A few years ago, I took a trip to South Carolina. I packed everything, including a spare pair of shoes, in a rolling suitcase. Because the weather was beautiful, and I didn’t step in anything messy, I wore my main pair of shoes and forgot about the second pair until I got home. Unfortunately, I had also followed somebody’s packing hint and stuffed my socks into the extra shoes, which were stashed in an inner pocket—and that is why I couldn’t find any socks all week.
The first edition of this book was an attempt to follow the theme of “ideas” through the writings of Charlotte Mason, especially in her final volume, Towards a Philosophy of Education. It was written during a time of public and private stress, when “ideas” seemed both important and controversial; but some of what I had intended to bring on that journey either never got packed, or it stayed hidden until too late. This revision is meant to bring those extra socks to light.
Why Ideas?
“Idea” comes from the Greek for “form” or “pattern”; but it goes back to an Indo-European root, weyd, meaning “to see,” or “to know,” which has also travelled down to us in the word “wit.” As in, we must keep our wits about us. Or, to refer to Understood Betsy, “…Every time a new piece of machinery comes into the door some of our wits fly out at the window!” We don’t have to be wisecracking-witty; but we don’t want to be what Aunt Abigail would have called “half-witted,” either.
If we ask in perplexity, why do so many…seem incapable of generous impulse, of reasoned patriotism, of seeing beyond the circle of their own interests, is not the answer, that [we] are enabled for such things by education? These are the marks of educated persons; and when… [those] who should be the backbone of the country seem to be dead to public claims, we have to ask,—Why then are not these persons educated, and what have we given them in lieu of education? (Philosophy of Education, pp. 1–2)
Most of us are born with a certain amount of intelligence, but perhaps not with weyd. From Understood Betsy again: “…something that had always been sound asleep in her brain woke up a little, little bit and opened one eye.” Charlotte’s version of weyd, which she calls “education,” rests on the relationships we form and the knowledge we gain about the universe, about humankind, and about God—and this happens via the thoughts we receive from others. Children who are raised to do whatever comes naturally do not always turn out so badly; at least they avoid being raised as lab rats. But are they getting the weyd that is their birthright?
In the earlier edition of this book, I asked:
How did Charlotte arrive at such a unique definition of education as “generous impulse,” “reasoned patriotism,” and “the ability to see beyond the circle of our own interests?” And how can we recreate that in our own lives, and those of our children?
All of us obtain our weyd in the same way—by “eating” it as we would food. Like the human digestive system, what happens inside of our minds is a sort of energy exchange; and the beautiful part is that we all have the same natural aptitude for eating. This book is written to help, a little, with the cooking and serving of the meal.
Why a Study Edition?
The question-answer format is intended to create reflection and conversation, but not irritation. Charlotte wrote, no less than three times, that “the mind can know nothing but what it can produce in the form of an answer to a question put by/to the mind by/to itself (Parents and Children, p. 218; School Education, p. 181; Philosophy of Education, p. 16). She cautions that “tacitly prohibits questioning from without,” but that “this does not, of course, affect the Socratic use of questioning for purposes of moral conviction.”
My hope is that at least some of the questions I have raised will be useful, and perhaps they may lead to even better ones.
(This is the introduction to Ideas Freely Sown: Study Edition.)