Let’s begin a little primer course on Charlotte Mason’s principles. We’ll start at the very beginning (a very good place to start) with Principle 1: Children are born persons. Which…seems a bit obvious. What else would they be? 

But it’s not that they could be anything else, it’s that we treat them as something else. Because we mothers have a tendency to forget our rank, and when we do that, three things tend to happen.

Books Mentioned: Home Education | A Philosophy of Education (*affiliate links) 

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COMMONPLACE:

“It is not open to the parents, either to lay aside or to sink under the burden of honor laid upon them and no doubt we have all seen the fullest, freest flow of confidence, sympathy, and love where the mother sits as a queen among her children and the father is honored as a crowned head. . . In the first place, they are the immediate and personally appointed deputies of the almighty King, the sole ruler of men.” (Parents and Children, pg. 14)

“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.”  (Home Education, pg. 12)

“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.” (Home Education, pg. 15)

“Children should have the best of their mothers. . . her freshest, brightest hours, while at the same time, she is careful to choose her nurses wisely, train them carefully, and keep a vigilant eye on all that goes on in the nursery.” (Home Education, pg. 18)

“If the mother settle it in her own mind that the child never does wrong without being aware of his wrong-doing, she will see that he is not too young to have his fault corrected or prevented.” (Home Education, pg. 19)

‘Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly, I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.’ (Luke 18:16-17)

“This responsibility is not equally divided between the parents: it is upon the mothers of the present that the future of the world depends, in even a greater degree than upon the fathers, because it is the mothers who have the sole direction of the children’s early, most impressible years. This is why we hear so frequently of great men who have had good mothers–that is, mothers who brought up their children themselves, and did not make over their gravest duty to indifferent persons.” (Home Education, pg. 2)