My First Reading of Volume I by CM

I read volume I of the Home Education series last "school year" and I really only had time to read it while my son was in gymnastics class. I kept a commonplace book w/o realizing that's what I was doing.

I will also continue to read through Volume I over the next 3.5 years or so as my son is 6 and that book deals with the lessons of the 6-9 year old (that's 4 years not 3, do the math ... count with me 6 7 8 9 how many #'s do u c? that's right 4....)

This post will be a work in progress until I can gather all my notes on my first reading of Volume I and place them here online.

I didn't start keeping notes or quotes that stood out to me until a little over half way through. Hopefully I will start keeping notes write away on my next read through.



01.10.2007

From Part V of Home Education page 169-170
Parents must reflect on the Subject-matter of Instruction.––I am about to invite your attention to a subject that parents are accustomed to leave very much in the hands of the schoolmaster or governess when they do not instruct their children themselves––I mean the choice of subjects of instruction, and the ways of handling those subjects. Teachers are the people who have, more than others, given themselves to the consideration of what what a child should learn and how he should learn it; but the parent, also, should have thought on this subject, and even when he does not profess ot teach his children, should have his own carefully formed opinions as to the subject-matter and the method of their intellectual education: and this for the sake of the teacher as well as for that of the children. Nothing does more to give vitality and purpose to the work of the teacher than the certainty that the parents of his pupils go with him.

HomeEd: last nights meeting was by a lady who learned the hard way to pay more attention to her children's hearts than just the academics. It was a good hour talk. I also talked to a couple of gals and had some laughs. One lady that does AO was telling me that she really liked all the Year 1 selections, even some that by yahoo groups others questioned...so...I still have til next fall to consider it all. I do know that a lot of the selections from sonlight that I have read aloud to DS had some things I winced and skipped over...like we just read The Apple and the Arrow about William Tell and apparently they prayed to the virgin so yeah I just said, and they prayed and went right on, didn't say their prayer...but when reading aloud something you have never read, it can trip you up to realize, oh skip that...anyone who has had to do that knows what I mean.

1B5 is watching Charlotte's Web the cartoon version from the 70's that I remember seeing as a kid. He wants to see the new movie but some people that have already seen it say the girl is like the majority of children today, disrespectful...it's sad that they always take things that are already good and try to make it up to date...translation as morally bankrupt as the rest of society...disgusting.

01.15.2007 pages 171-181
pg 178
The Mother the best Kindergartnerin.––It is hardly necessary, here, to discuss the merits of the Kindergarten school. The success of such a school demands rare qualities in the teacher––high culture, some knowledge of psychology and of the art of education; intense sympathy with the children, much tact, much common sense, much common information, much 'joyousness of nature,' and much governing power;––in a word, the Kindergarten method is nicely contrived to bring the child en rapport with a superior intelligence. Given such a superior being to conduct it, and the Kindergarten is beautiful––'tis like a little heaven below'; but put a commonplace woman in charge of such a school, and the charmingly devised gifts and games and occupations become so many instruments of wooden teaching. If the very essence of the Kindergarten method is personal influence, a sort of spiritual mesmerism, it follows that the mother is naturally the best Kindergartnerin; for who so likely as she to have the needful tact, sympathy, common sense, culture?

01.17.2007 pages 182-190
So yesterday I took DS to gymnastics. Not an easy feat when we had ice all weekend and many side streets/driveways/parking lots are still icy. I would watch DS except when he was sitting and waiting his turn across the gym for his coach to help him with whatever technique they are currently working on. During that time I read some.

page 185
So far as education is a science, the truth of even ten––much more, a hundred––years ago is not the whole truth of to-day. (was she saying this or was it the Prof. Simpson? if it was her, does that mean instead of trying to find the books she used in her PNEU correspondance "schools" we ought to be using books more modern? interesting to ponder.)
AND
But, alas, and alas, for the cravings of lazy human nature––we may not have an educational pope; we must think out for ourselves, as well as work out, those things that belong to the perfect bringing-up of our children. (that is cool, she said of our children, not someone else doing it for us, or just plugging in someone elses methods....although we can never go wrong with using YHWH's manual.)

page 186
Nature as an Educator.––The notion of supplementing Nature from the cradle is a dangerous one. A little guiding, a little restraining, much reverent watching, Nature asks of us; but beyond that, it is the wisdom of parents to leave children as much as may be to Nature, and "to a higher Power than Nature itself."

page 187
And, if the little people were in the habit of telling how they feel, we should learn perhaps that they are a good deal bored by the nice little games in which they frisk like lambs, flap their fins, and twiddle their fingers like butterflies. (I was laughing when I read this because I refused to "babytalk" to DS when he was young and now what a talker and so grown up sounding he is. Even from the first time he began talking. I had read when he was a baby that many a mom talks and talks to little girls but not so much to the boys. I decided to talk and talk to DS and he is quite the communicator today.)

page 189
'Kindergarten' a False Analogy.––The world suffered that morning when the happy name of 'Kindergarten' suggested itself to the greatest among educational 'Fathers.' No doubt it was simple and fit in its first intention as meaning an out-of-door garden life for the children; but, a false analogy has hampered, or killed, more than one philosophic system––the child became a plant in a well-ordered garden. The analogy appealed to the orderly, scientific German mind, which does not much approve of irregular, spontaneous movement in any sort. ( well my MIL is from Germany and when her 3 kids were 5 and under, she said at home they only had to mind but they were free to play and play, even get dirty since baths would come after. They only had to be "orderly" when out of the home. MIL said she could take them to her doctor's appointments and they would sit very still and quiet waiting for her, with no one to have to babysit.)

1.23.07
page 191 The Society of his Equals too stimulating for a child.––Let us follow the little person to the Kindergarten, where he has the stimulus of classmates of his own age. It certainly is stimulating. For ourselves, no society is so much so as that of a number of persons of our own age and standing; this is the great joy of college life; a wholesome joy for all young people for a limited time. But persons of twenty have, or should have, some command over their inhibitory centres. They should not permit the dissipation of nerve power caused by too much social stimulus; yet even persons of twenty are not always equal to the task of self-management in exciting circumstances. What then, is to be expected of persons of two, three, four, five? That the little person looks rather stolid than otherwise is no guarantee against excitement within. The clash and sparkle of our equals now and then stirs up to health; but for everyday life, the mixed society of elders, juniors and equals, which we get in a family, gives at the same time the most repose and the most room for individual development. We have all wondered at the good sense, reasonableness, fun and resourcefulness shown by a child in his own home as compared with the same child in school life.

page 195-196 Miss Sullivan's take (Helen Keller's governess)I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built up on the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think, whereas if the child is left to himself he will think more and better, if less showily.

page 196-197 We must go to the United States to witness the apotheosis of educational theory; I say theory rather than practice, because the American mind, like the French, seems to me severely logical as well as generously impulsive. A theory arrives, is liberally entertained, and is set to work with due appliances on a magnificent scale to do that which in it lies for the education of a great people. To say, educational science in America appears to be deductive rather than inductive; theories are translated into experiments with truly imposing zeal and generosity. An inductive theory of education is, on the other hand, arrived at by means of long, slow, various, and laborious experiments which disclose, here a little, and there a little, of universal truth. The Americans have chosen, perhaps, the easier way, and in the end, they too experiment upon their theory. The Kindergarten system illustrates what I mean; notwithstanding its German name, the Kindergarten is not a common product in the Fatherland; it is in America that the ideas of Froebel have received their greatest development, that the Kindergarten has become a cult, and the great teacher a prophet. But the impulse has worn itself out; any way, it is waxing weak.

page 198-199 With these important utterances I must conclude a superficial examination of the very important question,––Is the Kindergarten the best training-ground for a child?

01.24.2007 pages 199-216
page 200
Whitsuntide means Pentecost? interesting, never heard that reference before. I think reading this book is making me smarter, in fact my college textbooks seemed dumbed down in comparison...and at class yesterday we learned the "importance of communicating with little words" pish posh...maybe we should all aspire to have the intellect they had years ago!
page 200-201 top
Many persons consider that to learn to read a language so full of anomalies and difficulties as our own is a task which should not be imposed too soon on the childish mind. But, as a matter of fact, few of us can recollect how or when we learned to read: for all we know, it came by nature, like the art of running; and not only so, but often mothers of the educated classes do not know how their children learned to read. 'Oh, he taught himself,' is all the account his mother can give of little Dick's proficiency. Whereby it is plain, that this notion of the extreme difficulty of learning to read is begotten by the elders rather than by the children. There would be no little books entitled Reading Without Tears, if tears were not sometimes shed over the reading lesson; but, really, when that is the case, the fault rests with the teacher.

page 201-202 top
Let the child alone, and he will learn the alphabet for himself: but few mothers can resist the pleasure of teaching it; and there is no reason why they should, for this kind of learning is no more than play to the child, and if the alphabet be taught to the little student, his appreciation of both form and sound will be cultivated. When should he begin? Whenever his box of letters begins to interest him. The baby of two will often be able to name half a dozen letters; and there is nothing against it so long as the finding and naming of letters is a game to him. But he must not be urged, required to show off, teased to find letters when his heart is set on other play.

page 214 bottom
At the same time, let us recognise that learning to read is to many children hard work, and let us do what we can to make the task easy and inviting.

page 215-mid
It is time we faced the fact that the letters which compose an English word are full of philological interest, and that their study will be a valuable part of education by-and-by; but meantime, sound and letter-sign are so loosely wedded in English, that to base the teaching of reading on the sounds of the letters only, is to lay up for the child much analytic labour, much mental confusion, due to the irregularities of the language; and some little moral strain in making the sound of a letter in a given word fall under any of the 'sounds' he has been taught.

I found that of intrigue because I don't remember learning to read but know that at the age of 4 I could read from the KJV Old Testament and Sign my name in cursive. I don't remember learning phonics rules like "2 vowels go walking" etc...I only heard of these in recent years while researching learning to read programs. I know the 100 Easy Lessons book may seem to have twaddle type paragraphs to read but they are silly and many a child enjoys that part. Other than that I can see why the organizers of the AmblesideOnline website recommend it. It does follow the teach a few sounds and then jump into reading that CM emphasized. I haven't once said any "rules" to DS...they just have special symbols to hint as to how to sound a word and if a letter is silent it is not as big as the rest, so you skip it...but it does show the proper spellings in case the child were imprinting the words on the mind. DS is only 5 and if after we finish the book he still seems a bit unsure of the reading, I plan to continue "learning to read" as long as it takes for him to be fluent and confident in the ability. I enjoy reading but DH does not. I am hoping DS will like to read also.

AwanaS: I did take DS there last week. He got a booklet with 6 steps to be completed before he got his vest and book.

Step1: is to just come 2 times. We will have that taken care of as of tonight.
Step 2: They memorize the motto "My friend for Christ!"
step 3: memorize John 3:16KJV
step 4: memorize Pledge of Allegiance
step 5: pledge to Awana flag (5 lines)
step 6: Sparks song (6 lines)

should be simple. and for $5 he can get a derby car kit to make and enter into a race. He is excited about that because he and my step-dad can make it together. hopefully no "tool time" mishaps...LOL


01.26.2007 pages 216-230
page 216
Here we have the key to reading. No meaningless combinations of letters, no cla, cle, cli, clo, clu, no ath, eth, ith, oth, uth, should be presented to him. The child should be taught from the first to regard the printed word as he already regards the spoken word, as the symbol of fact or idea of full of interest. {-my thought: Phew, 100 Easy Lessons doesn't do this but it also doesn't have really long/complex words either. Also on this page she uses words like "pussy" and "cock" (referring to the animals not what our filthy minded culture uses these words for) These words were in children's stories (ie, Puss in Boots, etc) I find it sad that we are such a dirty minded generation...even words like gay and queer no longer immediately spring to mind the original definitions.}

Page 217-218
There is one objection; such contractions as 'I'll' are ugly at the best,...

Page 221
But we take care that the sentences make sense.{-my thought: 100 EZ has this covered, again now I see why the organizers at AmblesideOnline suggest it.}

Page 222
It may be profitable for the little German child to work through all possibly dreary combinations of letters before he is permitted to have any joy in 'reading,' because wherever these combinations occur they will have the sounds the child has learned laboriously. The fact that English is anomalous as regards the connection between sign and sound, happily exonerates us from enforcing this dreary grind.

Page 224
I hope that my readers will train their children in the art of recitation; in the coming days, more even than in our own will it behove every educated man and woman to be able to speak effectively in public; and, in learning to recite you learn to speak.

Page 224-225
have great tips for memorization

Page 226
But, let me again say, every effort of the kind, however unconscious, means wear and tear of brain substance. Let the child lie fallow till he is six, and then, in this matter of memorising, as in others, attempt only a little, and let the poems the child learns be simple and within the range of his own thought and imagination. At the same time, when there is so much noble poetry within a child's compass, the pity of it, that he should be allowed to learn twaddle!

Page 227
This habit should be begun early; so soon as the child can read at all, he should read for himself, and to himself, history, legends, fairy tales, and other suitable matter. He should be trained from the first to think that one reading of any lesson is enough to enable him to narrate what he has read, and will thus get the habit of slow, careful reading, intelligent even when it is silent, because he reads with an eye to the full meaning of every clause. -my thought: Don't repeat to child or they will get in the habit of not listening since they figure you'll just go over it again.
The child must express what he feels to be the author's meaning; and this sort of intelligent reading comes only of the habit of reading with understanding.

Page 229
A knowledge of meanings, that is, an ample and correct vocabulary, is only arrived at in one way––by the habit of reading.{-my thought: I have always thought this. In fact in chapter 2 that we were discussing in Bus. Communications class yesterday we were told to Use little words because Churchhill said" Little men use big words. Big men use little words." That in audiences there is a mixed education level and the average is 10th grade (how sad) and we should always talk at a lower level and use words like "as you already know" as not to offend the few in the room that may be more intelligent. I say pish posh and it is sad that we have fallen so far away from understanding "big words".}

Page 228-229
A child unconsciously gets the meaning of a new word from the context, if not the first time he meets with it, then the second or the third: but he is on the look-out, and will find out for himself the sense of any expression he does not understand. Direct questions on the subject-matter of what a child has read are always a mistake. Let him narrate what he has read, or some part of it. He enjoys this sort of consecutive reproduction, but abominates every question in the nature of a riddle. If there must be riddles, let it be his to ask and the teacher's to direct him the answer. Questions that lead to a side issue or to a personal view are allowable because these interest children––'What would you have done in his place?'

01.29.2007 pages 230-243
page 230
By the way, quite little children commonly enunciate beautifully, because a big word is a new acquirement which they delight in and make the most of; our efforts should be directed to make older children hold words in like esteem.

page 231
Narrating is an art, like poetry-making or painting, because it is there, in every child's mind, waiting to be discovered, and is not the result of any process of disciplinary education.

AND this next one is very true.

Until he is six, let Bobbie narrate only when and what he has a mind to. He must not be called upon to tell anything. Is this the secret of the strange long talks we watch with amusement between creatures of two, and four, and five? Is it possible that they narrate while they are still inarticulate, and that the other inarticulate person takes it all in? They try us, poor dear elders, and we reply 'Yes,' 'Really!' 'Do you think so?' to the babble of whose meaning we have no comprehension. Be this as it may; of what goes on in the dim region of 'under two' we have no assurance. But wait till the little fellow has words and he will 'tell' without end to whomsoever will listen to the tale, but, for choice, to his own compeers.

Page 234
Printing.––But the child should have practice in printing before he begins to write. First, let him print the simplest of the capital letters with single curves and straight lines. When he can make the capitals and large letters, with some firmness and decision, he might go on to the smaller letters––'printed' as in the type we call 'italics,' only upright,––as simple as possible, and large.
-did she mean print as opposed to cursive? If you teach your child cursive first, at what point do you instruct in print? I am having a hard time deciding which to do first and what to use as examples...I know my handwriting is a hybrid of print and cursive and I don't want DS to develope that poor habit.


01.31.2007 pages 243-264
pg 247
'Composition' comes by Nature.––In fact, lessons on 'composition' should follow the model of that famous essay on "Snakes in Ireland"––"There are none." For children under nine, the question of composition resolves itself into that of narration, varied by some such simple exercise as to write a part and narrate a part, or write the whole account of a walk they have taken, a lesson they have studied, or of some simple matter that they know. Before they are ten, children who have been in the habit of using books will write good, vigorous English with ease and freedom; that is, if they have not been hampered by instructions. It is well for them not even to learn rules for the placing of full stops and capitals until they notice how these things occur in their books. Our business is to provide children with material in their lessons, and leave the handling of such material to themselves. If we would believe it, composition is as natural as jumping and running to children who have been allowed due use of books. They should narrate in the first place, and they will compose, later readily enough; but they should not be taught 'composition.'

Children Enjoy the Bible.––We are apt to believe that children cannot be interested in the Bible unless its pages be watered down––turned into the slipshod English we prefer to offer them.

pg 249
It is a mistake to use paraphrases of the text; the fine roll of Bible English appeals to children with a compelling music, and they will probably retain through life their first conception of the Bible scenes, and, also, the very words in which these scenes are portrayed. This is a great possession. Half the clever talk we hear to-day, and half the uneasiness which underlies this talk, are due to a thorough and perfect ignorance of the Bible text. The points of assault are presented to men's minds naked and jagged, without atmosphere, perspective, proportion; until the Bible comes to mean for many, the speaking of Balaam's ass or the standing still of the sun at Joshua's bidding.
But let the imaginations of children be stored with the pictures, their minds nourished upon the words, of the gradually unfolding story of the Scriptures, and they will come to look out upon a wide horizon within which persons and events take shape in their due place and due proportion. By degrees, they will see that the world is a stage whereon the goodness of God is continually striving with the wilfulness of man; that some heroic men take sides with God; and that others, foolish and headstrong, oppose themselves to Him. The fire of enthusiasm will kindle in their breast, and the children, too, will take their side, without much exhortation, or any thought or talk of spiritual experience.

pg 250
Let them hear the story of the Garden of Eden, for example, as it stands; just so, we might even let them have the story of the man who went fishing and found a goodly pearl; and this, because the thing that matters in both stories is the essential truths they embody, and not the mere accidents of time and place.
If we will believe it, the minds of children are, perhaps, more fit than our own to appropriate and deal with truth. By-and-by they will perceive and discard, if necessary, the accidental circumstances with which the truth is clothed upon; but let us be very chary of our own action.

pg 251
Children are more capable of being bored than even we ourselves and many a revolt has been brought about by the undue rubbing-in of the Bible, in season and out of season, even in nursery days. But we are considering, not the religious life of children, but their education by lessons; and their Bible lessons should help them to realise in early days that the knowledge of God is the principal knowledge, and, therefore, that their Bible lessons are their chief lessons.

pg 253
But it is well to let the pictures tell their own tale. The children should study a subject quietly for a few minutes; and then, the picture being removed, say what they have seen in it. It will be found that they miss no little reverent or suggestive detail which the artist has thought well to include.
It is a delightful thing to have the memory stored with beautiful, comforting, and inspiring passages, and we cannot tell when and how this manner of seed may spring up, grow, and bear fruit; (she goes on to talk about the best way to learn scripture memorization)

pg 254
Now, a child who does not know what rule to apply to a simple problem within his grasp, has been ill taught from the first, although he may produce slatefuls of quite right sums in multiplication or long division.

pg 255
Care must be taken to give the child such problems as he can work, but yet which are difficult enough to cause him some little mental effort.

pg 259
We call two tens, twenty, three tens, thirty, because 'ty' (tig) means ten. - (I didn't know that tig means ten...even I am learning something!)
Let him never work with figures the notation of which is beyond him, and when he comes to 'carry' in an addition or multiplication sum, let him not say he carries 'two,' or 'three,' but 'two tens,' or 'three hundreds,' as the case may be. -(guilty of doing this myself..it's what I was taught...tsk tsk)

pg 262
(I was considering between MUS and Ray's and then came upon this paragraph, decision made- RAY's)
Here we may, I think, trace the solitary source of weakness in a surpassingly excellent manual. It is quite true that the fundamental truths of the science of number all rest on the evidence of sense but, having used eyes and fingers upon ten balls or twenty balls, upon ten nuts, or leaves, or sheep, or what not, the child has formed the association of a given number with objects, and is able to conceive of the association of various other numbers with objects. In fact, he begins to think in numbers and not in objects, that is, he begins mathematics. Therefore I incline to think that an elaborate system of staves, cubes, etc., instead of tens, hundreds, thousands, errs by embarrassing the child's mind with too much teaching, and by making the illustration occupy a more prominent place than the thing illustrated.

Pg 264
I do not think that any direct preparation for mathematics is desirable. The child, who has been allowed to think and not compelled to cram, hails the new study with delight when the due time for it arrives. The reason why mathematics are a great study is because there exists in the normal mind an affinity and capacity for this study; and too great an elaboration, whether of teaching or of preparation, has, I think, a tendency to take the edge off this manner of intellectual interest.

02.05.2007 page 264-271
A Basis of Facts.––Of the teaching of Natural Philosophy, I will only remind the reader of what was said in an earlier chapter––that there is no part of a child's education more important than that he should lay, by his own observation, a wide basis of facts towards scientific knowledge in the future. He must live hours daily in the open air, and, as far as possible, in the country; must look and touch and listen; must be quick to note, consciously, every peculiarity of habit or structure, in beast, bird, or insect; the manner of growth and fructification of every plant. He must be accustomed to ask why––Why does the wind blow? Why does the river flow? Why is a leaf-bud sticky? And do not hurry to answer his questions for him; let him think his difficulties out so far as his small experience will carry him. Above all, when you come to the rescue, let it not be in the 'cut and dried' formula of some miserable little text-book; let him have all the insight available and you will find that on many scientific questions the child may be brought at once to the level of modern thought. Do not embarrass him with too much scientific nomenclature. If he discover for himself (helped, perhaps, by a leading question or two), by comparing an oyster and his cat, that some animals have backbones and some have not, it is less important that he should learn the terms vertebrate and invertebrate than that he should class the animals he meets with according to this difference.

pg 265
"Think you," says Mr. Herbert Spencer, "that the rounded rock marked with parallel scratches calls up as much poetry in an ignorant mind as in the mind of the geologist, who knows that over this rock a glacier slid a million of years ago? (who was this guy?)

p267
The general plan of the book is to awaken the imagination; to convey useful knowledge; to open the doors towards wisdom. Its special aim is to stimulate observation and to excite a living and lasting interest in the world that lies about us.

p268
. . . . The volume is the result of a sincere belief that much can be done to aid young children to comprehend the material world in which they live, and of a desire to have a part in a work so very well worth doing."

p269-270
Cool experiments taught to children by a Reverend...interesting, Believers instructing all the villages children...what a concept. Made a note to try some or even all of the experiments listed.


02.07.2007 pages 271-279
pg 272
As commonly Taught.––Now, how is the subject commonly taught? The child learns the names of the capital cities of Europe, or of the rivers of England, or of the mountain-summits of Scotland, from some miserable text-book, with length in miles, and height in feet, and population, finding the names on his map or not, according as his teacher is more or less up to her work. Poor little fellow! the lesson is hard work to him;.....

pg273
Most of us have gone through a good deal of drudgery in the way of 'geography' lessons, but how much do we remember?....for practical purposes he must learn such geography only as, the nature of his mind considered, he will be able to remember; in other words, he must learn what interests him.

pg 274
At the same time, he gets his first notions of a map from a rude sketch, a mere few lines and dots, done with pencil and paper, or, better still, with a stick in the sand or gravel.........he finds a score of familiar names which suggest landscapes to him––places where 'mother has been,'.......:––and always give him a rough sketch-map of the route you took in a given journey.

pg 275
...that is, let him follow the adventures of a traveller; and he knows more, is better furnished with ideas, than if he had learnt all the names on all the maps. ......Here, as elsewhere, the question is, not how many things does he know, but how much does he know about each thing.
....in the course of his readings he falls in with a description of a volcano, a glacier, a cañon, a hurricane; he hears all about, and asks and learns the how and the why, of such phenomena at the moment when his interest is excited. In other words, he learns as his elders elect to learn for themselves, though they rarely allow the children to tread in paths so pleasant.

pg 277
Definitions.––But definitions should come in the way of recording his experiences. Before he is taught what a river is, he must have watched a stream and observed that it flows; and so on with the rest.
Children easily simulate knowledge, and at this point the teacher will have to be careful that nothing which the child receives is mere verbiage, but that every generalisation is worked out somewhat in this way:––The child observes a fact, as, for example, a wide stretch of flat ground; the teacher amplifies. He reads in his book about Pampas, the flat countries of the north-west of Europe, the Holland of our own eastern coast, and, by degrees, he is prepared to receive the idea of a plain, and to show it on his tray of sand.
She goes on to say the things a child ought to know by the age of 7 regarding this topic and looks like a reasonable amount.

pg 278
Therefore he should begin this study by learning the meaning of a map and how to use it. He must learn to draw a plan of his schoolroom, etc., according to scale, go on to the plan of a field, consider how to make the plan of his town, and be carried gradually from the idea of a plan to that of a map; always beginning with the notion of an explorer who finds the land and measures it, and by means of sun and stars, is able to record just where it is on the earth's surface, east or west, north or south.
Now he will arrive at the meaning of the lines of latitude and longitude. He will learn how sea and land are shown on a map, how rivers and mountains are represented; and having learned his points of direction and the use of his compass, and knowing that maps are always made as if the beholder were looking to the north, he will be able to tell a good deal about situation, direction, and the like, in very early days.
My thought: for preparedness we should all know how to tell direction by the stars because as you notice the sun doesn't set due west in the winter, but rather southwestish.

02.12.2007 page 279-288
p280
Let him, on the contrary, linger pleasantly over the history of a single man, a short period, until he thinks the thoughts of that man, is at home in the ways of that period. Though he is reading and thinking of the lifetime of a single man, he is really getting intimately acquainted with the history of a whole nation for a whole age.

p281
Let him know the great people and the common people, the ways of the court and of the crowd. Let him know what other nations were doing while we at home were doing thus and thus. If he come to think that the people of another age were truer, larger-hearted, simpler-minded than ourselves, that the people of some other land were, at one time, at any rate, better than we, why, so much the better for him.
....; and as for what are called children's books, the children of educated parents are able to understand history written with literary power, and are not attracted by the twaddle of reading-made-easy little history books.
In the course of such reading a good deal of questioning into them, and questioning out of them, will be necessary, both to secure their attention and to fix the facts. This is the least that should be done; but better than this would be fuller information, more graphic details about two or three early epochs.

p282
In these early years, while there are no examinations ahead, and the children may yet go leisurely, let them get the spirit of history into them by reading, at least, one old Chronicle written by a man who saw and knew something of what he wrote about, and did not get it at second-hand.
A child who has been carried through a single old chronicler in this way has a better foundation for all historical training than if he knew all the dates and names and facts that ever were crammed for examination.

p284
It is needless to extend the list; one such old chronicle in a year, or the suitable bits of one such chronicle, and the child's imagination is aglow, his mind is teeming with ideas; he has had speech of those who have themselves seen and heard; and the matter-of-fact way in which the old monks tell their tales is exactly what children prefer. Afterwards, you may put any dull outlines into their hands, and they will make history for themselves.

p285-286
And so of as much else as there is time for; the principle being, that, whenever practicable, the child should get his first notions of a given period, not from the modern historian, the commentator and reviewer, but from the original sources of history, the writings of contemporaries. The mother must, however, exercise discrimination in her choice of early 'Chronicles,' as all are not equally reliable.

p287
To sum up, to know as much as they may about even one short period, is far better for the children than to know the 'outlines' of all history. And in the second place, children are quite able to take in intelligent ideas in intelligent language, and should by no means be excluded from the best that is written on the period they are about.

p288
As it is, our minds are so poorly furnished that we accept the conclusions presented to us without demur; but we can, at any rate, avoid giving children cut-and-dried opinions upon the course of history while they are yet young. What they want is graphic details concerning events and persons upon which imagination goes to work; and opinions tend to form themselves by slow degrees as knowledge grows.

02.19.2007 page 288-295
p292
Dates.––In order to give definiteness to what may soon become a pretty wide knowledge of history––mount a sheet of cartridge-paper and divide it into twenty columns, letting the first century of the Christian era come in the middle, and let each remaining column represent a century B.C. or A.D., as the case may be.
Then let the child himself write, or print, as he is able, the names of the people he comes upon in due order, in their proper century.
We need not trouble ourselves at present with more exact dates, but this simple table of the centuries will suggest a graphic panorama to the child's mind, and he will see events in their time-order. [You can see a timeline chart with a similar idea, only in block form, illustrated in the Parents Review article The Teaching of Chronology. The kind of table she is describing here may have looked like this.]

AND in the Illustrations by Children paragraph

Children who had been reading Julius Caesar (and also, Plutarch's Life), were asked to make a picture of their favourite scene, and the results showed the extraordinary power of visualising which the little people possess. Of course that which they visualise, or imagine clearly, they know; it is a life possession.

p294
In these original illustrations (several of them by older children than those we have in view here), we get an example of the various images that present themselves to the minds of children during the reading of a great work; and a single such glimpse into a child's mind convinces us of the importance of sustaining that mind upon strong meat. Imagination does not stir at the suggestion of the feeble, much-diluted stuff that is too often put into children's hands.

p294-295
The mistake we make is to suppose that imagination is fed by nature, or that it works on the insipid diet of children's storybooks.
Let a child have the meat he requires in his history readings, and in the literature which naturally gathers round this history, and imagination will bestir itself without any help of ours; the child will live out in detail a thousand scenes of which he only gets the merest hint.

Good read: Flute's Journey - DS and I read this today during Home Ed. time.


02.23.2007 pages295-307 sections on Grammar and French lessons
p295
Of grammar, Latin and English, I shall say very little here. In the first place, grammar, being a study of words and not of things, is by no means attractive to the child, nor should he be hurried into it. English grammar, again, depending as it does on the position and logical connection of words, is peculiarly hard for him to grasp. In this respect the Latin grammar is easier; a change in the form, the shape of the word, to denote case, is what a child can see with his bodily eye, and therefore is plainer to him than the abstract ideas of nominative and objective case as we have them in English.
She lays out a couple of sample lessons.

p300
French should be acquired as English is, not as a grammar, but as a living speech. To train the ear to distinguish and the lips to produce the French vocables is a valuable part of the education of the senses, and one which can hardly be undertaken too soon. Again, all educated persons should be able to speak French.

p301
Sir Lyon Playfair, once speaking a conference of French masters, lamented feelingly our degeneracy in this respect, and instanced the grammar school of Perth to show that in a Scotch school in the sixteenth century the boys were required to speak Latin during school hours, and French at all other times. There is hardly another civilised nation so dull in acquiring foreign tongues as we English of the present time; but, probably, the fault lies rather in the way we set about the study than in any natural incapacity for languages.
As regards French, for instance, our difficulties are twofold––the want of a vocabulary, and a certain awkwardness in producing unfamiliar sounds. It is evident that both these hindrances should be removed in early childhood. The child should never see French words in print until he has learned to say them with as much ease and readiness as if they were English. The desire to give printed combinations of letters the sounds they would bear in English words is the real cause of our national difficulty in pronouncing French.

Page305
Little child, which at the age of two years utters nothing but meaningless exclamations, at the age of three finds itself in possession of a complete language. How does it accomplish this?
The organ of language––ask the little child––is not the eye: it is the ear. The eye is made for colours, and not for sounds and words . .

p306.
Besides, the spelling is a thing that can be reformed––the pronunciation hardly at all. We must choose between the two evils.

p307
have a child of three, and their child speaks three languages with perfect fluency––English, German, and Arabic! No doubt the child will forget two of the three, and this is no argument for teaching foreign tongues to babies, but surely it does prove that the acquisition of a foreign tongue need not present insuperable difficulties to any of us.

02.27.2007 pages 307-316
This wraps up Part 5 about lessons...I counted all the things to do in a given day/week and wowzers.

p308
Should be Regular.––When children have begun regular lessons (that is, as soon as they are six), this sort of study of pictures should not be left to chance, but they should take one artist after another, term by term, and study quietly some half-dozen reproductions of his work in the course of the term.

p313
Children of six and seven draw budding twigs of oak and ash, beech and larch, with such tender fidelity to colour, tone, and gesture, that the crude little drawings are in themselves things of beauty.
In order that we may not impede the child's freedom or hinder the deliverance of the art that is in him, we must be careful not to offer any aids in the way of guiding lines, points, and such other crutches; and, also, he should work in the easiest medium, that is, with paint brush or with charcoal, and not with a black-lead pencil. Boxes of cheap colours are to be avoided. Children are worthy of the best, and some half-dozen tubes of really good colours will last a long time, and will satisfy the eye of the little artists.

p314
Then put before him an apple, a banana, a Brazil nut, or the like; let him, not take a lump of clay and squeeze it into shape, but build up the shape he desires morsel by morsel.

p315
***include some dancing and handicrafts daily/weekly also....along with learning to read/sing music

p316 (this one stings!)
May I hope, in concluding this short review of the subjects proper for a child's intellectual education, that enough has been said to show the necessity of grave consideration on the mother's part before she allows promiscuous little lesson-books to be put into the hands of her children, or trust ill-qualified persons to strike out methods of teaching for themselves?

03.09.2007 this past week I started part VI. Pages 317-323
p317
Every child who lives long enough in the world is invested, by degrees, with this high function, and it is the part of his parents to instruct him in his duties, and to practise him in his tasks.

p318
He may reflect and imagine; be stirred by the desire of knowledge, of power, of distinction; may love and esteem; may form habits of attention, obedience, diligence, sloth, involuntarily––that is, without ever intending, purposing, willing these things for himself. So far is this true, that there are people who live through their lives without an act of deliberate will: amiable, easy-going people, on the one hand, hedged in by favouring circumstances; and poor souls, on the other, whom circumstances have not saved, who have drifted from their moorings, and are hardly to be named by those to whom they belong. Great intellectual powers by no means imply a controlling will.

p319
We all know of lives, rich in gifts and graces, which have been wrecked for the lack of a determining will.
The will is the controller of the passions and emotions, the director of the desires, the ruler of the appetites. But observe, the passions, the desires, the appetites, are there already, and the will gathers force and vigour only as it is exercised in the repression and direction of these; for though the will appears to be of purely spiritual nature, yet it behaves like any member of the body in this––that it becomes vigorous and capable in proportion as it is duly nourished and fitly employed.

p320
He will rule the sports of the nursery, will monopolise his sisters' playthings, all because of this 'strong will.' Now we come to a divergence of opinion: on the one hand, the parents decide that, whatever the consequence, the child's will is not to be broken, so all his vagaries must go unchecked; on the other, the decision is, that the child's will must be broken at all hazards, and the poor little being is subjected to a dreary round of punishment and repression.
But, all the time, nobody perceives that it is the mere want of will that is the matter with the child.

p321
He is in a state of absolute 'wilfulness,'––the rather unfortunate word we use to describe the state in which the will has no controlling power; willessness, if there were such a word, would describe this state more truly.
Whereas the determination is only apparent; the child is, in fact, hurried along without resistance, because that opposing force which should give balance to his character is undeveloped and untrained.

p322
I found this paragraph good and it made me think of "lest any man should boast"
The Will not a Moral Faculty.––Again, though it is impossible to attain moral excellence of character without the agency of a vigorous will, the will itself is not a moral faculty, and a man may attain great strength of will in consequence of continued efforts in the repression or direction of his appetites or desires, and yet be an unworthy man; that is, he may be keeping himself in order from unworthy motives, for the sake of appearances, for his own interest, even for the injury of another.
(referencing a painting) ....All this the divine grace may accomplish in weak unwilling souls, and then they will do what they can; but their power of service is
limited by their past. Not so the child of the Christian mother, whose highest desire is to train him for the Christian life. When he wakes to the consciousness of whose he is and whom he serves, she would have him ready for that high service, with every faculty in training––a man of war from his youth; above all, with an effective will, to will and to do of His good pleasure.

03.14.2007 Pages 323-329
p323
There are those, no doubt, who have not even arrived at wishing, but most of us desire to do well; what we want to know is, how to make ourselves do what we desire. And here is the line which divides the effective from the non-effective people, the great from the small, the good from the well-intentioned and respectable; it is in proportion as a man has self-controlling, self-compelling power that he his able to do, even of his own pleasure; that he can depend upon himself, and be sure of his own action in emergencies.

p324
A baby falls, gets a bad bump, and cries piteously. The experienced nurse does not "kiss the place to make it well," or show any pity for the child's trouble––that would make matters worse; the more she pities, the more he sobs. She hastens to 'change his thoughts,' so she says; she carries him to the window to see the horses, gives him his pet picture-book, his dearest toy, and the child pulls himself up in the middle of a sob, though he is really badly hurt. Now this, of the knowing nurse, is precisely the part the will plays towards the man. It is by force of will that a man can 'change his thoughts,' transfer his attention from one subject of thought to another, and that, with a shock of mental force of which he is indistinctly conscious. And this is enough to save a man and to make a man, this power of making himself think only of those things which he has beforehand decided that it is good to think upon.

p325
Change of Thought.––Again, the sameness of his duties, the weariness of doing the same thing over and over, fills him with disgust and despondency, and he relaxes his efforts;––but not if he be a man under the power of his own will, because he simply does not allow himself in idle discontent; it is always within his power to give himself something pleasant, something outside of himself, to think of, and he does so; and, given what we call a 'happy frame of mind,' no work is laborious.
The Way of the Will should be taught to Children.––It is something to know what to do with ourselves when we are beset, and the knowledge of this way of the will is so far the secret of a happy life, that it is well worth imparting to the children. Are you cross? Change your thoughts. Are you tired of trying? Change your thoughts. Are you craving for things you are not to have? Change your thoughts; there is a power within you, your own will, which will enable you to turn your attention from thoughts that make you unhappy and wrong, to thoughts that make you happy and right. And this is the exceedingly simple way in which the will acts; this is the sole secret of the power over himself which the strong man wields––he can compel himself to think of what he chooses, and will not allow himself in thoughts that breed mischief.

p326
There are bird-witted people, who have no power of thinking connectedly for five minutes under any pressure, from within or from without. If they have never been trained to apply the whole of their mental faculties to a given subject, why, no energy of will, supposing they had it, which is impossible, could make them think steadily thoughts of their own choosing or of anyone else's. Here is how the parts of the intellectual fabric dovetail: power of will implies power of attention; and before the parent can begin to train the will of the child, he must have begun to form in him the habit of attention.

p327
We all know something of this struggle between habit and will in less vital matters. Who is without some dilatory, procrastinating, in some way tiresome, habit, which is in almost daily struggle with the rectified will?

p328-329
Not all this at once, of course; but line upon line, precept upon precept, here a little and there a little, as opportunity offers. Let him get into the habit of managing himself, controlling himself, and it is astonishing how much self-compelling power quite a young child will exhibit.

p329
Education of the Will more important than that of the Intellect.––All this time, the will of the child is being both trained and strengthened; he is learning how and when to use his will, and it is becoming every day more vigorous and capable. Let me add one or two wise thoughts from Dr. Morell's Introduction to Mental Philosophy: "The education of the will is really of far greater importance, as shaping the destiny of the individual, than that of the intellect. . . . Theory and doctrine, and inculcation of laws and propositions, will never of themselves lead to the uniform habit of right action. It is by doing, that we learn to do; by overcoming, that we learn to overcome; and every right act which we cause to spring out of pure principles, whether by authority, precept, or example, will have a greater weight in the formation of character than all the theory in the world."

03.22.2007 pages 329-339
p330
'I am'––we have the power of knowing ourselves. 'I ought'––we have within us a moral judge, to whom we feel ourselves subject, and who points out and requires of us our duty. 'I can'––we are conscious of power to do that which we perceive we ought to do. 'I will'––we determine to exercise that power with a volition which is in itself a step in the execution of that which we will.
But of the sorrowful mysteries of sin and temptation it is not my place to speak here; you will see that it is because of the possibilities of ruin and loss which lie about every human life that I am pressing upon parents the duty of saving their children by the means put into their hands. Perhaps it is not too much to say, that ninety-nine out of a hundred lost lives lie at the door of parents who took no pains to deliver them from sloth, from sensual appetites, from willfulness, no pains to fortify them with the habits of a good life.

p331
We live in a redeemed world, and infinite grace and help from above attend every rightly directed effort in the training of the children; but I do not see much ground for hoping that divine grace will step in as a substitute for any and every power we choose to leave unused or misdirected. In the physical world, we do not expect miracles to make up for our neglect of the use of means; the rickety body, the misshapen limb, for which the child has to thank his parents, remain with him through life, however much else he may have to thank God for; and a feeble will, bad habits, an uninstructed conscience, stick by many a Christian man through his life, because his parents failed in their duty to him, and he has not had force enough in himself to supply their omission. ----OUCH!!!

p333
The wonder that Almighty God can endure so far to leave the very making of an immortal being in the hands of human parents is only matched by the wonder that human parents can accept this divine trust with hardly a thought of its significance.

p335
....; habits of right action must carry the feelings, must make right-doing seem the easier and the pleasanter.
Here is, indeed, a high motive for the all-round training of the child's intelligence; he wants the highest culture you can give him, backed by carefully formed habits, in order that he may have a conscience always alert, supported by every power of the mind; and such a conscience is the very flower of a noble life. The instructed conscience may claim to be, if not infallible, at any rate nearly always right. It is not generally mature until the man is mature; young people, however right-minded and earnest, are apt to err, chiefly because they fix their attention too much upon some one duty, some one theory of life, at the expense of much besides.(?)

p336
Discussions of the kind should be put down; the children should not be encouraged to give their opinions on questions of right and wrong, and little books should not be put into their hands which pronounce authoritatively upon conduct.

p336-337
The Bible the Chief Source of Moral Ideas.––It would be well if the reticence of the Bible in this respect were observed by the writers of children's books, whether of story or history. The child hears the history of Joseph (with reservations) read from the Bible, which rarely offers comment or explanation. He does not need to be told what was 'naughty' and what was 'good'; there is no need to press home the teaching, or the Bible were written in vain, and good and bad actions carry no witness with them. Let all the circumstances of the daily Bible reading––the consecutive reading, from the first chapter of Genesis onwards, with necessary omissions––be delightful to the child; let him be in his mother's room, in his mother's arms; let that quarter of an hour be one of sweet leisure and sober gladness, the child's whole interest being allowed to go to the story without distracting moral considerations; and then, the less talk the better; the story will sink in, and bring its own teaching, a little now, and more every year as he is able to bear it. Once such story will be in him a constantly growing, fructifying moral idea.
p338It is very important, again, that the child should not be allowed to condemn the conduct of the people about him. Whether he is right or wrong in him verdict, is not the question; the habit of bestowing blame will certainly blunt his conscience, deaden his sensibility to the injunction, "Judge not, that ye be not judged." (you there. yes, you. Do you agree with this statment of Charlotte's?)
But the child's own conduct: surely he may be called upon to look into that? His conduct, including his words, yes; but his motives, no; nothing must be done to induce the evil habit of introspection. (agree?)
They commit serious offences against truth, modesty, love, and do not know that they have done wrong, while some absurd featherweight of transgression oppresses their souls.
I once saw a dying child of twelve who was wearing herself out with her great distress because she feared she had committed 'the unpardonable sin,' so she said (how she picked up the phrase nobody knew); and that was––that she had been saying her prayers without even kneeling up in bed!

p338-339
The ignorance of children about the commonest matters of right and wrong is really pathetic; and yet they are too often treated as if they knew all about it, because 'they have consciences,' as if conscience were any more than a spiritual organ waiting for direction!


03.27.2007 as posted 3/16/07 to AO group
We're looking at making some changes to the geography part of AO. Wethink it will help children who are struggling with Marco Polo andsome geography concepts earlier than they need to be. The changeswould involve moving some books up a year, adding Ann Voskamp's'Exploring His Earth' to Year 4 and as an alternative to MadameHow and Lady Why (it covers similar information), listing Ann Voskamp's 'Explorethe Holy Land' to the out-of-print options in Year 5, andmoving Kon Tiki to Year 8, where some more exciting reading would helpround out that Year. The changes will be reflected in the 36-weekschedules as well as the booklists, and I'll update whatever masterbooklists I have access to on the website. We think this will make each year alittle more enjoyable. No book is being removed, and no required purchase isbeing added - it's just adding a couple of additional options, and shuffling afew books.Besides geography changes, we're adding Jeannie Fulbright's "Exploring CreationWith . . ." series to science as an alternate science option in Years 3-6. Somefamilies are already using these books, some aren't - it won't affect anyoneeither way because it's just an alternative being added.
Moderator

That's it for CM this week. My son was sick last night with a fever, cough, and vomiting - although what a good boy, he on his own went to the bathroom to be sick and then called for me. This morning he has been sipping on homemade electrolyte beverage and actually kept his lunch down. But by 2:30pm he took a nap and for a 5 year old who never naps to take one- he definately doesn't feel well. That meant he didn't go to gymnastics today and so I didn't get to read my CM book.
I heard on Savage last night during his bash of our current education system - "What is a kid going to learn by going to school anyhow? How to put a condom on a banana, that immigrants are hard workers, and to hate America." I was agreeing and laughing at the frankness.

04.03.2007 pages 339-348
p340
Do not give children deterrent examples of error, because of the sad proclivities of human nature, but always tell them of beautiful 'Golden Deeds,' small and great, that shall stir them as trumpet-calls to the battle of life.

p341
"The very Pulse of the Machine."––It is evident we have not yet reached
"The very pulse of the machine."
Habits, feeling, reason, conscience––we have followed these into the inmost recesses of the child's life; each acts upon the other, but what acts upon the last: what acts upon them all? "It is," says a writer who has searched into the deep things of God––"it is a King that our spirits cry for, to guide them, discipline them, unite them to each other; to give them a victory over themselves, a victory over the world. It is a Priest that our spirits cry out for, to lift them above themselves to their God and Father,––to make them partakers of his nature, fellow-workers in one authentic testimony that He is both the Priest and King of Men." [Maurice, Sermons on Sacrifice.] [Possibly The Doctrine of Sacrifice by John Frederick Denison Maurice, (1805–1872), whom Charles Kingsley called 'the most beautiful human soul whom God has ever allowed me to meet with.']

p342
She quotes Augustine, " The direct action of the soul is all Godward, with a reflex action towards men. The speech of the soul is prayer and praise, the right hand of the soul is faith, the light of the soul is love, the love of God shed abroad upon it. Observe, these are the functions, this, the life of the soul, the only functions, the only life it can have: if it have not these, it has no power to turn aside and find the "life of its hand" elsewhere."

p343
What is the Life of the Soul?––......The truth is too ineffable to be uttered in any words but those given to us. But it means this, at least, that the living soul does not abide alone in its place; that place becomes the temple of the living God.

p343
The Parent must present the idea of God to the Soul of the Child.––.........

p345
The parent must not make blundering, witless efforts: as this is the highest duty imposed upon him, it is also the most delicate; and he will have infinite need of faith and prayer, tact and discretion, humility, gentleness, love, and sound judgement, if he would present his child to God, and the thought of God to the soul of his child.
God presented to Children as an Exactor and a Punisher.––"If we think of God as an exactor and not a giver," it has been well said, "exactors and not givers shall we become." Yet is not this the light in which God is most commonly set before the children––a Pharoah demanding his tale of bricks, bricks of good behaviour and right-doing? Do not parents deliberately present God as an exactor, to back up the feebleness of their own government; and do they not freely utter, on the part of God, threats they would be unwilling to utter on their own part? Again, what child has not heard from his nurse this, delivered with much energy, 'God does not love you, you naughty boy! He will send you to the bad place!' And these two thoughts of God, as an exactor and a punisher, make up, often enough, all the idea the poor child gets of his Father in heaven. What fruit can come of this but aversion, the turning away of the child from the face of his Father? What if, instead, were given to him the thought well expressed in the words, "The all-forgiving gentleness of God" ?

p346
Parents must select Inspiring Ideas.––These are but two of many deterrent thoughts of God commonly presented to the tender soul; and the mother, who realises that the heart of her child may be irrevocabley turned against God by the ideas of Him imbibed in the nursery, will feel the necessity for grave and careful thought, and definite resolve, as to what teaching her child shall receive on this momentous subject. She will most likely forbid any mention of the Divine Name to the children, except by their parents, explaining at the same time that she does so because she cares so much that her children should get none but right thoughts on this great matter. It is better that children should receive a few vital ideas that their souls may grow than a great deal of indefinite teaching. (nursery? so not her children? like some kind of governess she is speaking to here?....so I thought, exactly what the public school teachers should be taught here....to acknowledge there is a Sovereign but rather tell the students to direct questions invloving - especially meatier subjects- asks their parents so as not to try and confuse the child and so the child grows learning what the parents believe- of course that would only work in the right society where we all agreed and believed on the TRUE Sovereign.)
In the first place, we must teach that which we know, know by the life of the soul, not with any mere knowledge of the mind. Now, of the vast mass of the doctrines and the precepts of religion, we shall find that there are only a few vital truths that we have so taken into our being that we live upon them––this person, these; that person, those; some of us, not more than a single one. One or more, these are the truths we must teach the children, because these will come straight out of our hearts with the enthusiasm of conviction which rarely fails to carry its own idea into the spiritual life of another. There is no more fruitful source of what it is hardly too much to call infant infidelity than the unreal dead words which are poured upon children about the best things, with an artificial solemnity of tone and manner intended to make up for the want of living meaning in the words. Let the parent who only knows one thing from above teach his child that one; more will come to him by the time the child is ready for more.

p347
Fitting and Vital Ideas.––Again, there are some ideas of the spiritual life more proper than others to the life and needs of the child. Thus, Christ the Joy-giver is more to him than Christ the Consoler.
And there are some few ideas which are as the daily bread of the soul, without which life and growth are impossible. All other teaching may be deferred until the child's needs bring him to it; but whoever sends his child out into life without these vital ideas of the spiritual life, sends him forth with a dormant soul, however well-instructed he may be in theology.

p348
The Times and the Manner of Religious Instruction.––The next considerations that will press upon the mother are of the times, and the manner,of this teaching in the things of God. It is better that these teachings be rare and precious, than too frequent and slighty valued; better not at all, than that the child should be surfeited with the mere sight of spiritual food, rudely served. At the same time, he must be built up in the faith, and his lessons must be regular and progressive; and here everything depends upon the tact of the mother. ....... Every now and then there occurs a holy moment, felt to be holy by mother and child, when the two are together––that is the moment for some deeply felt and softly spoken word about God, such as the occasion gives rise to. .....This is all: no routine of spiritual teaching; a dread of many words, which are apt to smother the fire of the sacred life; much self-restraint shown in the allowing of seeming opportunities to pass; and all the time, earnest purpose of heart, and a definite scheme for the building up of the child in the faith. It need not be added that, to make another use of our Lord's words, "this kind cometh forth only by prayer." It is as the mother gets wisdom liberally from above, that she will be enabled for this divine task.

04.04.2007 pages 349-352 (end)
04/03/2007 - I found this section needed it's own entry.

The Reading of the Bible.––A word about the reading of the Bible. I think we make a mistake in burying the text under our endless comments and applications. Also, I doubt if the picking out of individual verses, and grinding these into the child until they cease to have any meaning for him, is anything but a hindrance to the spiritual life. The Word is full of vital force, capable of applying itself. A seed, light as thistledown, wafted into the child's soul will take root downwards and bear fruit upwards. What is required of us is, that we should implant a love of the Word; that the most delightful moments of the child's day should be those in which his mother reads for him, with sweet sympathy and holy gladness in voice and eyes, the beautiful stories of the Bible; and now and then in the reading will occur one of those convictions, passing from the soul of the mother to the soul of the child, in which is the life of the Spirit. Let the child grow, so that,
"New thoughts of God, new hopes of heaven,"
are a joy to him, too; things to be counted first amongst the blessings of a day. Above all, do not read the Bible at the child: do not let any words of the Scriptures be occasions for gibbeting his faults. (ooooh) It is the office of the Holy Ghost to convince of sin; and He is able to use the Word for this purpose, without risk of that hardening of the heart in which our clumsy dealings too often result.
The matter for this teaching of divine things will come out of every mother's own convictions. I will attempt to speak of only one or two of those vital truths on which the spiritual life must sustain itself.
Father and Giver.––"Our Father, who is in heaven," is perhaps the first idea of God which the mother will present to her child––Father and Giver, straight from whom comes all the gladness of every day. 'What a happy birthday our Father has given to my little boy!' 'The flowers are coming again; our Father has taken care of the life of the plants all through the winter cold!' 'Listen to the skylark! It is a wonder how our Father can put so much joy into the heart of one little bird.' 'Thank God for making my little girl so happy and merry!' Out of this thought comes prayer, the free utterance of the child's heart, more often in thanks for the little joys of the day counted up than in desire, just yet. The words do not matter; any simple form the child can understand will do; the rising Godward of the child-heart is the true prayer. Out of this thought , too, comes duty––the glad acknowledgement of the debt of service and obedience to a Parent so gracious and benign––not One who exacts service at the sword's point, as it were, but One whom His children run to obey.
The Essence of Christianity is Loyalty to a Person.––Christ, our King. Here is a thought to unseal the fountains of love and loyalty, the treasures of faith and imagination, bound up in the child. The very essence of Christianity is personal loyalty, passionate loyalty to our adorable Chief. We have laid other foundations––regeneration, sacraments, justification, works, faith, the Bible––any one of which, however necessary to salvation in its due place and proportion may become a religion about Christ and without Christ. And now a time of sifting has come upon us, and thoughtful people decline to know anything about our religious systems; they write down all our orthodox beliefs as things not knowable. Perhaps this may be because, in thinking much of our salvation, we have put out of sight our King, the divine fact which no soul of man to whom it is presented can ignore. In the idea of Christ is life; let the thought of Him once get touch of the soul, and it rises up, a living power, independent of all formularies of the brain. Let us save Christianity for our children by bringing them into allegiance to Christ, the King. How? How did the old Cavaliers bring up sons and daughters, in passionate loyalty and reverence for not too worthy princes? Their own hearts were full of it; their lips spake it; their acts proclaimed it; the style of their clothes, the ring of their voices, the carriage of their heads––all was one proclamation of boundless devotion to their king and his cause. That civil war, whatever else it did, or missed doing, left a parable for Christian people. If a Stuart prince could command such measure of loyalty, what shall we say of "the Chief amongst ten thousand, the altogether lovely"?
Jesus, our Saviour. Here is a thought to be brought tenderly before the child in the moments of misery that follow wrong-doing. 'My poor little boy, you have been very naughty to-day! Could you not help it?' 'No, mother,' with sobs. 'No, I suppose not; but there is a way of help.' And then the mother tells her child how the Lord Jesus is our Saviour, because He saves us from our sins. It is a matter of question when the child should first learn the 'Story of the Cross.' One thinks it would be very delightful to begin with Moses and the prophets: to go through the Old Testament history, tracing the gradual unfolding of the work and character of the Messiah; and then, when their minds are full of the expectation of the Jews, to bring before them the mystery of the Birth in Bethlehem, the humiliation of the Cross. But perhaps no gain in freshness of presentation would make up to the children for not having grown up with the associations of Calvary and Bethlehem always present to their minds. One thing in this connection: it is not well to allow the children in a careless familiarity with the Name of Jesus, or in the use of hymns whose tone is not reverent. "Ye call Me Master and Lord; and ye say well, for so I am."
The Indwelling of Christ is a thought particularly fit for the children, because their large faith does not stumble at the mystery, their imagination leaps readily to the marvel, that the King Himself should inhabit a little child's heart. 'How am I to know He is come, mother?' 'When you are quite gentle, sweet, and happy, it is because Christ is within,––
"And when He comes, He makes your face so fair, Your friends are glad, and say, 'The King is there."
I will not attempt to indicate any more of the vital truths which the Christian mother will present to her child; having patience until they blossom and bear, and his soul is as a very fruitful garden which the Lord hath blessed. But, once more, "This kind cometh forth only by prayer."


Then I went back to the front to re-read some of the book intro info and I wanted to quote this here:

p2........ it is necessary to believe in God; that, therefore, the knowledge of God is the principal knowledge, and the chief end of education.