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Charlotte Mason in Modern English
Charlotte Mason's ideas are too important not to be understood and implemented in the 21st century, but her Victorian style of writing sometimes prevents parents from attempting to read her books. This is an imperfect attempt to make Charlotte's words accessible to modern parents. You may read these, print them out, share them freely--but they are copyrighted to me, so please don't post or publish them without asking.
~L. N. Laurio
pg 41
Chapter 5 - Parents as Inspirers: The
Things of the Spirit
Parents
are the Ones Who Reveal God to Their Children
Parents in general probably feel the weight of the responsibility of
their prophetic job more than ever before. Their role as revealers of
God to their children is where parents are most severely limited, yet
their success in this is what fulfills God's Divine intention in giving
children to them to bring up--in the nurture and admonition of the Lord.
How
to Fortify Children Against Doubt
How do we fortify our children against the doubts that fill the air?
That's a worrisome question. We have three options. We can teach them
in the same old way that we ourselves were taught and let them take
their chances when it's their time. Or we can try to deal with each of
the difficult issues and doubts that have come up and that they're
likely to face in the future by offering them Christian dogma and
'proofs.' Or we can give them such a clear hold on vital truth, and
such a thorough perspective of current issues that they'll land on the
safe side of whatever controversies they come up against. They'll
recognize
truth in whatever new light it's presented in, and they'll be
safeguarded against mortal error.
Of
The Three Options, the First is Unfair
The first
pg 42
option (teach them in the same old way that we ourselves were taught
and let them take their chances) is unfair to our youth. When the
attack comes, they'll find themselves at a disadvantage. They'll have
no response. Their confidence will be shaken, and they'll conclude that
none of the truth they learned is useful as a defense. If it was,
wouldn't they have been taught how to use it? They'll resent being
proved wrong and being on the weaker, losing side--at least, that's how
it looks to them--and being behind the times. So they'll go over to the
side of the most aggressive current thinkers without a struggle.
'Evidence'
is Not Proof
Now let's suppose that they've been fortified with 'Christian evidence'
and defended with a wall of solid, dogmatic teaching. Religion without
definite authoritative teaching degenerates into sentiment, but dogma
for the sake of dogma offers no defense against the assaults of
unbelief. As far as 'evidences,' the proverb, 'He who excuses himself
accuses himself' [he who is
most vocal about his innocence is often the most guilty]
might be applied to the whole list of Christian
apologists. Whatever truth we live by needs to be self-evidenced,
requiring neither proof nor disproof. Children should learn Bible
history with whatever light modern research can shed. But they
shouldn't be taught to assume that evidences such as inscriptions on
Assyrian monuments are proofs
that the Bible is correct. They help to illustrate the Biblical record,
but they're only supplementary proofs, nothing more or less.
The
Outlook on Current Thought
How about the third option? Let's consider, first of all, the
perspective of current thought. Young
minds crave contemporary opinion. Young people are eager to know what
to think about the
serious questions regarding religion and life. They want to know what
pg 43
this or that influential person's opinion is. They don't confine
themselves to the leading people that their parents have decided are
worth listening to. On the contrary, the 'other side' of every issue is
the attractive side to them, and they don't want to be out of step with
cutting edge thought.
Free-will
In Thought
The fact that their youth should take so naturally to new ideas doesn't
need to come as a shock to parents. From the time their children are
tiny, their training should prepare them for this plunge that they'll
take.
When that time comes, there's no way to prevent it. Children may jump
into forming their own opinions openly, or, if their home is rigid,
they'll do it in secret. But, whether openly or secretly, young people
will think their own thoughts. They'll follow the leading of the people
they choose to admire because, after all, they're actually modest and
humble at heart and don't have the confidence to try thinking totally
by themselves. They still look to someone else, but their allegiance
switches from their parents. Parents don't need to resent or fear this
transferal of allegiance. We all do this when it's our time to move
towards independence and we feel the draw of other larger interests
outside our own family.
Preparation
But, even though there's nothing that can be done once the time comes,
there's so much that needs to be done beforehand. The notion that any
contemporary authority is infallible should be steadily undermined and
corrected from the time children are infants. This is done by
sacrificing some of the parents' convenience and glory. Instead of
giving our children a vague answer that makes us sound wise when they
fire off incessant questions, we shouldn't be afraid to admit that we
don't know. And our 'I don't know' should be followed with an effort to
find out by doing some research. And even in our research, our children
should understand that even books and websites can sometimes be wrong.
This kind of
pg 44
training will go a long way later towards the child's mental balance
and peace.
Reservations
in the Area of Science
Another safeguard is in what we might call reservation, especially
regarding 'science.' It's good to kindle a child's enthusiasm for
science as they see how glorious it is to devote a life to patiently
researching and observing, and how great it is to discover a single of
Nature's secrets that might be a key to unlocking many mysteries.
Children
should be allowed to admire the heroes of science, and great names,
especially of scientists who are still living, should be household
words. Yet some discrimination is appropriate. Two points should be
always be kept in mind. First, science can't answer the ultimate
questions of origin and life. And, second, scientific truth advances
steadily, with little waves of fact coming in and going out like the
ebb and flow of the tide so that, at any given moment, the last twenty
years' of scientific teaching is no longer valid in at least a dozen
fields of science. It seems like the wisest thing to do is to wait
fifty
years before drawing any conclusions about how today's discoveries fit
into the general scheme of things. This isn't because the latest
discoveries aren't true. But we have no way of adjusting it to the
'science of the proportion of things' to know its relative truth. [We may later find that it's only one piece
of the puzzle.]
Knowledge
is Progressive
But isn't all of this too much for children? Not at all. Every walk
should
excite their enthusiasm for the things of Nature, and their reverence
for the scientists who study them. But every opportunity should be
taken to note the progressive advances of science, and the fact that
today's teaching might be tomorrow's error
pg 45
because new light might lead to new conclusions regarding even the
facts we already know. 'Until recently, geologists used to think that;
now they think this, but they may discover reasons to think something
else in the future.' Children should understand that knowledge is progressive, and that the next
discovery might totally change what was thought before. We're still
waiting for the last word, and we'll probably be waiting for a long,
long time. Science itself is a 'revelation,' although we can't always
interpret what we find out. Science is a great opportunity for
spiritual
awareness. A person who recognizes these things can rejoice in all
truth and wait for final certainty.
Children
Should Learn Some Laws of Thought
There's another way that we can try to provide children with the
stability of mind that comes from knowing about themselves. They should
understand the laws of thought that direct their own minds while
they're still young enough that it seems like they've always known it.
Let them realize that, once an idea takes possession of them, it will
pursue its own course. It will establish its own path in the physical
tissue of the brain and draw its own chain of ideas behind it. One of
the most common reasons that young people abandon what they've been
taught is because thoughtful youths are shocked when they come to
notice their own thoughts. They read a book or listen to a lecture, and
experience what they think is 'free thought.' With fearful joy, they
discover their own thoughts taking off independently from what they've
heard or read, and going on and on to arrive at startling new
conclusions along the same lines. All of this mental stir inspires a
wonderful sense power as well as a sense of inevitableness and
certainty. After all, it isn't as if they
pg 46
had any intention of trying to think of this or that. The conclusion
came all by itself. They believe that their own Reason has acted
independently of them, and they can't help assuming that the conclusion
that came to them all by itself with such an air of absolute certainty
must be correct.
Inspecting
Thoughts as They Come
But what if they had been warned since early childhood, 'Take care of
your thoughts, and the rest will take care of itself. If you let a
thought in, it will stay. It will come back tomorrow and the next day.
It will make a place for itself in your brain, and it will bring many
other similar thoughts with it. It's up to you to inspect thoughts as
they come to keep wrong thoughts out and let right thoughts in. Make
sure that you don't enter into temptation.' This kind of teaching is
easier to understand than the grammar rules of the English nominative
case, but it's infinitely more profitable for managing a life. It's
great protection to recognize that our Reason is capable of proving any
theory that we allow ourselves to entertain.
The
Appeal of the Children
In this section, we've only mentioned the negative aspect of the
parental role of Inspirer. For almost all parents, the innocence of a
baby in its mother's arms makes a strong, irresistible appeal. 'Open
the gates of righteousness to me so I can go in,' seems to be
what the pure, unworldly child is saying. With every kiss from his
mother, and every light from his father's eyes, he expresses a desire
to be kept unstained from the world. But we're so quick to conclude
that children can't understand spiritual things. We don't fully grasp
the things of the Spirit ourselves, so how can the feeble intelligence
pg 47
of a child apprehend the highest mysteries of our existence? But we're
wrong about this. As we age, we adults become more materialistic. But
children live in the light of their young life. The spirit-world
doesn't seem so mysterious to them. In fact, the spiritual fairy-world
of parables and stories where anything is possible is their favorite
place. Fairy tales are so treasured by children because their tender
spirits clash with the hard, narrow limitations of reality--time, place
and substance. They can't breathe freely in the material world. Imagine
what the vision of God must be like for a child who's peering wistfully
through the bars of the prison of reality. They don't envision a
far-off God who's cold and abstract. For them, God is a warm,
breathing, spiritual Presence Who watches his comings and his goings
and stays with him as he sleeps. In God's presence, he recognizes
protection and tenderness in darkness and danger, and he rushes towards
God in the same way that a frightened child hides his face in his
mother's skirt.
'My
Hiding Place'
A friend of mine told me a story about something that happened when she
was a girl. She had extra lessons and had to stay at school until it
was dark every evening in the winter. She was a fearful child, but had
too much childish reserve to mention her fear of a vague 'something' to
her parents. The walk home took her along a solitary path beside a
river bank with trees overhead--big trees with masses of dark shadows.
Within those black shadows, any vague terror might be lurking. The swsh-sh, swsh-sh of the river
sounded like the rustling of someone's clothing, and that sound filled
her with relentless terror night after night. She fled along that river
path with a fast-beating heart. But, as quick as her running steps and
beating heart, these words kept repeating over and over in her mind the
whole way, evening after
pg 48
evening, winter after winter: 'You are my hiding place, You shall
preserve me from trouble, You shall surround me with songs of
deliverance.' Years later, as an adult who might have outgrown childish
fears, she found herself again walking alone in the darkness of early
evening one winter under different trees with the swsh-sh of another river. Her old
terror returned, but with it came back the old familiar words, keeping
time with her hasty steps the entire way. A safe refuge to hide in
should be the way every child thinks of God.
The
Mind of the Child is Like 'Good Ground'
Children's acute sensitivity to spiritual influences isn't due to their
ignorance. It's not them who are mistaken, it's us. Modern biological
thought tends to confirm what the Bible teaches. The ideas that quicken
come from heaven. The mind of a little child is like an open field,
like the 'good ground' where the sower sows his seed every morning, and
the seed is God's Word. Everything we teach to children should be
conveyed reverently, with the humble recognition that God has invited
us to co-operate with His Holy Spirit in this area. Our teaching should
also be given dutifully and diligently, sensing the responsibility that
our co-operation seems to be a condition of God's divine action. Jesus,
the Savior of the World, pleads with us to 'let the little children
come to Me,' as if it was within our ability to hinder them. And, as a
matter of fact, we know that we can hinder them.
Children
Suffer From a Deep-seated Discontent
This thought of Jesus, the Savior of the world, implies another concept
that we sometimes forget when we deal with children. Young faces
pg 49
aren't always cheerful and lovely. Even the happiest children in the
most fortunate situations can sometimes have clouded hearts. We
attribute their dark little moods to not feeling well, or the weather,
and that's often the case. But those are only secondary causes
revealing a deep-seated discontent. Children have a sense of their own
sin, to a greater or lesser degree, depending on their own sensitivity.
We put
too much trust in a rose-water treatment of children. We don't take
them seriously enough. When we find ourselves face to face with a
child, we discover that he's a very real person. But our educational
theories define him as 'something in between a wax doll and an angel.'
The truth is, he sins. He can be guilty of greed, lying, hatred,
cruelty, or a hundred other faults that would be repulsive in an adult.
We tend to excuse children and assume that they'll grow out of it and
know better eventually. But they'll never know better than they do
right
now. Children are painfully aware of their own odiousness. How many of
us, if we were truthful, would say about ourselves as children, 'I was
a horrid little thing!' And that's not just because we look back on our
faults through the mature eyes of adulthood. We remember that that's
the way we
thought of ourselves even then. Many bright, cheerful children think of
themselves as hateful, and the assurance of 'peace, peace, when there
is no peace' from loving parents and friends doesn't bring comfort.
It's
good for us to 'ask for the old paths, and find out where the good way
is.' But it's no help at all if, in the name of old paths, we lead our
children into blind alleys. It's no better to let them follow new paths
into bewildering mazes.
Paraphrased by L. N. Laurio
Please direct any comments or questions to me by emailing me at cmseries-owner at yahoogroups dot com.
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