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
SECTION III - The Knowledge of the Universe
(a)
Science
Huxley liked to say that science education in the schools should be
concerned with common information rather than being overwhelming by
trying to teach everything. But we have found that children's minds are
not designed to be limited to a body of knowledge that has been deemed
as common knowledge. Their young minds are eager and want to know more.
In science, just like history, books should be literary (i.e., told in
story form). We'd probably all benefit and be more scientific people if
we got rid of all science text-books and used less chalk outlining and
summarizing. French people already know that science needs to be taught
with literary books, the same as with all other subjects. They also
understand that foundational scientific principles are
pg 219
so simple and so profound at the same time, and affect so many other
things, that the way scientific principles are taught can elicit
emotional reactions in people. So these principles are perfect
opportunities to use a literary approach. But the technical details of
how those principles are applied are so specialized that they aren't
really general knowledge and, therefore, aren't necessary to be learned
in school, unless they help to illustrate the principle. We don't have
a lot of scientific literature in our English language, but we have
enough for school. There's an American book called The
Sciences. Its
author (Edward Holden) seems to be a fairly good writer. This book does
a good job of relating general universal principles with common
incidents from daily life in a way that's interesting enough to hold a
child's attention. This book can help any child learn the scientific
principles that make an electric bell ring, where sound comes from, how
a steam engine works, and many other matters that are explained very
clearly. It has experiments to do that are easy to follow because of
his wonderful diagrams and descriptions. With this book, children get
their first notions of science without the confusing fog of too many
complex words. Form IIA (grades 5/6) reads Life and Her Children by
Arabella Buckley. Her book gives them a surprising amount of knowledge
about earlier and lower life forms. Form IIB (grade 4) enjoys Charles
Kingsley's Madame How and Lady Why. They also do some outdoor work
every month as a way of observing the changing seasons during the year.
They record their findings by adding notes and drawings to their Nature
Notebooks, and they do special studies on their own every season,
drawing and making notes in their Nature Notebooks.
In Form III (grade 7), a term's work helps children to -- 'Make a rough
sketch of part of a ditch or hedge or seashore and include the names of
the plants you would find there.' 'Write about the special study you
did this term and include drawings.' 'What are calyx, corolla, stamen,
pistil? In what different ways are flowers fertilized?' 'How would you
find
pg 220
the North Star? Name six other stars and tell which constellations
they're part of.' 'What's the difference between Early, Decorated and
Perpendicular Gothic? Use drawings to explain.' These kinds of
questions reveal a lot of field study as well as reading from a half
dozen carefully selected books on nature, botany, architecture, and
astronomy. The main idea to keep in mind is that children need to
observe and to record their observations, but their observations should
have some guidance.
Studying nature and botany with field guides continues through all
their school years, but other fields of science are done term by term.
The exam questions for Form IV (grade 8/9) show how varied the science
subjects are in nature, general science, hygiene and anatomy. In fact,
the subjects are so diverse that it's difficult to figure out what to
call them on the Programme schedules, as these samples show:
Geography
1. Write a little about Asia, including a roughly sketched map
2. Compare the Middle East's geography with the moors of Yorkshire.
Describe the valleys of Jordan.
3. What does Isabella Bird say in Eothen about the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher?
Nature
1. What do you know about
a. manatees
b. whale-bone whales (include a sketch of its
skeleton)
OR
1. Describe
a. quartz rock crystals
b. felspar
c. mica
d. horneblend
In what rock do
these occur?
2. What do you know about insectivorous plants? Name some you know
about.
3. What do you notice about a walk in the summer?
General Science
1. What do these mean?
a. electrical attraction
b. electrical repulsion
c. conductors
d. insulators
pg 221
2. How might you prove that we never see matter itself? How does sight
give us knowledge?
Physiology
(anatomy)
1. Describe the human ear.
Of the half-dozen books that our Form IV (grade 9) students are using
now, Bishop Mercer's Some Wonders of
Matter is probably the most
inspiring. The following exam questions show how varied students'
subjects are, and their answers demonstrate how wide and thorough their
knowledge is. All of our PNEU students are usually ready to answer any
of the questions about what they learned during the term.
In the same way, Forms V and VI (grades 10-12) cover a wide variety of
subjects, as these term exam questions indicate:
Geography Form VI. (grade 12)
1. Show how the discovery of the New World affected England as far as
finances and war.
2. Life forms are distributed on the earth according to a general law.
What is that law?
3. Describe Cortez's siege of Mexico, and its surrender. Forms VI and V (grades 10-12)
4. How has WWI affected:
(a) Luxembourg
(b) eastern Belgium
(c) Antwerp and the Scheldt? Form V (grades 10/11)
1. How did the Restoration affect the American colonies?
2. Explain how longitude is determined.
3. Give a sketch of the life and character of Montezuma.
Geology and Science Form VI (grades 11/12)
1. Give a thorough explanation of
(a) what causes radioactivity
(b) what causes gravity
2. What can you tell about the scenery of the English Trias? Name a
dozen fossils, sketching pictures of half of them Form V (grades 10/11)
1. Explain color as fully as you can.
2. Describe what igneous rocks are composed of. Where are they found?
Biology and Botany Form VI (grades 11/12)
1. What are the characteristics of animals without backbones? [spineless?] Describe six examples.
pg 222
2. Describe the plant life and explain what conditions make it suited
for its environment in the following locations:
(a) woods
(b) low desert
(c) swamp
(d) meadow Form V (grades 10/11)
1. How can you classify animals by what they do? Give some examples.
2. Describe what kinds of plants grow along the seashore. Forms VI and V (grades 10-12)
3. Describe and include drawings of the special study you did this term.
Astronomy Form VI (grades 11/12)
1. What does 'precession' mean? Describe the precession and mutation of
the earth's axis. Form V (grades 10/11)
1. Write an essay about the planet Mercury.
If we need an excuse for giving children a wide, varied curriculum that
introduces them to at least the areas of science that every common
person should know something about, we might find it in these critical
words of Sir Richard Gregory in his Presidential Address given in the
Education Science Section of the British Association. He said that,
'Education might be defined as a deliberate attempt to manipulate a
growing human being to make him adapt to his environment. How much and
what he learns should be determined by how well it meets that criteria
of adapting him to his environment. What was best for one culture in
the past may not be best for another. The most basic mission of science
education has been to prepare students for living in a civilized
society. This has been done by revealing to them some of the beauty and
power of the world they lived in, and introducing them to the methods
used to increase our knowledge of the universe. Science education in
schools was never
intended to prepare students for science careers. It was intended to
equip students for living in their culture. General science should be a
part of general education. It should not be specialized and connected
to college classes that a student might take later. Less than three
percent of public school students went on to college, yet most public
school science classes were based on university entrance exam
curriculums! The needs of the many were sacrificed for the needs of a
few.
'There was too much focus on what the child should have been finding
out for himself by doing his own experiments and observations. The
final test for graduation was testing students for things that were
common sense to anyone with experience in a particular field of
science, but nothing
pg 223
that would give students a broad knowledge of general principles to add
to laboratory work.
'The number of students wanting to take entrance exams [for college science classes?] was
evidence that general science education was almost nonexistent. The
range of subjects taught was limited to what could only be taught in a
laboratory. There was no attention given to learning all the different
ways in which physical science was broadening man's ability to deal
with his world, and no reading or learning for the sake of interest
because those things didn't count on exams! Students desperately needed
to be reminded that science wasn't all just about taking measurements,
and taking measurements isn't always science.'
It's reassuring that the methods we've been advocating for over thirty
years are confirmed by such an authority in science. The only rational
way to teach science is with personal observation (field study)
combined with lab work with a little bit of reading to add comments and
clarification when possible. For example, John Ruskin's Ethics of the
Dust gives children an enthusiasm for crystals that simple observation
might not. In fact, much of our science education has suffered because
of the unnecessary and harmful division between science and humanities.
Nature notebooks, which started with our P.U.S. (Parents Union Schools)
have become like travel records and journals for students. They keep
notes about all their finds: birds, flowers, fungus, mosses are
described and sketched every season in the same way that Gilbert White
did. A nature notebook can be kept by anyone anywhere. It can be used
to record stars on their course in the heavens, or a fossil of an
anemone on the beach at Whitby. These notebooks help to make science
come alive and relate to the common man. Science should not be taught
merely as a utilitarian means of preparing students for a career!
pg 224
Geography
The teaching of geography has suffered a lot from our utilitarian
mindset. The focus seems to be on stripping the planet we live on of
every trace of its beauty and mystery. There's nothing left to admire
or wonder about in our beloved world. We can't agree anymore with
Jasper Petulengro, who wrote, 'The sun, moon and stars are sweet
things, and so is the wind on the plain.' Instead, geography is
confined to the question of how and under what conditions the earth's
surface can turn a profit and be made comfortable for man to live on.
Students are no longer indulged in imagining themselves climbing Mt.
Rainier or Mount Everest, or skating on the fiords of Norway, or riding
a gondola in Venice. In the world of corporate profit, these things
don't count--all that matters is how and where and why money can be
made in any region's conditions anywhere on the surface of the planet.
Yet it's doubtful whether such teaching is effective, whether it even
makes any impression at all on students. The minds ruminates on great
ideas. Given great ideas, the mind can work to great ends. But if
education doesn't teach a child to wonder and admire, it probably
doesn't
teach him anything at all.
Probably the most enjoyable knowledge is when one has such a
familiarity with the earth's surface region by region, that a map of
any area unfolds a panorama of delight. A map of every part of this
beautiful earth not only brings to mind the great geographical features
like mountains and rivers, but associations, images of people busy at
different things both in history and in the present. In our schools, we
focus a lot of attention on map work. Before reading a lesson, children
find the places mentioned in the text on a map. They learn where they
are, their relativity to other places, and to specific parallels and
meridians. Since children don't think in generalities but in
pg 225
particulars, they read and picture in their minds places like the
Yorkshire Downs, the Sussex Downs, the mysteries of a coal mine. They
envision 'pigs' of iron flowing from a furnace, the bustle of the great
towns, the occupations of the villages. Students in Form II (both A and
B, grades 4-6) are busy working with a map of the counties of England.
They study one county at a time. The counties are so different in
geography, history and what the people do, that knowing England well
will provide children with a reference point to the geography of every
part of the world by either comparing or contrasting. For instance,
even now as I write this book, the students in Form IIA (grades 5/6)
are learning about the counties that touch the Thames basin. Part of
their work for the term is to 'write poetic verses about The
Thames.' H. W. Household's book Our Sea Power is very helpful in
linking England with the world using an enthusiastic account of our
navy's glorious history. The late Sir George Parkin, a highly qualified
authority, writes books that help transport students around the British
Empire. Students are left to their own devices to learn the facts that
are usually considered geography. For instance, students might be asked
to 'learn what you can about the political map of Europe after WWI.'
In Form III (grade 7), students still focus on their region, forming an
acquaintance with the countries of Europe. In this way, a map of any
country will make the child think of wonderful images in his mind's eye
of the variety in another place, and the people who live there--their
history and what they do. The only way to gain this kind of mental
picture is by taking the countries one at a time. Students begin with
an overview of the sea and shoreline of a continent, then they learn
about the country and its people--the language they speak, the history
of its people, its plains, mountains, rivers and basins. After
pg 226
such an overview, they should be able to answer questions like, 'Name
three rivers that flow into the Baltic Sea.' 'Which countries form the
southern and eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea?' 'Between what
parallels does Europe lie? What other continents lie partly within the
same parallels?' In this way, the young students become familiar with
the map of Europe before they begin to focus on the individual
countries.
The image we want to present of the individual countries in these
lessons should be, above all, interesting. At the same time, it should
give an intelligent and fairly thorough knowledge of the specific
country. Whatever else the child learns about the country will be
learned alongside this scheme. For example, they might also read 'The
Rhone Valley and the Border lands' (the fourth book of Charlotte
Mason's Ambleside Geography series):
'The warm, fertile Rhone Valley has a climate like the southern region
where grapes are grown, but even more plantations grow olives and
mulberries. We tend to think of southern France as the sunny south, but
a writer we quoted earlier says that it's 'bleak, grim and somber.' The
mulberry bushes are for feeding the silkworms that make the threads
that are made into silk in the factories of France. Lyons, the second
most important city in France, is the main place where silk is
manufactured, including velvets and satins. Lyons is situated on a
tongue of land where the rapid Rhone River meets the sluggish Saone
River. There are piers along the banks of both rivers.'
You can see from that portion of text how geographical facts are
casually worked in, similarly to the way someone actually traveling
through the country might come across them. In one term, students might
learn about Belgium, Holland, Spain and Portugal. There are many ways
in which these countries are interconnected. For example,
'Katwyck is on the seashore near Leyden, where the Rhine River is
nearing its end. A wide man-made channel provides no less than thirteen
pairs of enormous floodgates to help the river empty itself into the
sea. These floodgates are closed to keep the sea out when
pg 227
the tide is coming in, and opened to let the streams pass on their way
out to sea at low tide. Even with these impressive gates, the Rhine
River that was once so glorious makes a humble exit. The river's delta
might be said to be wide enough to cover the whole width of Holland.'
(Ambleside Geography, Book IV)
Notice that an attempt is made to give an exciting idea of the
country's natural features, its history, and its industries. In this
way, no country is merely a set of names on a map, or an outline of
contour shapes. Those kinds of generalizations aren't geography.
They're the kind of information that someone should draw a slow
conclusion about as they become intimate with a region. The geography
lessons need to have some literary character. What's new about these
lessons is the addition of map study, which should be very thorough.
For the other part of geography lessons, a single reading followed by
narration is enough, the same as with every other subject we've
discussed. Children can't tell about what they haven't seen in their
own minds with their imaginations. And they can't imagine what's in
their books unless their books are written with some vividness and some
grasp of the subject. You can see how thorough their map study is from
the questions on their term exam: 'Where in Belgium does the Scheldt
drain? Name any of the waterways that feed into it. Name ten famous
places in its basin. What port is at the head of its estuary?' The
little yet very literary book, Fighting
for Sea Power in the Days of
Sail, is a very enlightening book about the English Empire's
geography.
There are two rational ways to teach geography. The first is the inferential method, and it's
popular
right now. The student learns specific geographical principles, which
he will supposedly apply universally. But this seems defective to me
for two reasons. First, it can be misleading because every principle
has to be modified to fit specific places. Also, the regional color,
local historical and personal interest are
pg 228
missing, and the student doesn't form any kind of mental image or
personal associations about the place he's learning about. The second
way to teach geography is the panoramic
method. The landscape of the whole world is unrolled region by
region, right before the child's eyes. Every region is presented with
its own climate, its specific products, its people, what they do, and
their history. Geography is a fascinating subject, and this way of
teaching it seems to bring the area to life with brilliant color and a
wealth of detail along with a sense of proportion and familiarity with
general geographical principles. I don't think that pictures are very
useful in geography study. After all, as we all know, the images that
stay with us are the ones we construct in our own imaginations from
written descriptions.
The geography book (The Ambleside Geography, Book V by Charlotte Mason)
used in Form IV (grade 9) covers Asia, Africa, America and Australia.
The same principle is followed: vivid descriptions, geographical
information, historical details, and facts about the area's industry.
These are presented for the purpose of making an impression so
that the child feels like he 'owns' that region, like it's a possession
in his imagination. It also adds to the collective store of knowledge
in the mind from which to make future judgments. Students begin with a
survey of Asia, and then Asia is broken down into separate countries,
regions and geographical areas. So the part about Siberia says,
'All travelers admire the free peasants of Siberia. As soon as you
cross the Urals, you're surprised by the extreme friendliness and
cheerfulness of the people, and by the rich vegetation of the carefully
tended fields and the roads that are kept in such good condition in
southern Tobolsk.'
or,
'The shiny black soft thick fur of the otter is the most valuable of
the Russian skins. Next is the black fox. But even though the otter's
skin is a thousand times more valuable,
pg 229
the little gray squirrel is the most important fur to Siberian fur
traders. Millions of them are exported to other countries.'
Here's what it says about Further India:
'Pigou, the middle division, is really the huge delta of the Irrawaddy,
which is a low-lying land where huge quantities of rice are grown. On
the higher ground that walls in the great river, are forests where the
finest teak wood in the world grows.'
Africa comes after Asia, and students learn about David Livingston,
John Hanning Speke, Richard Burton, James Augustus Grant, etc. They
read about African village life. Chapters in that part of the book are
titled Abyssinia, Egypt, Up the Nile, The Sudan, The Sahara, The
Barbary Coast, South Africa, Cape Colony, The Islands. America is
studied next. Students learn about the discovery of the continent, the
geographical area of South America, the Andes and Mountain states of
Peru, Chili, and Bolivia. They learn about South America's Pampas
(great plains), Central America, North America, and Canada. They get a
historical sketch of the United States, the eastern states, the
Mississippi valley, the prairies, and the West. The section about the
eastern states says,
'Stretching the Allegheny mountain chain is the great Appalachian
coalfield. It extends through Pennsylvania, Virginia and Ohio for 720
miles. They say that there's enough coal there to supply the whole
world for 4000 years! There's an abundance of iron mixed with the coal.
Most of the coal is the kind called Anthracite. It burns very lowly
with no smoke, but it can dry out the humidity of a room. Sir Charles
Lyall visited the Pottsville coal field and said, 'I was pleasantly
surprised to find a flourishing manufacturing town here, with tall
smokestacks from a hundred furnaces burning continually, yet emitting
no smoke. And when we left this clean, clear atmosphere to go down into
one the mines, we were just as pleased to discover that we could pick
up and
handle the coal without getting our fingers dirty.'
That should be enough to indicate the kind of familiar intimacy that
Form IV (grade 9) students get in all the regions
pg 230
of the world and their terrain, landscape, history, industry and all
the things that affect climate and industry. Geikie's Physical
Geography does a good job introducing students to the principles of
physical geography.
Forms V and VI (grades 10-12) also have to keep up with current events
by reading the newspaper and finding out what's happening in the
country they're studying. Also, correlating to the period being studied
in history, readings are included like these books from one term: Sir
John Robert Seeley's Expansion of England, Sir T. W. Holderness's The Peoples and Problems of India,
Archibald Geikie's Elementary
Lessons in Physical Geography, Frederick Mort's Practical
Geography, and Kipling's Letters
of Travel. In these Forms, students
are expected to apply their knowledge to both practical and theoretical
geography, and to be able to use an atlas without the leading questions
that guide younger students.
(b)
Mathematics
The subject of math is usually very important to educators. As long as
the idea still prevailed that children's faculties needed to be
developed, it seemed good to focus a lot of attention on a subject that
could help develop the faculty of reasoning. But now we know that
children come with reasoning powers already born in them, and those
powers don't wait for training from us. They are there with or without
us. So if we want to make math the main focus and priority of
education, we'll have to find some other excuse to justify it. One
strong case for giving math a central place in our curriculum is
because of its truth and beauty. As John Ruskin points out, two and two
always make four and couldn't possibly make five. That's a truth, an
inevitable law. It's a
pg 231
great thing to come face to face with a law, with a whole natural law
system that exists and is true whether we agree with it or not. Two
straight lines can never enclose a space. That's a true fact that we
can grasp, say, and act upon--but there's nothing we can do to change
or
alter it. This kind of truth helps children have a healthy sense of
living with limitations, and inspires a reverent respect for natural
law.
Being persons of integrity in all our dealings depends on Mr Micawber's
[David Copperfield] golden rule
about living within our limits ["Annual
income twenty pounds, annual
expenditure nineteen nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual
income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six,
result misery."] But Harold Skimpole's [Bleak House, see this]
disregard for these things is a moral offense against society. The
mental challenge of math is good for us. Although it's true the body
needs more than strenuous aerobic exercise, some exercise is
invigorating and healthy. This is as true for the mind as it is for the
body.
But education needs balance. No single subject should assume greatest
importance at the expense of other subjects that a child needs to know
about. Math is easy to test, and as long as education is ruled by test
scores, we'll have teaching focused on training exactness and solving
problems efficiently, instead of teaching to awaken a sense of awe in
contemplating a field of knowledge where perfection lives with or
without us.
Some will ask what's wrong with training exactness and problem-solving.
But these qualities developed in math lessons don't carry over into
other departments of our lives. If they did, then math would be the
best way to get a total education. But that's not the case. The habits
and powers trained for one specific educational subject will only work
for that subject. The anecdote about Sir Isaac Newton making a large
opening in his door for his large cat, and a small one for his small
cat illustrates this. It isn't that his mind had a mental lapse, but
his greatness was in a specialized area and didn't carry over to
everything else he thought about. Specialized training only makes a
person qualified to work
pg 232
in that specialized field. It's not uncommon to hear about a challenged
student who takes to Bradshaw [railroad
schedules and routes], or an accountant who's
gifted at numbers but unable to function at anything else.
A boy can get straight A's in math, and yet not do well in history
because the accuracy and problem-solving skills developed while doing
his sums will only apply to working on his math worksheets. How
valuable is math to everyday life? Those of us who never excelled in
math will heartily agree with the respected military staff officer who
said,
'I've never found that math, beyond simple addition, made any
difference to my life except when taking my staff entrance exam. As far
as the claim that math provides the challenge of mental exercise and
training in accuracy, I don't agree that math is the most effective to
develop that.'
Most of us have always believed that understanding the theory and
practice of battle strategy depends on math. So it's worth considering
the officer's words above. Our basic point is that math should be
studied for its own sake, not for the purpose of making the mind
smarter or quicker. Math is profoundly worthy of study for its own
sake, and because it's connected to other equally noble subjects.
We should strive for balance when putting together a curriculum,
remembering that a brilliant mathematician who knows nothing about the
history of his own country or any other isn't very well educated.
Yet we can't overlook the fact that genius has rights of its own. A
mathematical genius should be allowed to pursue nothing but math, even
if it means sacrificing other subjects that any person should learn. He
will be naturally driven to solve math problems, and he should be
indulged. He won't even need very much laborious teaching, a lot will
come easily to him. But not very many students are math whizzes. Why
should they be pressured to focus on math as if they were? And why
should a person's success depend on his skill at one thing--the
drudgery of math?
pg 233
The tendency of our universities is to deny students entrance if they
aren't strong in math., which means denying them the opportunity to get
some jobs. So students who aren't gifted in math have to expend extra
time and effort trying to excel at something they have no natural
talent for--all the while neglecting the humanities that they're better
equipped for. That hardly makes for the balanced, liberal education we
hope for.
As a case in point, the bold claims of the London Matriculation exam
[this must be like our SAT's] are acknowledged by many teachers to be
out of step with the concept of
a broad education.
Math, more than any other subject, depends on the teacher rather than
on the textbook [because it's easier
to grasp a math concept when you see it being explained and used,
rather than trying to grasp it from reading a book?] Yet few
subjects are taught worse, mostly because teachers don't usually have
time to give the inspiring ideas that quicken the student's
imagination. Coleridge calls those inspiring ideas the 'Captain' ideas.
Imagine how interesting and alive geometry would seem if students also
knew about Euclid and his trials and challenges in discovering
geometric principles!
To summarize, math is a necessary part of any education. It needs to be
taught by someone who knows math. But math shouldn't take up so much
time and attention that other subjects have to be squeezed out. Knowing
about those other subjects is every student's natural right.
It's not necessary to exhibit any student math work, since it's the
same kind of work that other schools are doing, and reaches the same
standard. Having the habit of paying attention undoubtedly gives our
PUS students an advantage.
(c)
Physical Development and Handicrafts
It's not necessary to say anything about games,
pg 234
dancing, physical exercise, needlework or any other handicrafts since
our schools aren't doing anything unusually extraordinary in those
subjects. [To see what our schools are doing, look at some Parents
Union School Programme schedules.]
Form I (roughly grades 1-3)
Form II (roughly grades 4-6)
Form III and IV (roughly grades 7-9)
Form V and VI (roughly grades 10-12)
(Actual book/subject lists from 1921 can be seen here.)