1905 Peer Book Review - School Education (HES Vol III) By Charlotte Mason
If you educate using Charlotte Mason’s methods of living books, nature studies, and short days, you will very well likely be familiar with her series of lecture volumes called Home Education. Here is an interesting write up I found in the Journal of Education that offers a CM contemporary review of volume 3 of her works. It’s interesting because it was written by CM’s peer’s, and the book review was “fresh” as her 3rd volume had just been published. It is an opposing view point, and the author does not seem to hold the same views on education as CM - something that was quite normal in those days. We have surely come a long way!
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Found in the Journal of Education, May 1905
This is a stimulating book and at the same time an irritating one. Anyone who knows Miss Mason her views on education and the work in it she has accomplished will expect what he will certainly find here great freshness and originality; a clear and well defined system of education, the study of which cannot but be helpful to any teacher, and the power and charm of a pleasant and strong character. This is the stimulating part. The irritating part is a certain confusion that reigns throughout. Nothing sufficiently clear is told to the uninitiated about the Parents Educational Union or the school or schools in which the ideas in this book are brought to the test of practice, and there is a complete haziness that is really comical as to whether Miss Mason is addressing us, the ignorant outside general readers, or her own enlightened colleagues of the Union. The essays at one moment appear to be addresses delivered to the members of the Union, but at the next we the general reader find ourselves receiving explanations as to the successful work the Union has done and other information that cannot be got to fit in with the first theory on any terms. Then we are told the leading points in Miss Mason’s theory of education over and over again, yet in the end we are left on many points in a state of confusion. Only by hint of exhaustive research do we at last grasp what she means by educating children on books. What else we helplessly ask have they been ever educated upon at least since books existed. At length we discover that the system is to supply the child with a large number of books to read himself or if he has not yet learnt the art to have read to him. Then again Miss Mason calls her book “School Education”, but it is mostly about home training and she completes our bewilderment by warning us not to mind the title Home Education Series because it is only appropriate to Vol I of the series.
Nevertheless, it is to us a delightful book and most readers will enjoy it. As to the theory with much of it we are in hearty agreement, and we know that Miss Mason has obtained good results. Nevertheless, on several points we have our doubts. As to docility and obedience solely on the grounds of authority we entirely disagree. In regard to the idea that the child should be given a very wide culture as wide in fact as the possibilities of his interests, we should like to ask how the time is to be found for it in the school hours unless it is to be as shallow and slight as it is wide a mere smattering. From most subjects a student gets little good until he has gone to a certain depth in them. Again, young children are to be given inspiring books books full of ideas to read. Our own experience is that most of such books are unintelligible to young readers. They understand neither the words nor the ideas intoduced to a great extent. In the lecture or personal teaching to which Miss Mason objects, the teacher brings the matter within the comprehension of the special children being taught. Few really valuable books are to be found that young children can read with pleasure themselves which will at the same time give them the knowledge and discipline required. However, as we say the book is both stimulating and informing. No doubt it is Miss Mason’s own personality that makes her system succeed. This unhappily is usually the case with educational successes. Nevertheless other teachers will derive much help from the views and suggestions her book contains.
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