU2uGplZrY5b3gq-bXRR

Go outside.  Pick any two plants you see and compare their: stems, leaves, and flowers if they have them.  Notice the shape of the leaves, as well as their placement on the stem- are they in opposite pairs, or do they alternate? Or do they sort of form a whorled pattern around the stem?  Are the leaves serrated at the edge, jagged like a saw or a steakknife?  Deep edges or small notches?  How many petals do the flowers have? What is their shape? What do the centers look like.?Only after you have noticed the different characteristics and the distinct characteristics of each plant should you attempt to identify it.  You can take a photograph of it and post it to our FB group, or there is a plant ID group on FB you could join.  Try and sketch them- remember the *process* is what is important here, not your artistic skill.  When you try to sketch them, see if you don't notice additional details you might have missed the first time.

If you are interested in or intimidated by Shakespeare and you have already joined the forum, you might want to read (and maybe join in!) the discussion of Twelfth Night!  You have to be signed in for this link to work

Mapwork help!  This thread is gold- how to create your own maps for your students using Google!




Digging Deeper, for those who want and have time for more:
Read Mortimer Adler on why we read great books.

Read more about the Prussian school model and how it compares to the American public school system today.

Parents' Review articles:

on Children and Books

Home-Training and Right Habits of Mind- starting from babyhood.

Parents as Inspirers

PNEU Principles as illustrated by teaching: ""We believe in an "open-door policy" for our children; the larger and nobler an idea, the more fit are the children to receive it, for their hearts and minds are like a great open porch, not yet bricked up by prejudices.

We therefore adopt a time-table calculated to give ideas and experiences in as many branches of our relationships as possible.

We don't want, for example, to teach children "all about Africa" in their geography lessons, we want to give them such ideas of the dawning continent as will send them to books of travel, and later to the place itself, to view its panoramas or take their share in its future destinies.... But the children are not to sit still and merely passively receive ideas.

No lesson is valuable which does not promote self-activity by making the child think, exercising its powers of narration or reproduction, or laying the ground-work for some future mental habit, making the idea given a well-spring of activity.

We can judge then of the value of a lesson by the amount of work which it gives the children to do.

There is therefore in a really good lesson only one place for the teacher, and that is the background.""

The Educational Value of Great Books: Homer

Challenge 2

Last week's challenge is here.

You have probably heard that Charlotte Mason’s method of education is a philosophy, a collection of ideas and principles.  You will find those principles in the front of each volume.  I suggest you read them in volume VI, because in this volume, her last one before she died, she expands the principles to 20.  

Rather than go line by line through those principles, I'd like to use them to demonstrate that a Charlotte Mason education really is for everybody, because those principles apply to the vast majority of the human race. For the sake of time, we'll just look at a few.

Her first principle, for instance, is that children are *born* persons. They are not born oysters, or empty sacs and we make human beings out of them. They don’t become people, they are people, individuals with their own strengths and weaknesses, bents and inclinations.  We definitely can help them along to be better informed people, and we can instill in them some helpful habits and knowledge about the world. but they come to us as fully human as you or I.  This is true for all children (and all adults- we, too, are born persons).  Of course, this is for everybody.  All human children are born persons.

Although they are born persons, or perhaps it would be more accurate to say because they are born persons, children are in need of assistance in the development of what used to be called character.  Mason says in her first edition of the Parents’ Review that “the formation of character” is “the essential function of education.” (here).  That goes along with the second principle:

“2. They are not born either good or bad, but with possibilities for good and for evil.”

As with all the other principles her meaning is fleshed out further in her books, particularly in the first part of volume VI, but in summary, here Mason is speaking to the idea of hereditary determination, that children inherited, infallibly, the failures, weaknesses, sins, or successes, of their parents.  Children of thieves would be born with a nearly inescapable propensity to theft and children born illegitimate were tainted forever by that stain as it came with the same weak character and lack of moral standards which had resulted in a pregnancy outside of wedlock in the first place.  Mason is pronouncing that theory bankrupt and stresses that children have equal possibilities for good or evil regardless of their birth circumstances.  This is true of all children.

” 3. The principles of authority on the one hand, and of obedience on the other, are natural, necessary and fundamental; but––”

Authority and obedience are surely appropriate concepts for for all of us.

 “4. These principles are limited by the respect due to the personality of children, which must not be encroached upon whether by the direct use of fear or love, suggestion or influence, or by undue play upon any one natural desire.”

Balanced application, don’t resort to manipulation based on fear or feelings (If you love me, you’ll….”)-  again, concepts appropriate for all.

 “5. Therefore, we are limited to three educational instruments––the atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit, and the presentation of living ideas. The P.N.E.U. Motto is: “Education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life.”

Note the specific sphere of the application for this principle- “educational instruments.”

  In the course of their education, are there any children who do not benefit from an educational environment, good habits, or living ideas? Are there children who are harmed by a healthy home atmosphere conducive to learning. harmed by learning good habits, harmed by being presented with living ideas? No.  This education is for everybody.

 “6. When we say that “education is an atmosphere,” we do not mean that a child should be isolated in what may be called a ‘child-environment’ especially adapted and prepared, but that we should take into account the educational value of his natural home atmosphere, both as regards persons and things, and should let him live freely among his proper conditions. It stultifies a child to bring down his world to the child’s’ level.”

Are there children who would *not* benefit from their parents taking into account the educational value of the natural home atmosphere?  

We can do this with most of the principles (you can read them all in full here)- look at the principle, and consider turning it into a negative.  Are there children or families or human beings who do not benefit from this idea, properly applied?

I'll share more on the specific principles later, but I want to say something else about them.

They are vitally important, however, you can get started on a CM education without making sure you are clear on each and every one first. You don't need to write a thesis on them. You do not even need to read a thesis on them, or understand them all thoroughly before you can begin.  You can pick them up as you go along.  It may even be a more helpful way  to learn them if you stop and consider one or more of them when you run across an area where your assumptions are contrary to CM practices- learning on the job, so to speak. 

There's something else to keep in mind about principles- while they may seem overwhelming and also over your head at first, Mason did not intend for mothers to be overwhelmed and burdened and made to feel inferior by those principles.  

Her organization, the PNEU, worked on reaching out to mothers without the benefits of the same education and reading that Mason and the middle to upper class teachers, parents, and societal leaders who were the first members of the PNEU.  She really believed that a liberal education is for *all*.  

Toward that end, in 1894 PNEU member Isabella Copeland penned an article for the Parents' Review on the topic of spreading the principles to 'those we call the poor.'  You can read it in full here.  I want to point to one particular sentence.  She urges those who would do this work to have a real, genuine love for the people they are trying to help, and to make sure they get to know their audience in meaningful ways so they truly understand how the people they want to help are living.  It is this combination of love and personal knowledge, she says, that

"--makes all the difference between giving advice well nigh impossible to carry out, and applying principles in such a way as to suit the circumstance of those who hear. "

So the principles have some flexibility- they can, they must be, applied in such a way as to suit your circumstances!   In some cases, perhaps some of also need to work to change our circumstances a bit, but you know yourself and your environment best.

wWe want to understand those circumstances even better so we can be better in our our efforts to encourage you to do what you can, to help you apply principles in such a way to suit your circumstances.  We know very well sometimes it's hard, and sometimes we are discouraged and beaten down.  Lift your hearts.  You can do this- but do it in such a way that it suits the circumstances you are in, and not the ones you wish you had, dear hearts.

__________

This week's challenges:

Click on the above links and read more on the principles (see also here)

Read up to page 5 of volume 6 and pay extra attention to what she has to say about mind, knowledge, education, and character.

Try narrating yourself if you haven't already- or even if you have.  Read something worth reading (the first pages of volume VI, for instance, or the PR article linked above). Set a timer for 5 minutes and write down as much as you can remember as quickly as you can before the timer beeps.

Sing this term's folk song, or one you prefer, at least twice this week.

Join the forum.  You don't have to do anything else yet if you don't want, just join.  Here.

Go outside. If it's too hot, go earlier in the morning or later in the evening.  Take out an electric fan and plug it in, sit in front of it with your feet in a bucket of cold water if that is what needs to happen for you to endure time outside.  Spread out a sheet and lay down on grass in the shade.   Have iced coffee or lemonade ready to sit outside and sip at breakfast- along with some fruit and bagels and cream cheese, or boiled eggs, or a steamed sweet potato, or onigiri/rice triangles or whatever is the simplest thing to do in your culture and area.

 Remember that what Miss Mason actually says is that these long hours out of doors should happen on 'suitable days between April and October- in the fairly mild English climate (mild compared to many other places. Here's the reference:

"Possibilities of a Day in the Open.––I make a point, says a judicious mother, of sending my children out, weather permitting, for an hour in the winter, and two hours a day in the summer months. That is well; but it is not enough. In the first place, do not send them; if it is anyway possible, take them; for, although the children should be left much to themselves, there is a great deal to be done and a great deal to be prevented during these long hours in the open air. And long hours they should be;  not two, but four, five, or six hours they should have on every tolerably fine day, from April till October. Impossible! Says an overwrought mother who sees her way to no more for her children than a daily hour or so on the pavements of the neighbouring London squares. Let me repeat, that I venture to suggest, not what is practicable in any household, but what seems to me absolutely best for the children; and that, in the faith that mothers work wonders once they are convinced that wonders are demanded of them. A journey of twenty minutes by rail or omnibus, and a luncheon basket, will make a day in the country possible to most town dwellers; and if one day, why not many, even every suitable day?"


Cling to that 'suitable day,'Aspire to improve, but don't beat yourself up, either. There's a nice space between burdened with guilt and defeatism, and attempting the impossible and risking health.

---------------

Digging Deeper for those who can:

About five years ago several of the parents in the forum went through a study of volume VI. You can read those discussions here:

Parts 1 and 2 of the intro: https://amblesideonline.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2472
 (you must first be signed into the forum for the link to work).  Alternative method of finding it- go the forums, scroll down to CM study hall, then Charlotte Mason Series, then Volume 6 PHilosophy of Education, and under that last title, go to page 2 and look for:

 Vol. 6 Discussion: Introduction, Parts I and II

Here's an excerpt  of the introductory study there: "So how do we avoid getting to the point of such debased morality? The context of our education, she says, must be 'great thoughts, great events, great considerations.' She notes that when the Prussians were defeated by Napoleon, they returned and changed their education philosophy and approach. They filled it with history, poetry, philosophy to develop character, etc. But when Germany returned to a utilitarian type education, their morality fell. [If you're into reading John Taylor Gatto at all, he discusses in much detail the Prussian influence on the development of the US public school system.]

Miss Mason then presents some ideas that the PNEU had developed over the years to make sure that the mind was nourished well, while not neglecting physical and vocational training. She also notes that these particular points differ from general educational theory and practice of that day. Some general themes that I see in these 10 points are that the onus is on the student to learn --- it does not rely on entertaining lessons and teachers, or prizes, or threats of punishment. The students are quite capable of handling the large amount of material that they cover each term. They can tell back in a single reading, and can still tell back, without review, at a final exam. All this is not all student/delight-led; they do not select their own studies, nor are "diverting rabbit trails" (as Leslie puts it) followed. "(Kay Pelham)
Be sure to read the rest, and add to the discussion if you wish to- we revise old discussions all the time in the forum.


Preface Study: https://amblesideonline.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=2470


Another study went through the six volumes in 2 years.  Here's a comment from the study discussion on the preface and introduction (https://amblesideonline.org/forum/showthread.php?tid=12616&pid=183436#pid183436)
"The whole idea of the miner's DC being richly educated and able to learn as well as DC of educated persons reminded me of Dangerous Minds as well as the various articles in which teachers or schools find how well DC, even those in inner-city environments, respond and understand poetry and Shakespeare. How sad that we're still re-learning lessons of the past - that we still haven't gleaned the best ideas and kept them at the forefront of our minds! Of course, I know there's a lot more to this issue than just not remembering or knowing or truly believing that DC are capable persons, but much of the problem still seems to be that those who don't learn history are doomed to repeat it.

Also, we seem to often forgetting this, as evidenced IMO by the colleges that are partnering w/businesses & industries to produce skilled people, rather than keeping to the more traditional liberal education"

Have you read any of the Parents' Review articles? They can be nice, shorter readers for busy mums while still giving you something meaty to think about:

https://www.amblesideonline.org/PR/PR11p772TheOpenRoad.shtml
Frances Blogg, who later married G. K. Chesterton, invites readers to consider that education is part of the journey of life for our children, and what that could mean for a liberal education. 
"To travel deliberately through one's ages, is to get the heart out of a liberal education."
R.L. Stevenson (Dedication of the Vol. Virginibus Puerisque)

A headmistress, a headmaster, and some others speak on Miss Mason's Liberal Education for All, both the pamphlet and how Mason's philosophy works in their schools.  Very informative, whether you are a beginner or an experienced hand:

"I think I must detain you for a moment with a few words on how Miss Mason's methods differ from others in use at the moment. Firstly, she does not assume that the boys dislike work, and it is therefore necessary to disguise work as play—or to give them coloured bricks in place of units. If a boy dislikes work it is often because it is made so dull and uninteresting that it would bore an angel. I can only speak from my own experience, but I find a very small percentage want any driving; far more want restraining from overdoing things.

Secondly—and this is the whole mainspring of the system—Miss Mason insists that children are really human beings: and must be treated as such. Failure in the past, complaints or inattention and laziness, all can be traced to7 the inability to recognise this fact on the part of reformers and teachers. Formerly, the children did not do the work—we did it for them. We separated what they should learn from what they should not learn, and then made them do it—by notes, by explanations, by special preparation, by any means the brain of man could devise, but always working on the principle that the child could not be expected to do anything but accept what we cared to throw him. Quite unconsciously, I honestly believe, the master so dominated the boys that the latter could not develop his own mind—he merely tried to produce what he thought his master appreciated, not what he wished to produce, or what he could have produced, had his mind not been really in subjection to another and stronger."

A few further studies of the principles: Children are born persons
    Charlotte Mason's 20 Principles side-by-side original/paraphrase version of the 20 Principles that boiled down CM's education-  how would you paraphrase those principles yourself?
    A Magical Expansion - A Study of CM's Principle 12 by Lynn Bruce
     An Imaginary Conversation with a Great Mind - A Study of CM's Principle 8 by Tammy Glaser
     An Oyster and a Jewel - A Study of CM's Principle 10 by Lynn Bruce
The Spiritual Octopus - A Study of CM's Principle 11 by Lynn Bruce
Some principles are practices, by Karen Glass
Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5
Children are born persons

Children are born persons, and this is a great relief.

Several links related to principle 3 (authority, obedience):

• For the Children's Sake, Chapter 3, beginning at "Authority: A Balance" (pp. 48-ff in my copy--)

• Vol 3 Ch 1 Docility and Authority in the Home and the School, to 'Quick as Thought.' page 8/9
• Vol 2 Ch 2 Parents As Rulers
• PR Article: Authority by Mrs. Dowson
• PR Article: Docility and Authority, Part 1 by Charlotte Mason
• PR Article: On the Value of Authority in Moral Education by Charles D. Olive
• PR Article: Obedience by Henry Beveridge
• PR Article: Unreasoning Obedience (by CM? not sure of the author on this one)
• Authority in Perspective by Tara Schorr
• At School with Charlotte: Beginning with Authority by Brandy Vencel
• At School with Charlotte: How Authority Behaves by Brandy Vencel

A Challenge for This Week

The story of Undine was an extremely popular children's story in the 19th century, although it is not one which recommends itself to today's parents.* Louisa May Alcott mentioned it in Little Women, and Charlotte Yonge references it in one of her collections of stories.  Yonge also wrote the introduction to it in one edition.
Briefly, Undine is a water sprite, unwittingly fostered by a sweet Christian pair of elderly parents. As a water-sprite, Undine is not evil, but she has no soul, which means she has no experience of the pain which causes humans to empathize with one other. Her bewildered human parents are unaware that she is not a human. They love her but are much troubled by her thoughtless, careless ways. She is affectionate but willful and self centered, unable to empathize with others, unconcerned with how her selfish antics grieve her family. She falls in love with a passing knight and he with her, and their union, consecrated in marriage, grants her a soul, instantly giving her a gravitas and depth of patience and human kindness that opens her eyes to the suffering she has caused and the good that is open to her in the world.

It reminds me very much of the George MacDonald story The Light Princess, which I won't summarize because it simply must be read.

At any rate, Undine's light and careless (and so often thoughtlessly wounding) affection is awakened, made deeper, stretched, and given real meaning when love imbibes her with a soul.

Mason uses this highly popular and very familiar story as a sort of a hook with which to open her sixth volume on education.  

This week, I'd like to challenge you to read this with me, and when you have finished reading take a minute or two to write down or review orally as much as you can of the following preface from volume VI (you can retell it to the baby while changing a diaper, or talk to your soup as you stir if you have no time or inclination to write):

"It would seem a far cry from Undine [by La Motte Fouque] to a 'liberal education' but there is a point of contact between the two; a soul awoke within a water-sprite at the touch of love; so, I have to tell of the awakening of a 'general soul' at the touch of knowledge. Eight years ago the 'soul' of a class of children in a mining village school awoke simultaneously at this magic touch and has remained awake. We know that religion can awaken souls, that love makes a new man, that the call of a vocation may do it, and in the age of the Renaissance, men's souls, the general soul, awoke to knowledge: but this appeal rarely reaches the modern soul; and, notwithstanding the pleasantness attending lessons and marks (grades and one's gpa) in all our schools, I believe the ardour for knowledge in the children of this mining village is a phenomenon that indicates new possibilities. Already many thousands of the children of the Empire had experienced this intellectual conversion, but they were the children of educated persons. To find that the children of a mining population were equally responsive seemed to open a new hope for the world. It may be that the souls of all children are waiting for the call of knowledge to awaken them to delightful living.

This is how the late Mrs. Francis Steinthal, who was the happy instigator of the movement in Council Schools, wrote,––"Think of the meaning of this in the lives of the children,––disciplined lives, and no lawless strikes, justice, an end to class warfare, developed intellects, and no market for trashy and corrupt literature! We shall, or rather they will, live in a redeemed world." This was written in a moment of enthusiasm on hearing that a certain County Council had accepted a scheme of work for this pioneer school; enthusiasm sees in advance the fields white to the harvest, but indeed the event is likely to justify high expectations. Though less than nine years have passed since that pioneer school made the bold attempt, already many thousands of children working under numerous County Councils are finding that "Studies serve for delight."

No doubt children are well taught and happy in their lessons as things are, and this was specially true of the school in question; yet both teachers and children find an immeasurable difference between the casual interest roused by marks, pleasing oral lessons and other school devices, and the sort of steady avidity for knowledge that comes with the awakened soul. The children have converted the school inspectors: "And the English!" said one of these in astonishment as he listened to their long, graphic, dramatic narrations of what they had heard. During the last thirty years we (including many fellow workers) have had thousands of children, in our schoolrooms, home and other, working on the lines of Dean Colet's prayer for St Paul's School,––"Pray for the children to prosper in good life and good literature;" probably all children so taught grow up with such principles and pursuits as make for happy and useful citizenship.

I should like to add that we have no axe to grind. The public good is our aim; and the methods proposed are applicable in any school. My object in offering this volume to the public is to urge upon all who are concerned with education a few salient principles which are generally either unknown or disregarded; and a few methods which, like that bathing in Jordan, are too

simple to commend themselves to the 'general.' Yet these principles and methods make education entirely effectual.

Challenges for this week (over the course of the week, not all in one day):  

Read the above, look up any words that aren't clear,  and spend a couple minutes either writing or telling as much of it as you can recall.

Write down or simply think about 3 points that strike you (for any reason at all)

Here are a couple of mine:  1. 'Pleasantness' over lessons vs Ardour for knowledge; casual interest vs steady avidity for knowledge.  

Undine's awakened soul allowed her to really understand, for the first time, how other people felt, to care about them in a meaningful way, to see things from their point of view, and no longer to put her own way of thinking first and foremost. 

Feel free to share yours!

Related challenges: 

1. Go outside with the kids at least once this week- take a walk in your neighbourhood, or visit a park, a farm, a garden (does a neighbour have one?) or a plant nursery.  Just enjoy it- walk along and look for something pretty or interesting to admire or be curious about.

2.  Sing aloud at least twice this week (more is better, but this is the minimum).

3.  Consider this poem:
 A centipede was happy, quite,
 Until a frog in fun
 Said, 'Pray, which leg goes after which?
This worked his mind to such a pitch,
 He lay distracted in a ditch,
 Considering how to run.

Are you overthinking your week? Read something good to your children. Sing with them. Take them outside. Ask them to narrate the good books and stories you read.  Nourish their bodies and their minds, starting with with what you have and where you are.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------

*footnote and spoiler alert:  to be honest, the story of Undine doesn't end well, as not every human with a soul is as awakened to our duties and responsibilities to one another and the way of love as Undine.  Think Little Mermaid except the betrayal by the beloved is deliberate and the Mermaid is the cause of death to the unworthy human husband. 

Planning AmblesideOnline from Table to Table

By guest blogger Dawn Garrett


I've had a lot of people ask how I plan an AmblesideOnline term and how I'm helping my children to learn how to manage their work. Since the two go hand in hand, you get one long post :)

For the quick version, you can go to my profile on Instagram and click on the Highlight circle named "Assigning AO" (I think this is an in-app feature only)

We're doing Year 7 right now, so the first thing I do is go to that page and print the booklists (with the footnotes) and read through everything. I use this to determine what books we own and what we need and order all the books. That can be fun. I try to do this a little ahead of when I'm going to be planning - so a week or two before I'm planning to plan. Then I have these beautiful stacks of books.  For Year 7, I knew I'd be doing some adjustments for R-girl, so I printed both the Detailed and Basic/Lite version.

Once I have the books, I download the modifiable ODT schedule and open it in Open Office and copy/paste the table into your favorite spreadsheet application. It should look something like this:

This year, I pulled out some things that were going to be done with Jason and some things that were going to be done during our Morning Time, Whatchamacallit, and left the rest in the main block. You can see where there are blank rows as separators.

Once I've determined how we're going to approach the work, I create a separate spreadsheet for each week (you can see them across the bottom of the page) and put the week number and the dates for that week number).  Then I copy the subject column to each of those tabs and the assignments for that particular week to the tab. So the column headed Week 2 went on the tab named "2 April 23-27." I made a separate spreadsheet for all twelve weeks (plus break weeks).

Each week's tab looks something like the above. I then split out the reading that is assigned to, at maximum, 5 readings per week. Because I have them, I use the books as I'm doing this and some of them I'll put a small (in pencil) star where I want them to stop for the day.  I put the total number of pages assigned in a column and I have a column at the end for the count of readings for each book. That count is summed. In this case, there are 25 independent readings for the week. I don't count those that will be done in Morning Time or with Daddy.

I can then print that week's tab for them - I do hide the column that has the whole weekly reading assignment, and just give them the split up readings.

25 readings is easy to deal with - they can do 5 per day. They don't have to do any on Wednesday (except we generally do Ivanhoe and Beowulf as audiobooks on Wednesday), but they generally choose to in order to cut down the assignments on the other days.  On Monday, they write the assignments in the daily boxes at the bottom of the sheet. This helps them learn to evaluate a week's worth of work and divide it reasonably. We've worked hard to see how doing a little bit every day is better than cramming too much into any given day. We've looked at how that page number column comes into play.

Some day, I hope to hand them the week's assignments and they'll split out the readings, but that day is not yet.

This is the newest step and one we've done for a little more than a term, so it may not stay the same. So far it has worked beautifully. Because we have one set of books for three students, a standard timetable schedule is a nightmare. Also a nightmare: lessons that take all day because there's no sense of urgency or accountability. This system was borne of sheer desperation.

We do Whatchamacallit from 8:30-10:15. After a 15 minute break, the independent work portion of our day begins.

I have a duplexing printer, so I print the above form on the back of their weekly assignment page.  Each day, the children take the book list they have made for the day, Math, Latin, a written narration, and penmanship and assign the work to half-hours. Some things take a full half hour, some don't. They have to be careful with the different books and assign them in appropriate blocks. They have to plan if they're going to read with someone else, or that they don't plan the same books at the same time. It takes some juggling and thought. I love it. So far, it has worked well, with just a few growing pains. It fits with my general philosophy of helping them learn to manage their own workload so they can be independent.

Now, I can start the pre-reading. It's plenty of work, but it's good work.

So, there you go - from AO and their weekly table to the individual day's table how we're planning AmblesideOnline at this time.

It's sure to change.

Dawn Garrett blogs at ladydusk.blogspot.com and is a 
collaborator of the CharlotteMasonIRL account on Instagram. 
She homeschools her three children in Central Ohio.

Of Good Books: The Power and the Fear

by Wendi Capehart

Some time ago a mother asked for help understanding why we might read a book like George MacDonald's Princess and the Goblin.    
The discussion reminded me of my experience with the sequel, The Princess and Curdy. I read it as a very young child, so young I don't remember how young, and for a very long time I couldn't remember the title of the book. In fact, over the years the details of the story slipped away to the point that the memory of most of that story was hidden in the mists of other memories, other books, other experiences. Then one day when I was in my very late twenties, busy with my life in Japan as a young military wife and mom, the memory of that book came out of the mists, recalled by a stray reference.

I was reading one of those special children's book catalogs that used to abound, catalogs as literary as the books inside them, chatty, personable. The catalog writer explained that she had read this book as a child and over the years had forgotten all but a single detail of the story- something about a grandmother with a fire of rose petals that never lost their rose petal essence (similar to the burning bush in the Bible), and you could put your hand in it without harm. She found this detail in the Princess and Curdy while reviewing it for the catalog, and with a thrill recognized her old friend and was delighted and it all came flooding back.

I promptly added the book to my list, which back in those days entailed writing out my order by hand and snail mailing it with a check. That fire of rose petals is the one detail I also had remembered. I, too, was thrilled to find my old friend again. I was even more delighted when the book arrived several weeks later and I read it again as an adult. The sequel is just that good, and the first book is even better.

 MacDonald was a devout Christian and a pastor devoted to his flock - and his God. His books are somewhat allegorical. For some reason, there are some who don't care for them. I don't understand it. However, I would not pass these up based on second hand information. I'd at least skim through them myself first.

 It is true that not every book is every person's cup of tea (and children are born persons). But it isn't true that merely not liking a book is a sound reason to avoid it. Nor is it good policy to avoid books merely because they have scary things like planned goblin invasions, greedy trolls, and dark caverns in them. A book that frightens one child encourages another. A book that makes no impression on another child will be a never to be forgotten source of courage for another.

 We cannot know in advance what a book will be to our children- we often think we know, but my own children surprised me again and again. I also have now heard hundreds of times from mothers who say they were sure their child would love or loathe or be bored by this book or another, only to discover it was the newest favourite. Children, like the rest of us, are people of many parts, and we should give them the dignity of being complex human beings with depths we have not yet plumbed and may never.

Children have many different reactions to different stories, some good, some bad. I knew a child afraid of beavers after being frightened by talking beavers in The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe. I would not avoid a book widely recognized as a well written children's classic merely because another child was afraid of the dark after reading it. Consider that the fact that it is recognized as a well written classic.  While that is not alone a stamp of approval and compatibility with your belief system, it does indicate that thousands more children (and their parents) have been blessed and have grown in their understanding because of it, and their experience should be weighted in our decisions as well if the reactions of other children is our measurement.

 One can also use that knowledge to help with a book rather than to reject it. If reading a book makes one child afraid of the dark or another afraid of rats or grand-daddy long-legs or whatever, I'd use that knowledge to help the young reader work through it and deal with it. Real life is not sugar-coated and lined with cotton wool. Children will come to face to face with terrors of their own, both real and imagined. It is better to deal with those first in the fictional story between the pages of a book that can be put down. Real life is full of choices of right and wrong, bravery and cowardice, and people who make the wrong choice. Real books give children some exposure and practice in considering those choices, thinking about the implications, imagining what they would do in similar circumstances. Well written books come alive in our minds. They bring us into the scene. These powerful descriptions and scene setting, this skillful building of worlds feeds our imaginations, warms them, brings them to life, gives the reader an excellent exposure to the skill of writing and the power of words. While we don't want to inundate children with frights and horrors and ignore sensitivities and maturity levels altogether, we also don't want to avoid all possible ways they might become afraid, all misdeeds, or all wrong choices. We all have and have had fears for good reasons and for ignoble reasons and for silly reasons- it's a blessing to be able to recognize them for what they are and have help facing them when young in safe circumstances, not something to avoid at all costs. MacDonald's story of Curdy, the goblins, and the princess is really lovely and living and deserves to be judged on its own merits, not on second hand information (not even mine). Please let your understanding of this book, and every other book, be based primarily on your reading, not just on what a few negative secondhand witnesses have claimed for a book.