Charlotte Mason Quotes

As you savor the wisdom and inspiration of the quotes from Charlotte Mason, you will be drawn to dive in and begin reading first-hand her 6 volumes on education. 

You’ll surely find her books filled with “living ideas,” as Charlotte would say, ideas that will influence not just your views on education, but your views on parenting and the Christian life.

So, sip a cup of tea, read a quote to whet your appetite, look out a window and take time to ponder….

Volume 1: Home Education

…the woman receives from the Spirit of God Himself the intuitions into the child's character, the capacity of appreciating its strength and its weakness, the faculty of calling forth the one and sustaining the other, in which lies the mystery of education, apart from which all its rules and measures are utterly vain and ineffectual." Preface to the Fourth Edition

But the educator has to deal with a self-acting, self-developing being, and his business is to guide, and assist in, the production of the latent good in that being, the dissipation of the latent evil, the preparation of the child to take his place in the world at his best, with every capacity for good that is in him developed into a power. Pg 9

And first, let us consider where and what the little being is who is entrusted to the care of human parents.

A tablet to be written upon? A twig to be bent? Wax to be moulded?

Very likely; but he is much more––a being belonging to an altogether higher estate than ours; as it were, a prince committed to the fostering care of peasants. Pg 11

It may surprise parents who have not given much attention to the subject to discover also a code of education in the Gospels, expressly laid down by Christ.

It is summed up in three commandments, and all three have a negative character, as if the chief thing required of grown-up people is that they should do no sort of injury to the children: Take heed that ye OFFEND not––DESPISE not––HINDER not––one of these little ones. Pg 12

…if his mother does what she chooses, of course he will do what he chooses, if he can; and henceforward the child's life becomes an endless struggle to get his own way; a struggle in which a parent is pretty sure to be worsted, having many things to think of, while the child sticks persistently to the thing which has his fancy for the moment.

Where is the beginning of this tangle, spoiling the lives of parent and child alike?

In this: that the mother began with no sufficient sense of duty; she thought herself free to allow and disallow, to say and unsay, at pleasure, as if the child were hers to do what she liked with.

The child has never discovered a background of must behind is mother's decisions; he does not know that she must not let him break his sister's playthings, gorge himself with cake, spoil the pleasure of other people, because these things are not right.

Let the child perceive that his parents are law-compelled as well as he, that they simply cannot allow him to do the things which have been forbidden, and he submits with the sweet meekness which belongs to his age. Pg 15

Let me repeat, that I venture to suggest, not what is practicable in any household, but what seems to me absolutely best for the children; and that, in the faith that mothers work wonders once they are convinced that wonders are demanded of them.  Pg 44

…here is the mother's opportunity to train the seeing eye, the hearing ear, and to drop seeds of truth into the open soul of the child, which shall germinate, blossom, and bear fruit, without further help or knowledge of hers.  Pg 44

All this is stale knowledge to older people, but one of the secrets of the educator is to present nothing as stale knowledge, but to put himself in the position of the child, and wonder and admire with him; for every common miracle which the child sees with his own eyes makes of him for the moment another Newton. Pg 54

For the evil is, that children get their knowledge of natural history, like all their knowledge, at second hand.

They are so sated with wonders, that nothing surprises them; and they are so little used to see for themselves, that nothing interests them.

The cure for this blasé condition is, to let them alone for a bit, and then begin on new lines.

Poor children, it is no fault of theirs if they are not as they were meant to be––curious eager little souls, all agog to explore so much of this wonderful world as they can get at, as quite their first business in life. Pg 61

A great deal has been said lately about the danger of overpressure, of requiring too much mental work from a child of tender years.

The danger exists; but lies, not in giving the child too much, but in giving him the wrong thing to do, the sort of work for which the present state of his mental development does not fit him.

Who expects a boy in petticoats to lift half a hundredweight?

But give the child work that Nature intended for him, and the quantity he can get through with ease is practically unlimited.

Whoever saw a child tired of seeing, of examining in his own way, unfamiliar things?

This is the sort of mental nourishment for which he has an unbounded appetite, because it is that food of the mind on which, for the present, he is meant to grow.  Pg 66-67

It would be well if we all persons in authority, parents and all who act for parents, could make up our minds that there is no sort of knowledge to be got in these early years so valuable to children as that which they get for themselves of the world they live in.

Let them once get touch with Nature, and a habit is formed which will be a source of delight through life.

We were all meant to be naturalists, each in his degree, and it is inexcusable to live in a world so full of the marvels of plant and animal life and to care for none of these things. Pg 61

Therefore, it is worth while to have even a physical ideal for one's child; not, for instance, to be run away with by the notion that a fat child is necessarily a fine child.

The fat child can easily be produced: but the bright eyes, the open regard, the springing step; the tones, clear as a bell; the agile, graceful movements that characterise the well-brought-up child, are the result, not of bodily well being only, but of 'mind and soul according well,' of a quick, trained intelligence, and of a moral nature habituated to the 'joy of self control.’ Pg 95

'Habit is ten natures.'

If that be true, strong as nature is, habit is not only as strong, but tenfold as strong. Here, then, have we a stronger than he, able to overcome this strong man armed.  Pg 105

…it rests with parents and teachers to lay down lines of habit on which the life of the child may run henceforth with little jolting or miscarriage, and may advance in the right direction with the minimum of effort. Pg 107

We think, as we are accustomed to think; ideas come and go and carry on a ceaseless traffic in the rut––let us call it––you have made for them in the very nerve substance of the brain.

You do not deliberately intend to think these thoughts; you may, indeed, object strongly to the line they are taking (two 'trains' of thought going on at one and the same time!), and objecting, you may be able to barricade the way, to put up 'No Road' in big letters, and to compel the busy populace of the brain-world to take another route.

But who is able for these things?

Not the child, immature of will, feeble in moral power, unused to the weapons of the spiritual warfare.

He depends upon his parents; it rests with them to initiate the thoughts he shall think, the desires he shall cherish, the feelings he shall allow.

Only to initiate; no more is permitted to them; but from this initiation will result the habits of thought and feeling which govern the man––his character, that is to say. Pg 108-109

…it is possible to form in the child the habit of doing and saying, even of thinking and feeling, all that it is desirable he should do or say, think or feel,––and do you not take away the child's free-will, make a mere automaton of him by this excessive culture?

In the first place, whether you choose or no to take any trouble about the formation of his habits, it is habit, all the same, which will govern ninety-nine one-hundredths of the child's life: he is the mere automaton you describe.

As for the child's becoming the creature of habit, that is not left with the parent to determine.

We are all mere creatures of habit. We think our accustomed thoughts, make our usual small talk, go through the trivial round, the common task, without any self-determining effort of will at all. Pg 110

The pleasure grown-up people take in waiting on children is really a fruitful source of mischief;––for instance, in this matter of orderly habits.

Who does not know the litter the children leave to be cleared up after them a dozen times a day, in the nursery, garden, drawing-room, wherever their restless little feet carry them?

We are a bit sentimental about scattered toys and faded nosegays, and all the tokens of the children's presence; but the fact is, that the lawless habit of scattering should not be allowed to grow upon children. Pg 129

But here is where the mother's work comes in.

She can teach her child to be first without vanity, and to be last without bitterness; that is, she can bring him up in such a hearty outgoing of love and sympathy that joy in his brother's success takes the sting out of his own failure, and regret for his brother's failure leaves no room for self glorification.. Pg 144

thinking, like writing or skating, comes by practice.

The child who has never thought, never does think, and probably never will think; for are there not people enough who go through the world without any deliberate exercise of their own wits?

The child must think, get at the reason why of things for himself, every day of his life, and more each day than the day before.

Children and parents both are given to invert this educational process.

The child asks 'Why?' and the parent answers, rather proud of this evidence of thought in his child.

There is some slight show of speculation even in wondering 'Why?' but it is the slightest and most superficial effort the thinking brain produces.

Let the parent ask 'Why?' and the child produce the answer, if he can.

After he has turned the matter over and over in his mind, there is no harm in telling him––and he will remember it––the reason why.

Every walk should offer some knotty problem for the children to think out––"Why does that leaf float on the water, and this pebble sink?" and so on. Pg 153-154

…if children get the habit of turning out imperfect work, the men and women will undoubtedly keep that habit up. Pg 159

The child should rarely be allowed to set his hand to a new undertaking until the last is finished.  Pg 160

…whatever be the advantages of Kindergarten or other schools for little children, the home schoolroom ought to be the best growing-ground for them.  Pg 170

…she must, herself, have definite views. She must ask herself seriously, Why must the children learn at all?

What should they learn? And, How should they learn it?

If she take the trouble to find a definite and thoughtful answer to each of these three queries, she will be in a position to direct her children's studies; and will, at the same time, be surprised to find that three-fourths of the time and labour ordinarily spent by the child at his lessons is lost time and wasted energy. Pg 171