My Reading of Volume II by Charlotte Mason

I was sitting in Managerial Accounting class 11.13.07 (talk about mother culture) and on our midway through the 3 hour class break I opened up the book and read the section on Rousseau. Or some guy you've never heard of unless you like me are reading through Volume 2 of Charlotte Mason's writings better known as Parents and Children.



After reading that Miss Mason would always compliment another's work before stating what she didn't like about it, her writings are taking on a pattern to me.


Here are my author's quotes for my commonplace book for volume II:


page 2 - Under the spell of his teaching, people in the fashionable world, like that Russian Princess Galitzin, forsook society, and went off with their children to some quiet corner where they could devote every hour of the day, and every power they had, to the fulfilment of the duties which devolve on parents. Courtly mothers retired from the world, sometimes even left their husbands, to work hard at the classics, mathematics, sciences, that they might with their own lips instruct their children. 'What else am I for?' they asked; and the feeling spread that the bringing-up of their children was the one work of primary importance for men and women.


page2-3 - What he said was, in effect, "Fathers and mothers, this is your work, and you only can do it. It rests with you, parents of young children, to be the saviours of society unto a thousand generations. Nothing else matters. The avocations about which people weary themselves are as foolish child's play compared with this one serious business of bringing up our children in advance of ourselves."


p3 - People listened, as we have seen; the response to his teaching was such a letting out of the waters of parental enthusiasm as has never been known before nor since. And Rousseau, weak and little worthy, was a preacher of righteousness in this, that he turned the hearts of the fathers to the children, and so far made ready a people prepared for the Lord. But alas! having secured the foundation, he had little better than wood, hay, and stubble to offer to the builders.{ or laying a foundation with nothing proper to build upon it with...or uh the furches get 'em saved and leave'em syndrome....oh did I type that out loud?}{Miss Mason was probably saying, don't just stir them up give them something they can work with}


p3 - He perceived that God placed the training of every child in the hands of two, a father and a mother; and the response to his teaching proved that, as the waters answer to the drawing of the moon, so do the hearts of parents rise to the idea of the great work committed to them.
and that will do it for Rousseau



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12.01.07's reading pages 4-13



p7 - She says that with the aim being universal brotherhood that every family would do well to cultivate two languages besides the mother tongue, even in the nursery. {{ok here's the thing...yes I took spanish in high school, didn't just about all of us....but I am not sold on learning it...I think it's a shame it's being crammed down our throats as it is....why can't we have the freedom to choose which other language we'd like to know....so after reading Volume I, my reaction was to learn french .... which I've been to the word/phrase a day sites and couldn't pronounce it so how can I teach it....then I thought about german, after all DH's mom speaks it fluently....but for sure Hebrew.}}



p10 - Let us continue our consideration of the family as the nation in miniature, with the responsibilities, the rights, and the requirements of the nation. The parents represent the 'Government'; but, here, the government is ever an absolute monarchy, conditioned very loosely by the law of the land, but very closely by that law more or less of which every parent bears engraved on his conscience. Some attain the levels of high thinking, and come down from the Mount with beaming countenance and the tables of the law intact; others fail to reach the difficult heights, and are content with such fragments of the broken tables as they pick up below. But be his knowledge of the law little or much, no parent escapes the call to rule. {{ hmmm interesting that she would mention Law/Torah that in which we get to keep no rather guard....think about the end of Ephesians 4 sums the 613 laws up and so does the 10 commandments that she is talking about and so does our Savior HIMself in Mark chapter 12}}

p12 - Possibly the unregulated love of approbation in devoted parents has more share in the undoing of families than any other single cause. A writer of today represents a mother as saying––
"'But you are not afraid of me, Bessie?"
"No indeed; who could be afraid of a dear, sweet, soft, little mother like you?"'
And such praise is sweet in the ears of many a fond mother hungering for the love and liking of her children, and not perceiving that words like these in the mouth of a child are as treasonable as words of defiance. {{ gulp -- guilty as charged}}



and



But however good the children be, the parents owe it to society to make them better than they are, and to bless the world with people, not merely good-natured and well-disposed, but good of set purpose and endeavour. {{-- yes what I want for my son}}



I know Volume I is aimed at the 6-9 year old crowd (and younger) but I really see this Volume as being beneficial also to help parents understand duties of parenting in general.