“Education is a life. That life is sustained on ideas. Ideas are of spiritual origin, and God has made us so that we get them chiefly as we convey them to one another, whether by word of mouth, written page, Scripture word, musical symphony; but we must sustain a child's inner life with ideas as we sustain his body with food.”

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This fourth principle builds upon the third which reminds us that we have authority over our children, and they have a duty to be teachable. 

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In God’s wisdom He places children in… not daycare facilities, nor schools… He places them in families - the foundation of human society and the bedrock of human flourishing. The home is the best growing place for a child. It is here children learn good manners, right and wrong, and how to restrain the urge to wallop one’s brother. Parents are in charge. We didn’t come up with this. We know we are vastly under qualified to teach our children about the Righteousness of God, but someone must teach them and so the honor and duty falls on us. Because it is right. 

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This is the most controversial of Mason's Principles. Join me as we look at what this principle is telling us about the natural laws of education, namely that there is good and evil in the world and what that means for moms and teachers of children being raised in the 21st Century.

Mason wants mothers to understand the natural laws that affect our children and hinder or help our work as mothers so that we will joyfully fulfill our God-given role to guide and direct our them.

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There’s nothing more humbling than holding a freshly born babe complete with those glorious first cries and skin so soft it feels like you are touching heaven itself.

Looking at that face for the first time, seeing those baby rolls, and thinking about all the possibilities ahead for this dear one make those dawning moments touch the divine and help us to come into contact with the miraculous nature of human life. Motherhood begins with many hopes, there are some fears, to be sure, but we get the privilege of standing at the beginning of a new story, a new life, a new person and walking them through their childhood, helping them journey into adulthood and finally, Lord willing, we launch them into adulthood where we fully pass off the governance of their lives to the man or woman who must stand on their own, ready or not. 

Read this post and grab the reflections questions that go with it here.

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If you want to be effective with your Nature Study work, check out my Nature Study Hacking Guides. Learn how to get outside and use those lovely nature journals.

Welcome to Season #2 of the However Imperfectly Podcast. This season we will be diving into Charlotte Mason’s 20 Principles because they help us see our children and our goals for their education clearly. Getting to know these principles encourages us to move from mechanically implementing booklists, checklists, and systems to educate our children and toward being fully alive to our own duties given by God to help our families thrive. Modern homeschool advice is generally about how to save time and energy so that homeschooling can be easier through open-and-go curriculums. What we need are not more tips and tricks, but guardrails to help us realize our freedom and limits as teachers not so that our life can be easier by doing less, but that we will know where to spend our time and energy so that our work will be effective, fruitful, and joyful.

As summer beckons us with her long days, late nights, and leisurely ways, let’s pause to consider a few questions before it melts away and the new school year is before us. What is a person and how are they formed? How ought we spend our time this summer? How does this time form us? What do we owe to our children these summer days? What, before the Lord, should we consider before one day melts into the next with delicious rest and rejuvenation?

Today we consider these questions and I also give links to the tools I use to keep our home humming for the summer months!

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