One of the Charlotte Mason’s goals in giving children a generous curriculum was that they would know how to wisely spend the ‘leisure time’ she forsaw all classes – not just the wealthy – having (a theme she repeats at greater length in A Philosophy of Education). It is an even greater concern in our time, with all the easy distractions surrounding us (I’m preaching to myself here!).
She continues:
Interests are not to be taken up on the spur of the moment; they spring out of the affinities which we have found and laid hold of. And the object of education is, I take it, to give children the use of as much of the world as may be.
Also in the more-things-change-the-more-they-stay-the-same department:
Never were there more able and devoted teachers, whether as the heads or on the staffs of schools of all classes. Money, labour, and research are freely spent on education, theory is widely studied, and pains are taken to learn what is done elsewhere; yet there is something amiss beyond that ‘divine discontent’ which leads to effort.
Just two chapters of School Education left to go!
Also read or listened to this week:
- Hubby: still reading The High House by James Stoddard
- Me: You Are What You Love by James K.A. Smith (it’s my current Sunday read)
- Miss A: The Murder of Roger Ackroyd by Agatha Christie (audiobook)
- Mr. D: Bad News for Outlaws by Vonda Micheaux Nelson
- Mr. E: Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll – finished it yesterday, and I think he enjoyed it. 🙂
- Little L: Blueberries for Sal from Make Way for McCloskey: A Robert McCloskey Treasury
- Little R: Happy Jack and the Princess (no longer in print, but a fun story)
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