I finished Charlotte Mason’s Parents and Children today. I did get a bit bogged down in this one, and there were definitely some parts where she and I don’t see eye-to-eye, but it was worth pushing through and gleaning gems like this very convicting passage:
Humility does not think much or little of itself; it does not think of itself at all. It is a negative rather than a positive quality, being an absence of self-consciousness rather than the presence of any distinctive virtue. The person who is unaware of himself is capable of all lowly service, of all suffering for others, of bright cheerfulness under all the small crosses and worries of everyday life. This is the quality that makes heroes, and this is the quality that makes saints. We are able to pray, but we are hardly able to worship or to praise, to say, ‘ My soul doth magnify the Lord,’ so long as in the innermost chamber of our hearts we are self-occupied.
As to books, Charlotte Mason and I are definitely on the same page 😉 :
One more thing is of vital importance; children must have books, living books; the best are not too good for them; anything less than the best is not good enough; and if it is needful to exercise economy, let go everything that belongs to soft and luxurious living before letting go the duty of supplying the books, and the frequent changes of books, which are necessary for the constant stimulation of the child’s intellectual life.
Now I have to decide whether to tackle Home Education, which I started and stopped years ago; or to dive into the copy of In Memoriam: A Tribute to Charlotte Mason that arrived today. Maybe I’ll start them both and see which one grabs me.
 of the Day: On Humility and Books "Pinterest")
