From the archives: Charlotte Mason and the great wide road

First posted October 2011 (links updated)

This week's Charlotte Mason blog carnival combines a Parent's Review article with Chapter IV of Towards a Philosophy of Education, "The Basis of National Strength." The theme common to them both seems to be delight--delight in knowledge, and delight in life, as opposed to indifference and a constant need for others to entertain us.

"....I write as an old woman who remembers how in the [eighteen-] sixties and seventies "countenance" was much talked of; "an intelligent countenance," "a fine countenance," "a noble countenance," were matters of daily comment. The word has dropped out of use; is it because the thing signified has dropped out of existence? Countenance is a manifestation of thought, feeling, intelligence; and it is none of these, but stolid indifference combined with physical well-being, that we read in many faces to-day."--Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education

"In order that the flavour and scent of existence may not be lost, we must have within ourselves some consciousness of this impelling power that may lead us to travel deliberately through our ages, realizing that the most wonderful adventures are not those which we go forth to seek. We shall then, perhaps, have some glimmering idea of what [Robert Louis] Stevenson himself meant when he said, "whether the past day was wise or foolish, to-morrow's travel will carry me body and mind into some different parish of the infinite." The conception of ourselves and our children as citizens of the "parish of the infinite" is undoubtedly one that must give us pause."  -- "The Open Road," by Frances Blogg (also known as Mrs. G.K. Chesterton), in The Parent's Review, Volume 11, 1900, pgs. 772-774

In this chapter, which was originally published in the London Times, Charlotte Mason talks about the countenance showing our interest in or indifference to the world, and how that affects the spirit of the nation.  She points out, though, that genuinely educated people are "not brought up for the uses of society only."  We are not cogs or dogs, as Mary Pride has termed it; not bricks in the wall.  Frances Blogg talks about life that retains its flavour and scent, that is more than mere existence.  We are given thoughts from Mr. Burns (the cabinet minister, not the cartoon character) and Socrates:

"Now personal delight, joy in living, is a chief object of education; Socrates conceived that knowledge is for pleasure, in the sense, not that knowledge is one source, but is the source of pleasure.  It is for their own sakes that children should get knowledge."--Philosophy, p. 302

In other words, education is for us.  For our own selves, for the children, and any interested others.  This is why Charlotte Mason emphasizes many books, important books, living books--because studying those books gives us power to think clearly, to make good judgments (meaning, for the good of society), and finally, to give us a life that is more than just passing time.  "But to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God."  She mentions, as she always does, that we don't respect or really love children by keeping their educational prospects arid, confined, shallow; we need to allow them to swim out deeper, to climb higher, and to go around more unknown corners than they have been generally allowed.

"Education, then, to [Stevenson] was a journey, full of the delights of wide landscape, fresh invigorating air, or alternate sunshine and shadow, the great wide road stretching infinitely before--leading to that heart of its own, the beat of which he so longed to hear. There can be no liberal education when the eyes are closed or the ears sealed. In this, as in everything else, the wayfarer must live to the full extent of his being. Pitfalls he must find on that journey, blind paths perhaps, but through it all the philosophy of belief in the essential goodness, the actual significance of things created, the state of being 'in love with life.'"--Frances Blogg

P.S. for Charlotte Mason trivia seekers:  who is this Mr. Burns she quotes on page 300?  My guess.

From a VIA train, on the edge of Toronto (photo post)

FASTER than fairies, 

faster than witches,

Bridges and houses, 

hedges and ditches;

And charging along 

like troops in a battle,

All through the meadows 

the horses and cattle:

All of the sights of the hill and the plain

Fly as thick as driving rain;

And ever again, in the wink of an eye,

Painted stations whistle by.

Here is a child who clambers and scrambles,

All by himself and gathering brambles;

Here is a tramp who stands and gazes;

And there is the green for stringing the daisies!

Here is a cart run away in the road

Lumping along with man and load;

And here is a mill and there is a river:

Each a glimpse and gone for ever!

 ~~ "From a Railway Carriage," Robert Louis Stevenson

Date night: rummage saling

Mr. Fixit and I had some time together this afternoon and into the evening, with everyone else off doing other things. We drove to the antique market in the town where I grew up. Mr. Fixit found a radio to clean up, and I got a copy of Robert Louis Stevenson's Virginibus Puerisque and Other Papers. If that sounds familiar, check out the quotations in the sidebar.

We went out for some dinner and then to a rummage sale. The Eugenia Price books are in honour of my grandma, who always had a few of them around.

Christmas stationery in a nice box

A little tray to go with the cards. The coins are just to show the size (it's hard to tell in a photo).

And then it's off to Lydia's school to pick her up from Grade Nine Night. There is a meet-and-greet for the parents as well.

Welcome, weekend!

It's Advent Not Christmas (Day 11): If you're not simply having a wonderful Christmas time, at least you're not hauling frozen ropes...right?

If the moving finger writes, and having writ moves on, to quote Omar Khayyam and Rudolph's Shiny New Year...sometimes it's a GOOD thing that we can't bring back the past.  Because some of it, we wouldn't want to.

Like sitting in your great-aunt's living room, opening Christmas presents, wearing a big horizontal-striped top (with a boatneck, natch), accessorized with big hair and braces.  Some of that 1982ishness, we don't need to bring back.

Or a holiday season that, for whatever reason, was really bad.  Really lonely, really scary, or really hopeless. Maybe by the next year things were better, but that particular December--no, that's not the kind people write songs about.

Or maybe they do.  Starting with Elvis and Blue Christmas...moving through whatever teary song is playing on the country station or even the Christian station (can you say Christmas Shoes?), through the depressing lyrics of John Lennon ("So this is Christmas, and what have you done?, another year over...") and Band-Aid ("Do they know it's Christmas?").  I have to tell you, a whole lot of years ago I was in a very small music group, and we wrote our own Christmas song, about lonely people needing love.  For a long time afterwards I was kind of embarrassed even to remember that song, thinking it was pretty maudlin and wasn't very good...but considering some of the stuff I've heard on all-Christmas radio, it probably could have held its own.

But anyway, if you want to cheer up and think about all the ways that your December holidays--past or present--could be worse...you really need to listen to Sting's version of Robert Louis Stevenson's "Christmas at Sea."  A sample of the lyrics:

And well I knew the talk they had, the talk that was of me,
Of the shadow on the household and the son that went to sea;
And O the wicked fool I seemed, in every kind of way,
To be here and hauling frozen ropes on blessed Christmas Day.

Quote for the Day: Virginia Haviland on dumbed-down books

"We must all recognize that factors other than word count-the look of the page, the space between lines, the amount of illustration and size of margins-contribute to making a book easy to read.

"Again we may ask whether we are being attracted to fool’s gold by a false snob appeal of the term 'classic,' if we accept abridgements and watering-down of texts because we believe that the slow or lazy child must read Alice in Wonderland or Treasure Island in one form or another. Is it not dishonest to allow children to think they are truly reading the classics when they read them in abbreviated form?"

--Virginia Haviland, "Search for the real thing: Among the “millions and billions” of books," Library Journal, 1961. Quoted in "Initiative and Influence: The Contributions of Virginia Haviland to Children’s Services, Research, and Writing,"  by Karen Patricia Smith.

The great wide road, the adventure we are given: a sort of manifesto

This week's Charlotte Mason blog carnival combines a Parent's Review article with Chapter IV of Towards a Philosophy of Education, "The Basis of National Strength." The theme common to them both seems to be delight--delight in knowledge, and delight in life, as opposed to indifference and a constant need for others to entertain us.

"....I write as an old woman who remembers how in the [eighteen-] sixties and seventies "countenance" was much talked of; "an intelligent countenance," "a fine countenance," "a noble countenance," were matters of daily comment. The word has dropped out of use; is it because the thing signified has dropped out of existence? Countenance is a manifestation of thought, feeling, intelligence; and it is none of these, but stolid indifference combined with physical well-being, that we read in many faces to-day."--Charlotte Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education

"In order that the flavour and scent of existence may not be lost, we must have within ourselves some consciousness of this impelling power that may lead us to travel deliberately through our ages, realizing that the most wonderful adventures are not those which we go forth to seek. We shall then, perhaps, have some glimmering idea of what [Robert Louis] Stevenson himself meant when he said, "whether the past day was wise or foolish, to-morrow's travel will carry me body and mind into some different parish of the infinite." The conception of ourselves and our children as citizens of the "parish of the infinite" is undoubtedly one that must give us pause."  -- "The Open Road," by Frances Blogg (also known as Mrs. G.K. Chesterton), in The Parent's Review, Volume 11, 1900, pgs. 772-774

In this chapter, which was originally published in the London Times, Charlotte Mason talks about the countenance showing our interest in or indifference to the world, and how that affects the spirit of the nation.  She points out, though, that genuinely educated people are "not brought up for the uses of society only."  We are not cogs or dogs, as Mary Pride has termed it; not bricks in the wall.  Frances Blogg talks about life that retains its flavour and scent, that is more than mere existence.  We are given thoughts from Mr. Burns (the cabinet minister, not the cartoon character) and Socrates:

"Now personal delight, joy in living, is a chief object of education; Socrates conceived that knowledge is for pleasure, in the sense, not that knowledge is one source, but is the source of pleasure.  It is for their own sakes that children should get knowledge."--Philosophy, p. 302

In other words, education is for us.  For our own selves, for the children, and any interested others.  This is why Charlotte Mason emphasizes many books, important books, living books--because studying those books gives us power to think clearly, to make good judgments (meaning, for the good of society), and finally, to give us a life that is more than just passing time.  "But to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God."  She mentions, as she always does, that we don't respect or really love children by keeping their educational prospects arid, confined, shallow; we need to allow them to swim out deeper, to climb higher, and to go around more unknown corners than they have been generally allowed.

"Education, then, to [Stevenson] was a journey, full of the delights of wide landscape, fresh invigorating air, or alternate sunshine and shadow, the great wide road stretching infinitely before--leading to that heart of its own, the beat of which he so longed to hear. There can be no liberal education when the eyes are closed or the ears sealed. In this, as in everything else, the wayfarer must live to the full extent of his being. Pitfalls he must find on that journey, blind paths perhaps, but through it all the philosophy of belief in the essential goodness, the actual significance of things created, the state of being 'in love with life.'"--Frances Blogg

Wednesday already? This and that, and dialing for dinner (not pizza)

The week has been busy...everybody's been making things, and Ponytails the Photographer is going to post some photos soon.

The crazy radio stations that play Christmas music too early (and the same songs over and over) are still good for something. Yesterday afternoon Mama Squirrel happened to turn THAT station on, and the nice announcer invited her to phone in and be caller number three...and tell him what comes after "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire." So Mama Squirrel obediently dialed the phone, said "Jack Frost nipping at your nose," and won dinner for two. How about that?

Mama Squirrel and Crayons are one chapter away from finishing Kidnapped. Crayons was not pleased to leave Alan knocking at David's uncle's door at the end of yesterday's reading, but that's what suspense is for. We are also almost finished the biography of Stevenson, and one unit from the end of Grade 3 Light Blue Math Mammoth. Mr. Fixit has ordered the download of Grade 4 so we should be ready to go with that soon.

And we are all putting in extra time on Latin. This is part of this week's lesson:

"Benedic, Domine, nos et haec tua dona, quae de tua largitate sumus sumpturi. Per Christum, Dominum nostrum. Amen."

Virtual saccharum if you know what that means.

An addition to Crayons' Grade 4 Literature

I forgot we had a copy of this: Life of Robert Louis Stevenson For Boys and Girls, by Jacqueline Overton. I think we can fit that one in, or at least part of it. There are so many Stevenson books and poems that are part of our school that it's good to be able to connect them a bit.

Book sale finds

This weekend was the big annual used book sale! We found:

Two volumes of Best in Children's Books that we didn't have

Maggie Rose: Her Birthday Christmas, by Ruth Sawyer, pictures by Maurice Sendak

The Illustrated Cider With Rosie, by Laurie Lee

Far to Go, by Noel Streatfeild (paperback in pretty rough shape)

Thomasina, by Paul Gallico

Figgs & Phantoms, by Ellen Raskin

The Dolls' House, by Rumer Godden (we have a copy but I couldn't pass it up)

The Jungle Books Vol. 2, by Rudyard Kipling

The Street of the Flower Boxes, by Peggy Mann

Aunt Charlotte's Stories of Bible History, by Charlotte M. Yonge

Gateways to Bookland (a reader)

Life of Robert Louis Stevenson for Boys and Girls, by Jacqueline Overton, with a gift inscription from 1915

Cape Breton Harbour, by Edna Staebler

Kingfishers Catch Fire, by Rumer Godden (one of her adult novels)

A Severe Mercy, by Sheldon Vanauken (a nicer copy than the one we have)

The Jesus I Never Knew, by Philip Yancey

The Oxford Book of English Verse 1250-1918, Chosen and Edited by Sir Arthur Quiller-Couch (1948 printing)

The Golden Treasury of the Best Songs and Lyrical Poems in the English Language, Selected and Arranged with Notes by Francis Turner Palgrave

Two older books of poetry that Crayons picked out


For the Scholastic shelf:

Ginnie and the Mystery Doll

Ginnie and the Mystery House

Kid Sister, by Margaret Embry

Another Child's Garden of Verses

Remember all our copies of A Child's Garden of Verses?

We picked up another one at the library sale last weekend. This one is also from the 1970's and it's illustrated by Erik Blegvad. But I can't find an online picture, so I guess we'll have to take our own. I can't even find a good website that shows a lot of Blegvad's illustrations (you have to search by "Eric" as well as "Erik" to find much). But he illustrated piles of picture books along with the Miss Bianca series and The Gammage Cup, so it's not hard to find something that shows his style.

This version is not all that exciting, maybe, but it's very nice, if that makes sense. It includes 24 of the poems, with pictures of children in Victorian clothes (lots of sailor hats). The one we like best is for "Pirate Story." It shows three children in a basket in the middle of a huge field of waving grass; it's perfect for "And waves are on the meadows like the waves there are at sea." Crayons is fascinated by their Jolly Roger flag attached to an upside-down broom in the basket; she wants to know where they got the flag, how they're keeping it upright (she figured out that one of the children is holding on to it), and how they attached the flag to the broomstick (and if they've permanently destroyed the broom: should I be worried about our cleaning tools now?)). The only issue I have with that picture is that the text is hard to read in the middle of all that grass; but the other pages in the book don't have the problem.

I still like some of our others better, but this one, even though it again doesn't have a large selection of the poems, is a good one to get started with.

A Child's Garden of Verses

My grandma (who would have been 98 this year) told me that the first poem she ever memorized in school was "The Cow," from Robert Louis Stevenson's A Child's Garden of Verses.

This is the edition of A Child's Garden of Verses that I had when I was small. (The illustrations are by Elizabeth Webbe.) I remember Grandma reading it to me, and learning "My holes were empty like a cup / In every hole the sea came up / till it could come no more." I knew all about that--we used to holiday at the beach too.

This is the book that The Apprentice had, illustrated by the Provensens, except hers is in a boring library binding. I taught her a tune to "The Wind" years ago, and we still sing it sometimes.

We had a rather poorly printed copy of this red one for awhile, but nobody paid much attention to it.

The lady next door also gave The Apprentice a copy of Donna Green's Leaves From a Child's Garden of Verses, with lovely paintings of tea parties.

And there are so many other editions out there, like those illustrated by Jessie Wilcox Smith, Brian Wildsmith, Tasha Tudor, Gyo Fujikawa...

But this is Crayons' favourite, and I think it's very nice too. It's a Golden Book, published in 1978--not the Little Golden Book edition illustrated by Eloise Wilkin, but the bigger one illustrated by Susan Bonners. The faces of the children in this book aren't the most beautiful. But the fairies in the garden are adorable, particularly a little person in purple who is putting two fairy babies to bed in flower cups. Crayons thinks her purple dress must be made from one of the flowers in the picture.

The other interesting thing about all these editions is that most of them don't contain all the poems in Stevenson's original text. If you don't count the dedication he wrote to his nanny, the Project Gutenberg e-text contains forty-one poems in the first section, plus nine in a block called "The Child Alone," eight called "Garden Days," and six more personal-note kind of poems called "Envoys."

Bonners' book starts with To Any Reader, and then contains The Swing, Foreign Lands, My Ship and I, Where Go the Boats?, Bed in Summer, My Shadow, Block City, Rain, The Flowers, The Hayloft, Farewell to the Farm, Autumn Fires, Windy Nights, Winter-Time, Picture-Books in Winter, The Land of Counterpane, The Land of Nod, Nest Eggs, Young Night-Thought, and The Moon. (21 poems.)

The Provensens' edition (also published by Golden Press) also starts with To Any Reader and includes several of the common poems, but also has several that Bonners' book doesn't have: At the Sea-Side, Travel, The Wind, The Land of Story-Books, From a Railway Carriage, A Good Play, The Cow, Looking Forward, The Little Land, Whole Duty of Children, Singing, The Dumb Soldier, My Kingdom, Time to Rise, Fairy Bread, Pirate Story, My Bed is a Boat, The Lamplighter, and Escape at Bedtime. (32 poems in all.)

Neither of them contains the poem to Alison Cunningham (Stevenson's nurse), A Thought, Auntie's Skirts, System, A Good Boy, Marching Song, The Happy Thought, Keepsake Mill, Good and Bad Children, Foreign Children, The Sun Travels, Looking-Glass River, North-West Passage, The Unseen Playmate, My Treasures, Armies in the Fire, Night and Day, Summer Sun, The Gardener, Historical Associations, and the "envoys" except for "To Any Reader." Some of this is with very good reason: "Little Indian, Sioux, or Crow /Little frosty Eskimo / Little Turk or Japanee, / Oh! don't you wish that you were me?" (Foreign Children) But there are a few treasures tucked into those others as well: "Happy hearts and happy faces, / Happy play in grassy places-- / That was how in ancient ages, / Children grew to kings and sages." (Good and Bad Children) And can we debate the theology behind this one?:

"System"

Every night my prayers I say,
And get my dinner every day;
And every day that I've been good,
I get an orange after food.

The child that is not clean and neat,
With lots of toys and things to eat,
He is a naughty child, I'm sure--
Or else his dear papa is poor.
---------------------------

Well, anyway...I can't narrow it down to one favourite. Because if I said we could only keep the Provensens' version, then we'd be missing out on "Fair are grown-up people's trees, / But the fairest woods are these; / Where, if I were not so tall, / I should live for good and all." Not the mention the purple-gowned fairy that goes with it. And "The kirk and the palace, the ships and the men, / And as long as I live and where'er I may be, / I'll always remember my town by the sea." But how can you have A Child's Garden without The Lamplighter and Escape at Bedtime?

So it's settled. We'll keep them all.