Introduction
Much and varied knowledge, the habit of study (begun early and continued through life), some acquaintance with the principles of an ordered moral life, some knowledge of economic science, should help in the making of well-ordered, well-balanced persons, capable of living without weariness, and without a disordered desire for notice from other people. (p. 411)The more sincerely we face the problems of education, the more shy we become of any cut-and-dried treatment of human nature. (p. 415)…we should be less obtrusive in our dealings with children; we should study to be quiet, only seeing to it that our inactivity is masterly. (p. 417)
Principles to be Studied
19. Children should be taught that the chief responsibility which rests on them as persons is the acceptance or rejection of ideas. To help them in this choice we give them principles of conduct, and a wide range of the knowledge fitted to them.
20. We allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and “spiritual” life of children.
Sections to be Read
Part IV, ch. 5, “Better-Than-My-Neighbour,” pp. 401–418
Vocabulary Notes
Mason uses the word crank in its older sense of someone with odd, out-of-the-ordinary ideas, and not in its current usage, i.e. a disagreeable, grumpy (cranky) person.
Opening Questions
In the opening pages, Mason is describing a scene from Plato’s Euthyphro, which is a conversation between Euthyphro, and Socrates, who is waiting to be heard on a charge of “impiety.” The greatest question of the dialogue is “What is piety, and what is impiety? They ask, “Is something pious because the gods approve of it? Or do the gods approve of it because it is pious?” However, they cannot agree on an answer.
Euthyphro coolly explains to Socrates that he is acting as the prosecutor in his own father’s murder trial, and says that “piety is doing as I am doing, prosecuting anyone who is guilty…whether he be your father or mother, or whoever he may be—that makes no difference…” Do you agree? Are there limits to the loyalty we owe to family or friends? (Mason refers to Mark 7:11-12.)
Discussion Questions
1. Why is a “crank,” even a likeable one, “not a harmless person?” (p. 404)
2. If you’re puzzled as to what this has to do with Mason’s educational principles or anything else already discussed, turn to pages 406–408. Here is a broken-apart, simplified version of her argument. (If you’re working with a group, you might read through this together, stopping here and there to make sure everyone’s still following. Two questions are added afterwards.)
Most of us owe our failures to the fact that we will not be convinced against our convictions.(We’re too proud to back down.)
The more ardent we are, the more we err if these should be mistaken. (The wronger we are, the harder we fall.)
Through many examples, including literary ones, children need to learn that just because something sounds reasonable or logical, that doesn’t always make it the best choice. A good man can, as we say, persuade himself that wrong opinions and wrong actions are reasonable and right.
Not that he does persuade himself, but that his reason appears to act in an independent way, and brings forward arguments in favour of a conclusion which he has already unconsciously accepted. (Ouch. You knew you were going to do that before your mind convinced you that you should.)
Again, the best defense against this kind of narrow-minded, inflexible, prejudiced, unjust thinking is a “wide knowledge of men and events.” In other words, education.
If we try to buy our opinions, principles, and convictions ready-made, or to hand such things to our children, they will not “stick.” “Such things each of us has to get by his own labour.”
Now, with a “crank” like Euthyphro, it is not always that a person is entirely wrong, but “that he allows one aspect of a subject to fill his mind.” What is missing? A wide and generous curriculum.
“And this is how we bring up cranks. We magnify a single good quality or a single conviction until there is no room for anything else.”
Even in education, some people focus only on science, or art, or some other subject that they think can cover everything. They “will not understand that knowledge is food,” and that “no one may allow himself to be carried away by a single idea.”
Now, there are some people who are quite single-minded about something, but are not necessarily “cranks.” There are some issues in the world that require so much zeal that the people fighting for or against them seem slightly obsessed, don’t seem to have much bandwidth for anything else.
As for the rest of us “normal” folk, “excess is weakness.” All good things, all appetites or desires, can have a bad side or be taken to excess. “Let us teach temperance and thrift by all means; but also, and equally, diligence, candour, kindness, all the graces that go to make up love and justice, all the habits that ensue in intelligence.” (The “equally” is important here: few of us are meant to major only on Candour, or Thrift, or Beauty.)
(And all the people said “Amen.”)
a) Are you a “crank” about anything? Do you have “crank” tendencies that you are working to overcome? Is it possible that everybody needs to be a bit of a “crank” about something? Or perhaps you don’t think you’re really “cranky” at all, but other people tend to see you that way?
b) How can developing the habit of attention (in ourselves and in our children) keep us from falling into “crankiness”? Note that the “habit of attention” is not limited to how well our children listen to a reading or our instructions for cleaning the bathroom; it should also describe an education marked not only by “much and varied knowledge,” but by “continuation and progression.”
3. What is a “prig,” as compared to a “crank?” “It is not easy to say to him that his virtues are a bore; that nobody cares a pin about them; and as for snubbing him, to snub a person full of conscious virtue is to awaken a slow fire of resentment, not likely soon to go out.” How can we avoid this kind of too-self-conscious goodness?
4. On page 416, Mason says something important about allowing children “free paths to goodness and knowledge.” How is it that hands-off parents, those who allow their children “opportunity and elbow-room,” are more apt to have “very good children” than super-managing parents? (Consider some of the educational principles that have been laid out.)
For further reading
“The Three Sillies,” in English Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs. (About the ways people reason themselves out of common sense.)
“Talboys,” a short story by Dorothy L. Sayers, included in her book Striding Folly. Available to borrow online.
‘To a Teach or a Scatterblood,’ said Peter with dignity, ‘There is no such word as mischief. We call it piracy on the high seas.’ ‘I knew it,’ replied Harriet, resignedly. ‘If I’d realised the disastrous effect sons would have on your character, I’d never have trusted you with any.”
Uncle Eric Talks About Personal, Career, and Financial Security, by Richard J. Maybury and Jane A. Williams (This first book in Maybury’s “Uncle Eric” series discusses the ways people think and how they get their ideas.)
Ourselves, by Charlotte Mason.
From Charlotte’s Bookshelf
School and Home Life, by T. G. Rooper, M.A., H.M.I., Balliol College, Oxford
The casual reader might, without such a guide, say, “Oh, but the work does not deal with education at any particular stage, or even with the education of one sex or the other,” and might suppose the charming classical English in which the essays are written to be the vehicle of a literary production, and that only. But parents will find here a mine of suggestions on each of the phases of educational work with which they are concerned, including the bringing up of boys and girls from three (or one!) to one-and-twenty. Perhaps the special characteristic of the work is the author’s power of initiating ideas. You read one of the essays, feel that all the thoughts are your own thoughts, and that nothing new is being said; that the “art of putting” is so happy that you are carried over the ground unawares. You digest the essay, consider it in its bearings on your own children, and, behold, you find you have imbibed a number of new ideas, practical, vital, full of interest and hope. (p. 433)
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