Books for Political Philosophy

Dear Reader,

My oldest (just finishing up 11th grade) has an interest in political science so, at his request, I created a course for him this year in what is probably best termed political philosophy. I looked at the AP comparative government course but it requires one to know a lot about and to then compare specific countries. This is not really what I was looking for for him. My goal instead was to have him delve into the ideas behind government. The overall plan for the course was fairly simple: read and narrate a bunch of books and then write a term paper at the end. As I write this, the term paper is still in the final stages (due Friday!), but his reading for the year is finishing up so I thought I would share with you the books we found for studying political philosophy.

I used two more textbook-y books as spine books: A Short History of Western Civilization by Sullivan, Sherman, and Harrison and Political Science: A Comparative Introduction by Hague and Harrop. Honestly, this is not a subject I ever studied in an organized way and I was hesitant about it. I chose these books to make sure we weren’t missing any big concepts. I only had my son read selections and though he did one or the other of them most days, the readings were using around 5 pages so it was not overly burdensome or a big part of what he was doing.

For these and many of the other books, I had him make notes rather than do a straight narration. We began the year by sitting down together and trying to come up with questions we might ask about any government. We came up with a list of 10 or so along the lines of: Who is in charge? Where does power come from? How does the government relate to the religion? I then encouraged him for each era, place, or philosopher he read about to think about these questions and to make notes answering them. I consider this a focused narration. In some sense, you could say we are starting with some sense of the ideas we expect to find, rather than just narrating and hoping ideas rise to the surface. I don’t know how Charlotte Mason would have felt about this, but I think it is an approach that works well for this subject.

Our approach was mainly chronological so we began by looking at the Greeks and Romans. (Egyptians and Ancient Near East were covered in his Western Civilization spine but not in other reading.) Our book for this was The Ancient City; a study on the religion, laws and institutions of Greece and Rome by Fusel du Coulanges. This is a dense book so I did go through it ahead of time and select passages for him to read. Because the goal of this course is to study the theory of government, we weren’t interested in every twist and turn in the government of each of these places, but more in the big trends and the reasons for them.

For the Middle Ages, we used On the Medieval Origins of the Modern State by Strayer. This is a thin book. I didn’t want to get too bogged down in this time period so it was a perfect fit. Moving into modern times, I had him read two slim volumes: The British Constitution: A Very Short Introduction by Loughlin and Magna Carta: A Short Introduction by Vincent.

Because I found it for free, we used On Democracy by Robert Dahl. This is a history of democracy and discussion of its pros and cons.

As we moved into modern times, our focus became more on philosophies and theories than on events and places. I came up with a list of major political philosophers and we read the relevant portions from various books. The philosophers we looked at were (in order):

Machiavelli, Luther and Calvin, Hobbes, Descartes, Locke, Hume, Rousseau and Bastiat, Kant, The Federalist, Burke, de Tocqueville, Hegel, Marx, Hitler, and Nietzsche.

The books we used were:

History of Political Philosophy by Strauss and Cropsey — A thick book of the college textbook sort, but well-written if dense. I usually skimmed through each section and marked specific paragraphs and sections for my son to read since it is so dense. The style is relatively engaging, however, and the tone is friendly to our beliefs.

10 Books that Screwed up the World and 10 Books Every Conservative Must Read by Benjamin Wiker — These are excellent books and every student should read them whether they are studying political philosophy or not. We didn’t do every chapter in them, just the ones relevant to politics. For 10 Books that Screwed Up we used the audio- book. It was very well done. The reader had the perfect tone for it. I would look for any of Wiker’s other books as well (he has one on the periodic table we have used).

The Consequences of Ideas by R.C. Sproul — Similar to Wiker’s books. I didn’t love this one quite as much but it is still very good and worth having any child read. We used the audio-book version again (we had a lot of car time this year).

We ended our reading for the year with some books from a particular perspective; our denomination (the RPCNA) traces its roots to the Scottish covenanters and historically is very committed to the idea of Christ’s mediatorial kingship over the nations. This principle is laid out in William Symington’s Messiah the Prince.  There is a simplified and updated version called Messiah the Prince Revisited. I read both and opted to have my son read only the original. I found that in the revised version the arguments are simplified to the degree that they don’t come through clearly. But if you are having problems understanding the original, you could read it side by side with the newer version. A more accessible book is Founding Sins by Joseph S. Moore. This is a wonderful book. Again, one everyone should read. If you think the US was founded as a Christian nation, you need to read this book.

That is all the books we used. As I said, the year ended with a term paper designed to pull from many of these sources.

Nebby

 

 

“The Greatness of the Child as a Person”

Dear Reader,

This is a follow-up to an earlier post on a Charlotte Mason article originally published in 1911 — “Children are Born Persons.” Charlotte Mason Poetry recently republished this article online (here). As I have been looking at Charlotte Mason’s principles in the light of Scripture, I thought I should address the ideas in this article as they touch on both her first principle (for which the article is named) plus many others.

Where we are and how we got there

I began this series by looking at what it means to be a Charlotte Mason purist and why we should care. The big take-away from that post was that because Charlotte claims that her philosophy is based in divine law, we should, if we accept this basis, adhere as closely as possible to her philosophy as being so founded. But that is a big “if” so I turned my attention to seeing if Charlotte’s philosophy is indeed in line with divine law as far as we can know it. This divine law is known to us from both special revelation, i.e. the Scriptures, and from general revelation, that which we can discern from God’s creation through science and observation. I am not equipped to evaluate all the science behind her philosophy but I do think we can hold her principles up to Scripture and ask if they are “agreeable to and founded upon the Scriptures.” Thus far, I have looked at her first principle (and a side post on the image of God), her 20th principle and her second principle in three parts (see: part 1, part 2 and part 3).

My most recent post in this series is a return to the first principle based on the article I mentioned above. In that post, following Art Middlekauff who has written on the article for Charlotte Mason Poetry, I delineated four points that Charlotte makes relating to the proposition that “children are born persons“:

1. “the greatness of the child as a person”
2. “the liberty that is due to him as a person”
3. “some forms of oppression which interfere with his proper liberty”
4. “the aliment which he is to live by – Admiration, Hope and Love”

I looked briefly at numbers 2 through 4 but left most of the discussion of the first point — “the greatness of the child as a person” — for another time as it is a large topic that I want to be able to delve into.

What Charlotte Mason Means

As has been my habit, I would like to begin by looking at how Charlotte explains her own idea; what does she mean when she speaks of “the greatness of the child as a person”? This concept is addressed in various points throughout her six-volume Home Education series but I find its explanation in the 1911 article to be her most concise and deliberate treatment so I will focus on what she has to say in that article.

Charlotte begins her discussion by quoting the poet Wordsworth who, she says, expresses “the immensity of a person, and the greater immensity of the little child” (Charlotte Mason, “Children are Born Persons,” as published at CharlotteMasonPoetry.org, paragraph 4). She then goes on to make the enigmatic statement that:

”  . . . not any of [the child’s] vast estate is as yet mortgaged, but all of it is there for his advantage and his profit, with no inimical Chancellor of the Exchequer to levy taxes and require returns! But perhaps this latter statement is not so certain; perhaps the land-tax on the Child’s Estate is really inevitable, and it rests with us parents and elders to investigate the property and furnish the returns.” (paragraph 4)

There are two questions immediately before us:

• What does Charlotte mean by “the greater immensity of the child”? To what extent and how is a child greater than an adult? Is he truly more of a person as she seems to imply here?
• What is Charlotte saying about the sin nature of children? In the longer quote about the child’s estate, she calls to mind her second principle on the goodness and evilness of children (which I have already discussed in not one but three posts, see links above). Her language is figurative and I do not want to make too much of it from this quote alone, but as we look through the rest of the article, I think we will see that we cannot separate this idea of the greatness of the child from the question of man’s original sin (I do recommend reading at least this post in which I discuss the various Christian views of man’s nature/original sin to get a sense of the variety of positions available within mainstream Christianity).

As we look first at what Charlotte calls the greatness of the child, we must be clear what she does not mean. She does not fail to recognize the child’s limitations. While making clear that the child is indeed a person, Charlotte acknowledges that he is a “weak and ignorant [person], whose ignorance we must inform and whose weakness we must support, but whose potentialities are as great as our own” (paragraph 6). And again: Children are “differentiated from men and women by their weaknesses, which we must cherish and support; by their immeasurable ignorances, which we must instruct” (paragraph 9).

But if they are weak and ignorant, children also have areas in which they show superiority to adults. Charlotte lists the following (paragraph 7):

• The child “sees with a closeness of observation that we have long ago lost”
• “he enjoys and that he sorrows with an intensity we have long ceased to”
• “he loves with an abandon and a confidence which, alas, we do not share”
• “he imagines with a fecundity no artist among us can approach”
• “he acquires intellectual knowledge and mechanical skill at a rate so amazing that, could the infant’s rate of progress be kept up to manhood, he would surely appropriate the whole field of knowledge in a single life-time”

Charlotte goes on to give some examples, but I think all of us who are parents or have experience with young children can think of many of our own. We know that children seem to be made for learning languages, that they memorize quickly and well with a skill that their elders seem to have lost, that they can be quite imaginative, that they feel things profoundly (often to the consternation of their elders who find their concerns quite small). These points are more in the realm of science or observation, placing them under the heading of general revelation, and while we might quibble over some specifics, I don’t think there need be much debate or that we need take much time on them. My only observation would be that God seems to give children some of these skills  — language acquisition stands out — when they need them. Charlotte raises the question of what would happen if “the infant’s rate of progress [could] be kept up to manhood” but this is at best a hypothetical question; for whatever reason, God has given us these skills when we need them most but then chosen to diminish them as we age.

But there is something more here that Charlotte hints at which brings us back to our second question about the nature of the child. After speaking of children’s weaknesses and ignorances, Charlotte goes on to say:

” . . . by that beautiful indefinite thing which we call the innocence of children and suppose in a vague way to be freedom from the evil ways of grown-up people? But children are greedy, passionate, cruel, deceitful, in many ways more open to blame than their elders; and, for all that, they are innocent. To cherish in them that quality which we call innocence, and Christ describes as the humility of little children, is perhaps the most difficult and important task set before us. If we would keep a child innocent, we must deliver him from the oppression of various forms of tyranny.” (paragraph 9)

She further defines what she means by the child’s innocence when she speaks of:

“that liberty which we call innocence, and which we find described in the gospels as humility. When we come to think of it, we do not see how a little child is humble; he is neither proud nor humble, we say; he does not think of himself at all: we have hit unconsciously upon the solution of the problem. Humility, that childish quality which is so infinitely attractive, consists just in not thinking of oneself at all.” (paragraph 14)

Thus, just as the child has abilities beyond that of the adult in the intellectual and emotional aspects of his person, so, Charlotte says, there is a way in which he is spiritually superior. Specifically, he has a quality which she calls innocence or humility, which is contrasted with pride, and which she defines as “just . . . not thinking of oneself at all.”

Charlotte does not proof-text her ideas as we might but biblical language and thinking often permeates her writing. On this point more than some others, it is clear that she is thinking of Matthew 18. In considering what she has to say, I’d like to begin by looking at this chapter and examining how Charlotte uses it and finally looking briefly at the “scientific” evidence, i.e. what our own observations may tell us.

The Biblical Evidence

Matthew 18 begins a section of short discourses by Christ. It begins thus:

“At that time the disciples came to Jesus, saying, ‘Who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?’  And calling to him a child, he put him in the midst of them and said, ‘Truly, I say to you, unless you turn and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.'” (Matt. 18:1-4; all biblical quotes are from the ESV unless otherwise noted)

In Matthew 18:1-4, the problem at hand is a dispute among the disciples as to which of them is the greatest. Jesus calls to Himself a child and uses him as a kind of object lesson to the disciples. This, He says, is what you should be like. The word Jesus uses is “humble” — whoever humbles himself like a child — and the implication is that this is just exactly the opposite of what the disciples are doing; they are exalting themselves by all trying to be the greatest. We can find a similar idea in Luke 14 in which Jesus advises that when invited to a feast one should “go and sit in the lowest place” (v. 10) for “everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted” (v. 11). In this context, then, to humble oneself means to not aspire to an exalted position but to intentionally opt for a lowered one.

There is some ambiguity here in terms of what it means for the child to be humble. We can read “Whoever humbles himself like this child” either as “whoever humbles himself as this child humbles himself” or as “whoever humbles himself as this child is humbled.” In the former case, the disciples are called to do what the child does and the child has a positive virtue — he humbles himself. In the latter case, the child does not have the positive virtue of humility; it is not that he humbles himself in the sense of choosing a lower position, or at least not aspiring to a greater one, so much as that he is inherently humble because his position in society is low.

But, Christ goes on to tell us, there is protection for such a one:

^” ‘Whoever receives one such child in my name receives me, but whoever causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a great millstone fastened around his neck and to be drowned in the depth of the sea.’” (Matt. 18:5-6)

Presumably with the child still before Him, Jesus warns that to cause such a one to sin is itself a great sin worthy of the harshest punishment. The child is called a “little one” which may be a reference to his position as much as to his size and age. [In this post I discussed the terms used for children in the Old Testament and showed that in Hebrew at least the “little ones” are likely toddlers, though their age is not strictly defined, and that they are capable of both sin and faith and are numbered among the people of God.]

As a side note — I find it interesting that He says “these little ones who believe in me.” It is not all small children who are in view but those who believe in Christ, who are counted among the people of God.

If your Bible is laid out like mine, Matthew 18:7 is a new paragraph with a new subject heading. These headings and parapgraph divisions would not have been in the Greek original; they are added by our editors. In verses 7-9 Christ rails against sin more generally saying that if your hand causes you to sin, you should cut it off. But in verse 10 He returns to “these little ones” saying that we must not “despise” them for God desires that not one should perish (v. 14). Chapter 18 then finishes with what to do if your brother sins against you including the parable of the unforgiving servant (vv. 15-34). 

[Scholars generally see Matthew 19 as the beginning of a new section as it begins with the words “Now when Jesus had finished these sayings . . . ” (Matt. 19:1).  In Matthew 19:13-15 children appear again, but while Charlotte clearly references this passage in other places, I could not find a clear reference to it in this article.]

 

The two questions we have to answer with regard to Charlotte’s interpretation of these chapters are:

• What does it mean that the child of Matthew 18:1-4 is humble?
• How do the other sections of Matthew 18, particularly verses 10-14, relate to this idea of the child’s humility?

My first instinct in reading Charlotte’s thoughts was to think that she goes too far when she uses the word “innocence.” This seems a very broad term and we might think it means the child is sinless, but Charlotte makes clear that this is not the case when she calls children “greedy, passionate, cruel, deceitful” (paragraph 9). Rather, she says: “Humility, that childish quality which is so infinitely attractive, consists just in not thinking of oneself at all” (paragraph 14). The opposite of humility if self-consciousness; humility ends when “a child becomes aware of himself.” The opposing sin is pride. (In this Charlotte is in line with other Christian interpreters, including Matthew Henry and Spurgeon.)

In the context of her article, it seems that Charlotte’s point is that, just as children are in some ways intellectually and emotionally better, so in this area they are inherently superior in the spiritual/moral realm (I don’t believe she distinguishes the two). In particular they possess a natural humility and are free of the corresponding sin of self-consciousness or pride.

Though most people will exhibit this particular sin, Charlotte does believe it is possible for some to avoid it:

“The principle is, I think, that an individual fall of man takes place when a child becomes aware of himself, listens as if he were not heeding to his mother’s tales of his smartness or goodness, and watches for the next chance when he may display himself. The children hardly deserve to be blamed at all. The man who lights on a nugget has nothing like so exciting a surprise as has the child who becomes aware of himself. The moment when he says to himself, “It is I”, is a great one for him, and he exhibits his discovery whenever he gets a chance, that is, he repeats the little performance which has excited his mother’s admiration, and invents new ways of shewing off.” (paragraph 14)

Charlotte in this section is dealing with the child’s vanity or sense of self from which she would spare him. She presents a nice picture of how this self-consciousness comes about.  There is no big, deliberate sin involved. The picture she gives is of something quite unconscious but which nonetheless results in a person who is different than he was before — he has learned pride.

Notice how Charlotte characterizes this change: “an individual fall of man.” Though we are all fallen in Adam, she is here saying that there is some sense in which each of us falls. This language initially rubbed me the wrong way because it could, taken out of context, be seen to advocate the view that people are not really born sinful, that we are not all inheritors of Adam’s original sin, but that we each experience our own fall, or perhaps even that we might be capable of avoiding such a fall and remaining sinless. I do not think that this is what Charlotte had in mind, however. It is not a view she advocates elsewhere nor would it have been the view of her church (the Church of England; again my second post here discusses views of original sin, including that of the COE in Charlotte’s day). I think, rather, that she equates this particular sin with the Fall  because it is the sin of pride. Pride, it is commonly believed, was the first sin, and it is the sin of Satan himself (Isaiah 14:12-15). Pride, as Charlotte defines it, is an awareness of self; so we see that as soon as they sinned  Adam and Eve became self-conscious (Gen. 3:7). When an individual learns pride, he re-enacts the original fall not because he was not previously sinful but because of the nature of the sin itself.

I mentioned above that there is some ambiguity in the biblical text as to what it means that to humble like a child. Charlotte takes this humility of the child as a positive virtue. It is not merely that the child is on the lowest rung of society; he has a positive quality which the disciples are lacking. This is not my own interpretation, but I cannot say that Charlotte’s interpretation is ruled out by the text. What she says could be true; I do not happen to believe it is true.

But Charlotte’s interpretation does not stop with verse 4. She alludes to Matthew 18:10 when she talks of “despising” the children (paragraph 6) and to verse 14 when she  uses the word “perish”:

“We can only see the seriousness of this failing from two points of view – that of Him who has said, “it is not the will of the Father that one of these little ones should perish”; and that, I take It, means that it is not the divine will that children should lose their distinctive quality, innocence, or humility, or what we sometimes call simplicity of character. We know there are people who do not lose it, who remain simple and direct in thought, and young in heart, throughout life.” (paragraph 14)

Charlotte here ties verses 10-14 closely to verses 1-4. She takes “little ones” to refer to children and she equates their “perishing” with the loss of their humility. With regard to the former, I am not fully convinced that “little ones” need refer only to children. I think it could refer to any that would be considered lowly in that society, but I will admit that to take “little ones” as children is the simplest explanation within the context of both this chapter and the Bible as a whole. It is also supported by verses 5 and 6 which use “child” and “little one” in parallel.

To take “perish” to mean “lose one’s humility” is a much bigger interpretative jump. In the immediate context of verses 10-14, the “little ones” are compared to sheep who get lost and are in danger of real, physical death. Verses 5 and 6 speak of causing one of the little ones to sin, as it is in the ESV, or, in the Greek: “to stumble.” Verses 7-9, though they do not refer to children, also use the word “stumble” and make it clear that to stumble is to sin.

In the light of verses 5-9, I am comfortable saying that when Christ speaks of little ones perishing in verse 14 that He is not referring to physical death but to the spiritual death that comes through sin. I am not comfortable linking this, as Charlotte does, specifically to pride or the loss of humility. This is due in part to our differing interpretations of what it means for the child to be humble. I do not see it as a particular virtue of the child so its loss does not become the key to my interpretation of what follows as it seems to for Charlotte. If we were to start where Charlotte does, and see the humility of the child as a virtuous condition and as the lack of a particular sin, and particularly if we accept the depiction of this sin, when it comes, as a sort of individual fall of man, then to tie the warnings of verses 5-6 and 10-14 particularly to leading the child into this sin, that of pride or self-consciousness, makes some sense.

If the question before us is “Is Charlotte’s view of the greatness of the child, as explained in this article, biblical?” then I would have to say that her interpretation of Matthew 18 is plausible. I personally don’t agree with it, but I think the text allows it.

The Evidence of General Revelation

I had said that I would not tackle general revelation, that which we know through our observation and experimentation rather than through Scripture, in this series. I am going to break that rule and at least introduce the idea here.

I have said that Charlotte and I diverge on this issue because we start out differently. A different interpretation of what it means to be humble like the child leads to different interpretations of what follows as well. But why do we start out differently? I suspect it is because our views of the child himself are different. In my many posts on Charlotte’s second principle, I showed that her church, the Church of England, takes what we might call a higher view of human nature than I as a reformed Christian would. That is, it allows for more ability or potential on the part of the individual to participate in his own salvation. That we come to these differing conclusions on Matthew 18 starts, I think, at a much deeper level. It arises from how we evaluate both our own hearts and those around us, particularly those of the children who are the most untouched members of society, the closest to their natural state.

So here are my questions for you — Are children inherently humble? Do they think of themselves? Or are they un-self-conscious? Self-focused? Self-promoting? These can be tricky questions to answer. The very smallest children, infants, are hardly aware that there are people other than themselves; the baby sees his mother as an extension of himself. My own observations lead me to say that the smallest children are quite self-focused. They do not think of the needs of others, but what this means in their case is hard to say. As they grow just a bit, they become aware of differences. I tend to agree with Charlotte that a girl will not be proud of her curls unless some adult has communicated to her that this is a point of pride. But the desire to be better in some way seems to be there almost from the start. A boy will run a race, with real or imaginary opponents, and insist that he is the fastest whether the facts support this claim or not. Charlotte sees self-consciousness, that embarrassment about one’s perceived faults, as a sign of the pride she speaks of. Again I agree that this sort of poor self-perception also stems from pride and I would also agree that it does not seem to be innate to the child but to be learned. But the opposite — to be proud of one’s appearance or abilities seems to spring quite naturally from the child’s (sinful) heart. I’d be interested in hearing others’ thoughts on this; do you think children innately think of themselves or is this a learned behavior?

 

Conclusions

What then does Charlotte mean when she speaks of the “greatness of the child as a person”? She sees a variety of qualities in the child which are superior to those of the adult. While we might dispute over one or two, on the whole I think we can see that there are things, like learning languages, that children are simply better at than adults. But Charlotte does not stop here. As her second principle applies to all aspects of the person, so she applies this idea of the greatness of the child to the moral realm as well as the emotional and intellectual. In particular, she lauds a quality of the child which she calls his innocence or humility. She firmly founds this idea on Matthew 18, particularly verses 1-6 and 10-14. Charlotte draws two conclusions from these passages:

• That children have a positive virtue that the Bible calls humility and that she terms innocence.
• That this is a quality which can and should be preserved and that those who cause a child to lose it bear a great fault for doing so.

While I do not agree with Charlotte’s interpretation of Matthew 18, I do not think it contradicts the text. I would say that the text allows for but does not necessitate this interpretation. Our interpretations differ because we have a fundamentally different evaluation of the child’s nature. This is based on a deeper division over the meaning of original sin and the effects of the Fall (which I will not revisit here) and a different perception of the small child and whether he does indeed think of himself.

My plan for the next post in this series to return to Charlotte’s Twenty Principles by looking at principle 4 and at what Charlotte calls the gospel principles of education.

Nebby

 

 

Living Books for High School Physics

Dear Reader,

My oldest did physics this year. We were lucky to find a co-op near us that was offering just the labs for physics without is having to do anything else. (In the past we have used Landry Labs for high school science labs. Sadly, they are now out of business.)

I didn’t realize when I signed up for the lab class that it required a textbook as well. They gave a choice between Apologia and Conceptual Physics. Since I’ve never been attracted to Apologia, I chose Conceptual Physics. This is a classic textbook. I tried to have my son do the problems but I didn’t have an answer key so that proved tough. And there were a lot of them for every section.

Midway through the year, I decided to see if I could find any other way to get him physics problems to do, which does seem necessary as physics is so math-based. The best source of such problems seemed to be AP material so in January I decided that the poor bot might as well do the AP Physics 1 test. I had him watch Khan Academy videos and use an AP practice book to prepare. Scores are still pending. I do think he has a shot at a 3 (out of 5) which will get him some college credit at most schools he is looking at. I know 3 is not top-tier but given that I sprung this on him mid-year, I will be happy if that’s what he gets.

So much for the other stuff — let’s get to the Living Books on High School Physics:

Six Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman — A series of lectures on physics of noted professor Feynman

Russell Stannard’s Uncle Albert Books: The Time and Space of Uncle Albert, Black Holes and Uncle Albert, and Uncle Albert and the Quantum Quest — These books could be done earlier, even in middle school. My son really enjoyed them and found them easy reading.

Physics for Future Presidents: The Science Behind the Headlines by Richard Muller — This is the last one my son will be getting to for the year. It covers topics like terrorism and global warming. He has an interest in politics as well so I think it will be very good for him. I love how it applies physics to our world.

How Things Work: The Physics of Everyday Life by Louis Bloomfield —  I purchased this book but did not end up using it for my son when I found out he was expected to sue the textbook instead. This book is very much like a textbook but seems a bit more accessible. It seems to cover all the basic concepts. I plan to have subsequent children use it.

For the Love of Physics by Walter Lewin — I only ran across this book recently. I purchased it but have not looked at it much. It looks very good and I suspect I will use it in the future.

Lastly, I want to mention Paul Fleisher’s books. He has wonderful short but well-written introductions to various science concepts. They are really middle school level but if you have a child who is not quote so science-y I think you could sue them in high school too.

Happy reading!

Nebby

 

Is It Biblical?: CM’s First Principle Revisited

Dear Reader,

I am going backwards but feel I need to address Charlotte Mason’s first principle once more.

This is part of my ongoing series on whether the philosophy of Charlotte Mason (a late 19th-early 20th century educator) is biblical. Charlotte herself claims to base her method on divine law, as it is reveled in both general and special revelation, and her modern-day advocates make a very good case that, if we follow her philosophy, we need to do so closely precisely for this reason. This series is my attempt to answer the question: Is Charlotte Mason’s philosophy in accord with divine law? My particular interest is in examining to what degree it accords with special revelation, i.e. the Bible, while acknowledging that many of her ideas may be derived from the general revelation which we know through science and observation. The previous posts in this series can be found here:

Introduction to the series: What does it mean to be “pure CM” and why should we care?

Is it biblical?: CM’s first principle (and a side-post: Man as the Image of God — or Not?)

Is it biblical?: CM’s 20th principle

Is it biblical?: CM’s second principle, part 1, part 2 and part 3

I am returning to the first principle because there is new (to me at least) information on how Charlotte herself understood it. Charlotte Mason Poetry recently republished on their website an article by Miss Mason entitled “Children are Born Persons,” originally published in 1911. Art Middlekauff has also offered his interpretation of Charlotte’s first principle in light of this article here: “Charlotte Mason’s First Principle” (Charlottemasonpoetry.org, April 28, 2017).

The Import of the 1911 Article

As I look at this article, my concerns will be the same as they have been in the earlier posts in this series: to see how Charlotte explains her ideas in her own words and to hold these ideas up to the Scriptures to see if they are “agreeable to and found upon” the Word of God.

As Middlekauff points out, the article is summed up in its next to last paragraph:

“We have now considered, however inadequately, the greatness of the child as a person, the liberty that is due to him as a person, some forms of oppression which interfere with his proper liberty (most of which come upon him from within), and the aliment which he is to live by – Admiration, Hope and Love.” (Charlotte Mason, “Children are Born Persons,” as published at Charlottemasonpoetry.org, paragraph  30)

The four points before us then are:

1. “the greatness of the child as a person”
2. “the liberty that is due to him as a person”
3. “some forms of oppression which interfere with his proper liberty”
4. “the aliment which he is to live by – Admiration, Hope and Love”

As I look at each in turn, in addition to the two questions I have posed above, I will also touch upon how each relates to that first principle.  Middlekauff views this article as the ultimate word on Charlotte’s first principle, saying that it must “be seen as the definitive explanation by Mason of what she meant by the principle, as no other segment of her writing is so explicitly linked to the phrase” (“Charlotte Mason’s First Principle” Charlottemasonpoetry.org, April 28, 2017).   He quotes a letter in which Charlotte says that “a good deal of [what is in this pamphlet] has been said before however, but I wanted to bring it under the idea of a person.”  I am not sure that I would, as Middlekauff does, use the phrase “definitive explanation.” The difference, I think, comes in our understandings of the phrase “bring it under the idea of a person.” I do not see what Charlotte is doing here as defining her principle so much as showing how it plays out. I think we would agree that this principle is not just first in the sense of being at the head of a list; it is first in Charlotte’s thinking and informs and permeates her whole philosophy. Middlekauff himself says that “Mason explains that she wrote the 1911 article as a way to collect a number of previously expressed concepts under a single unifying idea” and this is closer to my own initial impression of the article — that it applies the first principle more than defining it. I would view this as a very minor quibble, however, and I don’t think it has much impact on the overall purpose of my own series of posts. My goal has been to look at Charlotte’s ideas; her 20 principles are a convenient paradigm for doing so but whether a given idea comes under one principle or another is a side issue at best.

Liberty and Freedom from Oppression

I am going to save the first for last and begin with the second and third of the four points delineated above.  These two seem to complement one another so I am taking them together. They are again: “the liberty that is due to him as a person” and “some forms of oppression which interfere with his proper liberty.” Charlotte begins this section by saying:

“If we ask ourselves, What is the most inalienable and sacred right of a person qua person? I suppose the answer is, liberty! Children are persons; ergo, children must have liberty.” (Charlotte Mason, “Children are Born Persons,” as published at Charlottemasonpoetry.org, paragraph 10)

Note that it is not liberty that makes the person but liberty is due a child because he is a person. After clearly distinguishing liberty from license — liberty does not mean allowing our children to do whatever they like — Charlotte goes on to lay out the liberties that a child is entitled to and the “forms of oppression” which threaten them. They are:

• “The liberty of the person who can make himself do what he ought . . .” (paragraph 14); The child must be free from his own willfulness (paragraph 13), willfulness being the corresponding oppression which must be avoided (cf. Jer. 8:6; Rom. 7:15; Gal. 5:13-16; James 4:17).
• The freedom from self-consciousness (paragraph 14) which Charlotte calls humility; The corresponding oppression is “undue self-occupation” which comes largely from the praise and comments of adults (cf. Rom. 12:3; I Sam. 16:7; Prov. 31:30; 2 Cor. 11:30; Eph. 2:8-9; I Pet. 3:3-4)
• “Freedom of thought”; Charlotte says that “Public opinion is, in fact, an insufferable bondage” and the child must “have freedom of mind, liberty of thought, to reject the popular unbelief” (paragraph 17; cf. Rom. 12:2).
• Freedom from superstition; Superstition, to Charlotte, is the opposite of right religion so that freedom from it must necessarily mean that the child knows God rightly:

“The fact would seem to be that a human being is so made that he must have religion or a substitute: and that substitute, whatever form it take, is superstition, whose power to degrade and handicap a life cannot be estimated. If we would not have our children open to terrors which are very awful to the young, our resource is to give them the knowledge of God, and “the truth shall make them free.” It is necessary to make children know themselves for spirits, that they may realize how easy and necessary is the access of the divine Spirit to their spirits, how an intimate Friend is with them, unseen, all through their days . . .” (paragraph 18; Josh. 24:15; 2 Cor. 6:16-17: James 4:3-4)

These liberties follow from the child’s personhood.  They would not be possible or necessary if the child were not a person. In my previous post on this principle, I drew four conclusions regarding how Charlotte defined her first principle in her six volume Home Education series.  They were:

• Children are spiritual beings.
• They are capable of relationship with their Creator and even have a God-ward desire.
• They have mind, including reason, will, imagination, and creativity.
• They have a conscience, an inborn sense of right and wrong.

These differ from the four points that Charlotte discusses in this article but I think we can see a lot of overlap. If the child were not a spiritual being capable of relationship with his Creator, there would be no point in saying, as Charlotte does here, that God must have access to his spirit and that he must be given the knowledge of God. Likewise, if he did not have a mind and  were not capable of thought (the third bullet-point above), there would be no point in insisting on his freedom of thought. Thus these ideas of liberty and oppression flow naturally out of Charlotte’s first principle.

They are closely tied as well to Charlotte’s fourth principle:

 “These principles are limited by the respect due to the personality of children, which must not be encroached upon whether by the direct use of fear or love, suggestion or influence, or by undue play upon any one natural desire.”

This principle is stated in the negative — what we may not do to children. The flip side — what tools we may use in education — come in  her fifth principle and are expanded in the sixth through ninth principles. So too Charlotte in this article turns from the oppressions we must avoid to the positive — the right spiritual food for children.

Admiration, Hope and Love

Like her fifth principle, Miss Mason’s fourth point stresses the positive. Having addressed the tyrannies which must be avoided, she now turns to “the aliment which he is to live by – Admiration, Hope and Love.”  (An aliment, by the way, is food, the source of nourishment.)

These three spiritual nourishments do not correspond exactly to the three tools of education (atmosphere, discipline, life) which Charlotte mentions in her fifth principle, but it is hard not to think that the list of three is significant. If we were to make a distinction, it is perhaps best to say that the atmosphere, disciple and life are the sources of intellectual nourishment whereas admiration, hope and love are spiritual food.

The connection to I Corinthians 13:13 is so obvious it hardly seems needful to mention it:

“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (I Cor. 13:13; ESV)

When Charlotte speaks of admiration, she means not our desire for praise but the praise we give: “Admiration, reverent pleasure, delight, praise, adoration, worship” (paragraph 21). Though her wording differs from that of I Corinthians, she connects this admiration closely to faith:

“I have said that faith is an interchangeable term for admiration. Faith also implies the fixed regard which leads to recognition, and the recognition which leads to appreciation.” (paragraph 24)

This is not to my mind quite the biblical definition of faith which is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1; ESV), but perhaps to dispute the point is to quibble over details. When Charlotte speaks of admiration as a necessary food for children, she means that they must have something to worship and admire. She has already made clear that what they have must be real, i.e. the One True God, and not superstition. Though she has altered the phrasing of the I Corinthians verse, this still seems to be a deeply biblical concept; I could spend all day listing verses which call us to worship, praise, or take delight in God.

Charlotte calls God the “God of Hope” (cf. Rom. 15:13) and says:

“Let us try to conceive the possibility of going through a single day without any hope for this life or the next, and a sudden deadness falls upon our spirits, because ‘we live by hope.'” (paragraph 21)

The alternative to living by hope, Charlotte says, is to live only in the moment and only for one’s immediate gratification (paragraph 25). She calls us instead to, as the Book of Hebrews says, “take hold of the hope set before us” (Heb. 6:18). I will not dwell long on the many other Bible verses on hope. If you will look up this selection, I think you will see the importance of hope in the life of the Christian: Jer. 29:11; Isa. 40:31; Rom. 15:13; Eph. 4:4; Heb. 10:23; 1 Pet. 1:3.

Last but not least is love. Charlotte speaks of both “the love we give and the love we receive” and “the love of our neighbour and the love of our God” (paragraph 22). The two are intimately related:  “As all love implies a giving and a receiving, it is not necessary to divide currents that meet” (paragraph 22). This is as I John: “We love because He first loved us” (I John 4:19). She goes on to speak of love as a state in which we abide (paragraph 29; cf. John 15:9). She cautions against good works not sanctified by faith which she calls mere “sentimental humanitarianism” and calls us to fix our love on what is lasting, not to follow fads (paragraph 29).

This concept, then, is deeply biblical. It also seems, of all the points in this article, to come the closest to defining what “children are born persons” means. The argument is to some degree circular — because children are spiritual beings, they need spiritual food (admiration, hope, love). But it is also because they need these foods that we know they are spiritual beings.

The Greatness of the Child

I return at last to Charlotte’s first point. I have saved this one for last because I find it the most difficult. In fact, I think it would take quite some time to analyze so I am going to hold off on elucidating it and holding it up to the witness of Scripture till another post. For now, I would just like to look briefly at how this point relates to that first principle which this article seeks to address.

Charlotte begins this section by urging us not to think of the child as “undeveloped persons,” which would be to make them less than persons but as “ignorant persons” (paragraph 6). Though, she says, they need to be informed by us, they are nonetheless in may ways greater than their grown counterparts:

“As soon as he gets words with which to communicate with us, a child lets us know that he thinks with surprising clearness and directness, that he sees with a closeness of observation that we have long ago lost, that he enjoys and that he sorrows with an intensity we have long ceased to experience, that he loves with an abandon and a confidence which, alas, we do not share, that he imagines with a fecundity no artist among us can approach, that he acquires intellectual knowledge and mechanical skill at a rate so amazing that, could the infant’s rate of progress be kept up to manhood, he would surely appropriate the whole field of knowledge in a single life-time.” (paragraph 7)

This is the greatness she speaks of — that in observational skills and emotion and ability to learn children surpass adults. Thus children, Charlotte would say, have ways in which they are both weaker and superior to adults. Again, I will tackle whether this idea is biblical in another post. For now, let us ask only this: Can this be how Charlotte defines “children are born persons?” I do not see how it can. In their greatness, perhaps we may see that children are persons, but if their greatness made them persons, then we would have to conclude that adults are somehow less of persons.

Conclusions

Charlotte Mason’s philosophy does not have the character of a systematic theology. We may want her to say “these are my ideas and here is what they mean,” but she usually does not speak so directly. The ideas themselves overlap and finding how she would define a given one can require quite a bit of sorting through. In the 1911 article, Charlotte gives us some sense of what it means that “children are born persons.” Having read this article, I am amazed again at what a unified whole her philosophy is; all the parts work together and flow from one another. I have only thus far looked at three of the four points which she brings up in this article (but stay tuned for that first one). I find these three quite in line with the biblical description of a person in both what he needs and what he should avoid.

Until next time

Nebby

 

 

 

 

 

Living Books on the 1990s

Dear Reader,

This is part of my continuing series of posts on the books we have been using on our homeschool. Find all my booklists here.

As I mentioned in my post on the ’70s and ’80s, it is getting tougher as we get closer to present day to find good living books to use. I was caught off guard when I realized that our spine series ended at 1990 so I scrambled to order all the library books I could find for kids on the 1990s. I checked out as many as I could and began sorting through them to find something that I could read to my kids (grades 6-11) to give them an overview of the major events of the decade:

Looking at all these books makes me appreciate how much better our spine series (Our Century) really was, though it may not be considered living by some.

The two I ended up using are The one on the top left there — The 1990s: Decade in Photos: The Rise of Technology and A Cultural History of the United States through the Decades: the 1990s by Stuart A. Kallen (top row, third book over). Note that the first book has no author listed on the cover; this is not a good sign. It is the simpler of the two and is really elementary level. I used it because it gave a not-too-too- bad synopsis of some events tat the other book left out. Kallen’s book is fuller and goes more in depth but it is a cultural history if the US and touches less on international events.  My third choice from this lot would be History of the 1990s (top, right) but in the end I decided it was a bit worse than my other choices. I did keep out Fashions of a Decade: the 1990s but used it only to show pictures of the fashions and trends of the era. The three on the bottom row I did not like.

More and more of what we are studying has direct bearing on current events so I have begun to take a slightly different take in their individual reading. My goal is for my kids to begin to understand the issues behind the stories they might see in the news. When studying Watergate, I ran across a book that I really liked edited by a woman named Debra A. Miller. A library search revealed that she has a quite a number of volumes available. They are part of different series and so there is some variation in format. Many, like the one I used on Watergate, are compilations of primary sources with only brief, added introductions. These selections may be speeches or statements by politicians and various groups or articles for or against an issue. They seem to be intentionally well-balanced — for every opinion on one side of an issue, there are opinions on the other.

So I began by getting a number of books on various countries and having each child pick one.

We ended up with North Korea, Darfur, Pakistan, and Iran. There is some variation in how hard these books are. Certainly a high schooler could handle them. A middle schooler might have to stretch a bit more. I wouldn’t recommend them for elementary age. I did not require my children to read all of their book but selected the essays that I thought most relevant. I also gave them each some targeted narration questions; that is, rather than just “narrate this” I would say something like “on today’s readings I want you to tell me about nuclear weapons in Pakistan.” Because they are each reading about different countries, they also have to share what they’ve learned with their siblings.

After picking countries, we are moving on to issues. Debra Miller again has numerous books on the hot-button topics of the day:

Some topics are political, some cultural. Some are more appropriate for my younger kids; some are acceptable for high schoolers. As I write this, we are just beginning this process, but my intention is to do the same as we did with the books on countries — guided narrations and presentations to their siblings.

One last book on the ’90s:

I found this one on Hispanic America which I may have my 6th grader read in place of one of the issue books. It seems to give a good idea of the scope of what we mean wen we say “Hispanic” and the different cultures that encompasses.

Nebby

 

Living Books on the 1970s and 1980s

Dear Reader,

I have fallen a bit behind so I am going to give you the books we’ve have been using on both the ’70s and ’80s at once. We moved through both decades fairly quickly anyway. You can find all my lists of living books here.

This is a tough chunk of history to find good books for. IMO older books are more well-written, but you just can’t be that old if you are on recent history, now can you?

Our spine for the year, a series called Our Century by Gareth Steven Publishing, only seems to go through the 1980s; at least, I don’t own the volume for the 1990s and I couldn’t find it in my library system.  We did use the two volume son the ’70s and ’80s to finish up this section. As I am currently looking around for other books on the 1990s, I am more impressed with this series. The volumes are written as a series of separate articles, some written like news stories. They often take the perspective of putting you right in the time — i.e. they use the present tense. Though this is not one continuous narrative, for an overview of the time, I think they are fairly interesting and, as you get closer and closer to modern day, it is hard to find that. I like that they have few sidebars and the like which more recent books tend to overdo.

We covered the Vietnam War with the 1960s so I am not going to touch on that here. We had also dealt with the Cold War in our study of the ’50s and ’60s.

The big domestic topic for the 1970s is Watergate.

If you have a high schooler and a lot of time, there is no substitute for Bob Woodwards and Carl Bernstein’s classic account of their investigation, All the President’s Men. I remember reading his book in high school myself though I also remember that a lot of it went over my head. We didn’t want to take the time so we watched the movie version. I know given the length of the book and the length of the move that there must be a lot left out but this is a very well-done movie. The action keeps going, it was easy for even my middle schcoolers to understand, and they really appreciated the story. I’d watch it even if you are reading the book (afterwards, of course).

Bob Woodward has also written another book, Secret Man, that traces the identity of their famous secret source “Deep Throat.” If you have  a high schooler and want to really go in-depth, you might consider this one. I thought it would be too much for my kids who only came into this with the barest sense of what Watergate was at all. I believe Woodward and Bernstein also wrote other books covering  the later days of the scandal and its aftermath as well.

At the other end of the spectrum, younger children might enjoy The Story of Watergate from the Cornerstones of Freedom series. This series gives nice introductions to a variety of topics at an upper-elementary to middle school level. Just be sure to get the older version of the series whose titles begin with “The Story of . . . ” The newer ones are much worse.

I read a portion of Art Buchwald’s “I am Not a Crook” and read selections aloud to my kids. It is amazing what you can learn about a time but reading political satire of it 😉 I don’t remember Watergate and my kids certainly knew little of the time but I found many of the short articles in this book entertaining and the ones I chose to read to my kids they also enjoyed. It’s definitely middle school and up and probably better for high schoolers.

Moving on to the Carter presidency, my 10th grader read What the Heck are you up to, Mr. President? by Kevin Mattson. This book tells the story of a speech Carter gave which should have been pivotal but wasn’t. From her narrations it does a really good job of telling about the issues of the day and she seemed to enjoy the book and understand it well. High school level again.

One of the big controversies of the time was the Iranian hostage crisis. I wanted to give my kids a sense of this not just for the historical value but also because Iran is still so much in the news. My 6th grader read America Held Hostage by Don Lawson which covers the Iran-Contra scandal as well. Amazon lists it as 7th-12th grade and I would say it was a bit of a stretch for her but it seemed like a decent book.

My 7th grader read Taken Hostage by David Farber. This too seemed like a solid book that gives a good intro to the issues.

My 11th grader read Shah of Shahs by Ryzard Kapuscinski. This book introduces the political situation in Iran rather than focusing solely on the hostage crisis.  It too seemed good. It could probably be done at a slightly earlier age, like early high school.

In fiction that gives a sense of the time, I had my 7th grader read When Zachary Beaver Comes to Town by Kimberley Willis Holt, the story of the fattest boy in the world who comes to a small Texas town and makes life more interesting for its residents. My 10th grader was upset when she saw him reading this for school and exclaimed, “Hey, I read that! I didn’t know it was a school book!”  When pressed, she admitted she had liked the book but she still felt tricked. I’d call it middle school level though honestly I’m not sure how much my kids learned about the 1970s from it.

My 6th grader read When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead. This one is set in 1970s New York City and the protagonist’s mother is slated to appear on the game show $20,000 Pyramid. There are other plots about her friends and there is some mystery involved. It turns out you can still get old episodes of the $25,000 Pyramid on TV (the amount of the big prize changed over time) so my daughter got into those as she read the book, for better or worse. Se seemed to enjoy the story and I think it gave a better sense of the time than Zachary Beaver but I found her narrations hard to follow and I suspect it is not that well-written. Definitely middle school level or maybe upper elementary for a good reader.

I read Revolution is not a Dinner Party by Ying Chang Compestine aloud to my middle schoolers. It is the story of a Chinese girl during Mao’s Cultural Revolution. I didn’t think it was the best-written book I’ve ever read but it did give a pretty good sense of what things were like then. I’d call it middle school level.

For myself I read Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. This is the story of a boy growing up in Afghanistan through all the political changes there. I did learn a lot about the history of this very important place in today’s news. I began reading the book to see if it would be appropriate for one of my high schoolers. I decided not to let either of them read it yet. There are some very adult situations which are quite integral to the plot so read with care.

The big story for the 1980s is the end of the Soviet Union as such. My 6th grader read the Cornerstones of Freedom series again, The Story of the Fall of the Soviet Union. I also had her read Cause & Effect: the Fall of the Soviet Union by Don Nardo. It was in her words “okay.” I am not sure I would say it was spectacular but it seemed decent.

My 7th grader read The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union by John R. Matthews. It seemed again like a decent book.

My 10th grader read The Rise and Fall of the Soviet Union (a popular title apparently) by Michael Kort. Her words : “It was okay for a school book.” She is very hard to get praise from so count this as a recommendation.

Nobody read The Age of Delirium but I did check it out. It looked long 😉 Amazon gives it good reviews but it definitely seems like high school level or above.

I am going to leave off here for now. Moving from the 1980s to the ’90s and beyond, I am having my children focus more on issues than events, but I will discuss the books we are using for that in my next post — stay tuned!

Nebby

 

 

 

Is it Biblical?: CM’s 2nd Principle (Part 1 of 3)

Dear Reader,

I’ll admit it– I’ve been putting off tackling this post. Charlotte Mason’s second principle is a stumbling block for many who are new to her philosophy. Over time, if we are attracted enough to the rest of what she has to say, I think we end up coming up with explanations of why she didn’t really mean what she seems to say. I have my own ideas about what Charlotte meant which are a little unorthodox. But my goal today is to see how Charlotte herself explained her ideas and to see how they line up with the Word of God. To get up to speed on what I am doing in this series and why see this post on “pure CM,” and this one on her first principle and this one on her last principle.

Last note before we begin: as I am writing this post, I am realizing it could be very long so I am going to divide it into 3 parts. Today we will discuss Charlotte’s own words on her second principle, next time will be Christian views of human nature, and lastly I will give you my own thoughts on the topic.

The Second Principle as Charlotte Explains It

Charlotte Mason’s second principle is as follows:

“They are not born either good or bad, but with possibilities for good and for evil.” (“Charlotte Mason’s 20 Principles” from Ambleside Online)

When I looked at Charlotte’s first principle, I found that she addressed it in a number of places in her six-volume series. While it mat occasionally be alluded to in other places, Charlotte’s most thorough explanation of her second principle comes in an extended section in her sixth volume entitled “The Good and Evil Nature of a Child.” My discussion will mainly be a working through of this section, with only a few added notes from her other writings.

Charlotte’s philosophy on the nature of children is a rejection of two antithetical views:

“A well-known educationalist has brought heavy charges against us all on the score that we bring up children as ‘children of wrath.’ He probably exaggerates the effect of any such teaching, and the ‘little angel’ theory is fully as mischievous.” (Towards a Philosophy of Education, p. 46)

This is the first half of her principle — we must think of children neither as all evil nor as perfect angels. She goes on:

“The fact seems to be that children are like ourselves, not because they have become so, but because they are born so; that is, with tendencies, dispositions, towards good and towards evil, and also with intuitive knowledge as to which is good and which is evil. There are good and evil tendencies in body and mind, heart and soul; and the hope set before us is that we can foster the good so as to attenuate the evil; that is, on condition that we put Education in her true place as the handmaid of Religion.” (p. 46)

Many argue that Charlotte Mason did not mean her second principle theologically, that she was not talking about the moral state of children. I think the above quotes make clear that she is indeed in the spiritual realm. This is not to deny that she applied her educational ideas with great success to all classes of society and to those her culture called uneducable, undoubtedly she did (see, for instance, Towards a Philosophy of Education, p. xxv), but her remarks were not limited to such areas; she clearly spoke also of the moral nature of children.

The phrase “body and mind, heart and soul” in the above quote is key. This is not a mere rhetorical flourish; Charlotte means each of these four areas literally and goes on to devote a section to each of them and to how our “good and evil tendencies” play out in them.

First she offers some explanation of what she means by a “tendency.” She does not use the phrase “genetic predisposition” but might as well have:

“Physicians and physiologists tell us that new-born children start fair. A child is not born with tuberculosis, for example, if with a tendency which it is our business to counteract. In the same way all possibilities for good are contained in his moral and intellectual outfit, hindered it may be by a corresponding tendency to evil for every such potentiality. We begin to see our way. It is our business to know of what parts and passions a child is made up, to discern the dangers that present themselves, and still more the possibilities of free-going in delightful paths. However disappointing, even forbidding, the failings of a child, we may be quite sure that in every case the opposite tendency is there and we must bring the wit to give it play.” (p. 47)

Note again that she is speaking here of both “moral and intellectual” tendencies. Just as one child may be born more prone to infection than another, so one may be more prone to fits of temper or laziness or any other malady. Though some failings may affect one more than another, we are all subject to them:

” . . . in every child there are tendencies to greediness, restlessness, sloth, impurity, any one of which by allowance may ruin the child and the man that he will be.” (p. 48)

Charlotte spends a brief time only on the body and her main emphasis is on developing “nervous over-pressure” (pp. 48-49). I am not going to dwell on the body because Charlotte herself spends little time on it and because I think it causes the least dispute.

Moving on to the mind Charlotte says:

“We do not perceive that the mind, too, has its tendencies both good and evil and that every inclination towards good is hindered and may be thwarted by a corresponding inclination towards evil; I am not speaking of moral evil but of those intellectual evils which we are slow to define and are careless in dealing with.” (pp. 49-50)

The intellectual tendencies to good are in every child: “even backward children, have extraordinary ‘possibilities for good'” (p. 52). Among the evil intellectual tendencies, Charlotte lists “slumbering minds,”  a desire for marks (grades), and “lethargy.” She also speaks in this section of the need to engage in a broad curriculum so as to not become eccentric and to develop the imagination, reason, and sense of beauty.

In dealing with the heart, Charlotte speaks of “‘feelings'” but perhaps not in the sense in which we use the word today. Her concern is really for what we would call the virtues.  Again, “every child, even the rudest, is endowed” with these including “Love and . . .  all its manifestations, kindness, benevolence, generosity, gratitude, pity, sympathy, loyalty, humility, gladness” (p. 59). So too “everyone has Justice in his heart” (p. 60). It is under this heading that she might also include conscience as she says elsewhere that:

“[The child] is born a law abiding being, with a sense of may, and must not, of right and wrong . . . But how has it been brought about that the babe, with an acute sense of right and wrong even when it can understand little of human speech, should grow into the boy or girl already proving ‘the curse of lawless heart’? By slow degrees, here a little and there a little, as all that is good or bad in character comes to pass.” (Home Education, p. 14).

Lastly, Charlotte turns to “the well-being of the soul” (Towards a Philosophy of Education, p. 63). Here her concern is our relationship with our Creator. She says that “we have in us an infinite capacity for love, loyalty and service which we cannot expend upon any other [than God]” (p. 64). She speaks elsewhere of “[the child’s] natural relationship with Almighty God” (Home Education, p. 19).

In concluding this section, Charlotte says:

“I have endeavoured to sketch some of the possibilities for good and the corresponding possibilities for evil present in all children; they are waiting for direction and control, certainly, but still more for the formative influence of knowledge. I have avoided philosophical terms, using only names in common use,––body and soul, body and mind, body, soul and spirit,––because these represent ideas that we cannot elude and that convey certain definite notions; and these ideas must needs form the basis of our educational thought.” (Towards a Philosophy of Education, p. 65)

The key points we have seen in all this are:

• “the possibilities for good and the corresponding possibilities for evil” are “present in all children”
• the whole child is in view, “body and soul, body and mind, body, soul and spirit”

Though it is beyond the scope of this principle, Miss Mason makes clear that the answer for her, the way to build the good and avoid the evil, is education — albeit perhaps an education more broadly defined than we tend to use the term these days. Though she sees both good and evil latent in the child, Mason does admit that “it is unchangeably true that the child who is not being constantly raised to a higher and a higher platform will sink to a lower and a lower” (Home Education, p. 103).

Identifying the Issues

In this principle, Charlotte makes two interrelated statements: children have the potential for good and children have the potential for evil. Among Christians of various stripes, it is the first of these which is up for debate. No one denies that children are to some extent sinful or at least have the potential to sin. It is how good they are or can be which causes disputes.

I hope I have shown that Charlotte has the whole person in mind when she makes this statement. She does not exclude the religious or moral aspects of the person, nor does she confine herself to them. It is truly a “whole child” approach. Having said which, it is beyond the scope of what I am doing here to go very deeply into the body and mind and the Scriptures have little to say on these. What Charlotte calls the heart and soul are what I would like to focus on. When she speaks of the heart, she is talking about virtues — above all love and justice but also the other virtues which flow out of these such as kindness, generosity and gladness, among many others. When she speaks of the soul, she is talking about our ability to have a relationship with our Creator. These then are the two questions we must ask: Are children capable of virtue, that is of good moral acts? and Are they able to have a relationship with their Creator?

One final note: Charlotte’s focus is on children because her subject is education. Children of course come in all shapes and sizes. It is not long before outside forces act on an individual and whatever latent tendencies there are are pushed one way or another. But I think what Charlotte has in mind, and what theologians debate is really what capacity for good is there in the unaffected individual, the person as he is born, before the world, for good or evil, has its effect.

Next time in part 2: Christian views of human nature

Nebby