School plans and fortitude (Dollygirl's Grade 7)

This is a short week because Monday is a holiday. The Apprentice is here for a few days too because it's reading week.  On Friday, a local museum is offering cheap admission for homeschooled kids, and parents get in free.  So we'll have to fit school in from Tuesday to Thursday.

In Ourselves Book Two, we will finish the chapter on Fortitude (don't show off your suffering like the lady in Our Mutual Friend who tied a black ribbon around her face*).  And look what pops up at the end of that paragraph on page 47: "...it would not be a bad plan to keep a note-book recording the persons and incidents that give a filip to conscience in this matter of Fortitude." This is one of the incidental notebooks mentioned in The Living Page.  Really, it's not hard to come up with good literary examples, in both children's and adult literature. Charlotte even suggests a list of examples on the same page. Charlotte also answers any objection to why she has placed "fortitude" under the heading of the "house of body" rather than the mind or the heart; she says that "it is in the body we must endure hardness, and the training comes in the cheerful bearing of small matters not worth mentioning."  In other words, we're not entitled never to feel cold, or tired, or hungry, or overworked, or unwell, and it's a mark of maturity to be realize that and to put up with at least some discomfort without complaining.  I'm always impressed by the characters, even children, on long journeys, in books like Narnia and Lord of the Rings, who sleep wherever it's safest and eat (mostly) what's available along the road.  It's people like whiny Cousin Eustace who spoil the adventure by fussing over hard beds and no lunch.

What else is up this week?  "Bacterial Growth" in science class.  "Quebec Culture and Pea Soup" in French.  Sounds like the makings of a bread and soup meal sometime in the week (or maybe a batch of yogurt).

We move on to Henry the First in English history.  More chapters from Ivanhoe, Watership Down, and Tolkien.  A lesson from Plutarch's Life of Demosthenes; more Bible study on the topic of salvation; an alliterative poetry assignment; and some work in math.  If we get all that done in three days, I'll be very content.

*I am not sure that Charlotte remembered the details of Our Mutual Friend quite exactly here; Mrs Wilfer does go around with a handkerchief tied around her head, but not a black ribbon that I know of.

Illustration found here.