Charlotte Mason Book Review

Book Review: Home Education by Charlotte M. Mason

“I am, I ought, I can, I will.” Charlotte Mason’s motto provides stepping stones along which young persons travel in order to become adults. The first volume of Charlotte Mason’s Original Home Schooling Series is for “training and educating children under nine.” None of my children is under nine. However, I have been determined to read Mason’s classic series for some years. I was pleasantly surprised to learn that our very own homeschool group's library owns the entire series. I seized the opportunity and began, of course, at the beginning. I enjoyed learning the basis on which Mason built her “House of Education.” I no longer need the chapters on how to teach my child to read. But I have been encouraged to get back to basics like teaching good habits and enjoying my children.

What I first noticed about the book was the excellent writing. Mason is intelligent, well-educated and passionate about her subject. A book written by someone like that is nourishing for the brain! She quotes research and lecturers on certain topics such as “Mr Thisleton Mark—whose able paper on ‘Moral Education in American Schools’ offers matter for much profitable reflection—“ (p. 197). She also quotes Wordsworth and other poets to illuminate her points.

Home Education is not purely academic, however. Mason gives plenty of practical ideas. Her simply brilliant idea, “a bag of beans, counters, or buttons should be used in all the early arithmetic lessons,” would have made my math teaching so much clearer (p. 256). She also recommends the best type of fabric to wear for outdoor romping (wool).

Mason does not approach education as a battle. She says over and over again that lessons should be short (ten minutes for arithmetic)! Mother and children should spend the afternoon “out of doors” where Mother should “refrain from too much talk” (p. 78). She should enjoy the people that her children are becoming. She may occasionally point out to the children one of God’s creations.

Charlotte Mason’s theories of education assume the sovereignty of God. She is unapologetic about the fact that God exists and is in charge of everything. This belief is woven naturally into every subject. Nature study means admiring not just God’s beautiful work, but his “beautiful thoughts” (p. 79). In the preface she says that, “the knowledge of God is the principal knowledge, and the chief end of education.” The latter part of the book is dedicated to the “Divine Life” of the child.

Published in 1886, this book teaches history indirectly. I was delighted to read Mason’s evaluation of the newfangled Kindergarten. She supports the principles of the Kindergarten, where “the child’s senses are carefully and progressively trained” (p.179). She concludes, however, that mothers can bring about such training just as effectively at home.

I am thankful that Charlotte Mason recommends books by name throughout her writing. I plan to compile a list of all the books she mentions. They may be out of print by this time, but having the title and authors’ names will give me a good start on acquiring these children’s classics.

There is really only one difficulty about this book. Since it is dated, some advice is obsolete. For example, most of us do not need to worry about our children picking up bad habits from the servants (p. 18). However, we know that people are the same throughout the ages. Mason’s insights into human nature can still help us teach our children today.

I hope every home schooling parent will read Home Education, the first book in the Original Home Schooling Series by Charlotte Mason. It stirs the mind, the heart and the hands!