Quotes from Charlotte Mason

Authority is just and faithful in all matters of promise-keeping; it is also considerate, and that is why a good mother is the best home-ruler.

A child gets moral notions from the fairy-tales he delights in, as do his elders from tale and verse.

And all the time we have books, books teeming with ideas fresh from the minds of thinkers upon every subject to which we can wish to introduce children.

We probably read Shakespeare in the first place for his stories, afterwards for his characters. . . . To become intimate with Shakespeare in this way is a great enrichment of mind and instruction of conscience. Then, by degrees, as we go on reading this world-teacher, lines of insight and beauty take possession of us, and unconsciously mould our judgments of men and things and of the great issues of life.

None of us can be proof against the influences that proceed from the persons he associates with. Wherefore, in books and men, let us look out for the best society, that which yields a bracing and wholesome influence. We all know the person for whose company we are the better, though the talk is only about fishing or embroidery.

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.

It is time we reverted to the teaching of Socrates. 'Know thyself,' exhorted the wise man, in season and out of season; and it will be well with us when we understand that to acquaint a child with himself––what he is as a human being––is a great part of education.

The more of a person we succeed in making a child, the better will he both fulfil his own life and serve society.

A morning in which a child receives no new ideas is a morning wasted.

Our only means of true intimacy with a child is the power of recovering our own childhood.

Conscience would seem to have but a single office––to convince us of sin––that is, of transgression. The older divines used to speak much of an approving conscience; but this approval would appear to be no more than silence; for self-approbation, as we have seen, is, in itself, an offence. Then, when conscience says nothing we are all right? you ask. By no means, for the verdict of conscience depends upon what we know and what we habitually allow.

Therefore children should be taught, as they become mature enough to understand such teaching, that the chief responsibility which rests on them as persons is the acceptance or rejection of initial ideas. To help them in this choice we should give them principles of conduct and a wide range of the knowledge fitted for them.

Attention is no more than this - the power of giving your mind to what you are about

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 needed 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.

It is far easier to govern from a height, as it were, than from the intimacy of close personal contact. But you cannot be quite frank and easy with beings who are obviously of a higher and of another order than yourself; at least, you cannot when you are a little boy...But it is much to a child to know that he may question, may talk of the thing that perplexes him, and that there is comprehension for his perplexities.

Give your child a single valuable idea, and you have done more for his education than if you had laid upon his mind the burden of bushels of information.

Wise and purposeful letting alone is the best part of education.

The most common and the monstrous defect in the education of the day is that children fail to acquire the habit of reading.

Education, like faith, is the evidence of things not seen.

Education is the science of relations

Every day, every hour, the parents are either passively or actively forming those habits in their children upon which, more than upon anything else, future character and conduct depend.