Episode Details

The subject of history brings groans to some and yawns to others, but Mason considered it the pivotal subject in her curriculum. Listen in as these moms discuss some of Charlotte Mason's beliefs about the teaching of history and why it is centrally important to the subjects that give the "Knowledge of Man" and provides much, much more than a knowledge of dates and facts of wars and famous events. Listen Now: If you are seeing this message, please make sure you are using the most current version of your web browser: Internet Explorer 9, Firefox, Chrome "Not what we have learned, but what we are waiting to know is the delectable part of knowledge." (Vol.3, p. 224) "Next in order to religious knowledge, history is the pivot upon which our curriculum turns." (Vol. 6, p. 273) "But to read English history and fail to realise that it is replete with interest, sparkling with episode, and full of dramatic incident, is to miss all the pleasure and most of the instruction which its study, if properly pursued, can give." (vol. 1, pp. 290-91) "[H]istory is an entrancing subject of study," (Vol. 1, p. 292) "[I]t seems to be necessary to present ideas with a great deal of padding, as they reach us in a novel or poem or history book written with literary power." (Vol. 6, p. 109) "For the matter for this intelligent teaching of history, eschew, in the first place, nearly all history books written expressly for children; and in the next place, all compendiums, outlines, abstracts whatsoever." (Vol. 1, p. 281) "[O]ut of a whole big book he may not get more than half a dozen of those ideas upon which his spirit thrives; and they come in unexpected places and unrecognised forms, so that no grown person is capable of making such extracts from Scott or Dickens or Milton, as will certainly give him nourishment. It is a case of,––'In the morning sow thy seed and in the evening withhold not thine hand for thou knowest not whether shall prosper, either this or that.' [Eccl. 11:6]" (Vol. 6, pp. 109-110) "Now imagination does not descend, full grown, to take possession of an empty house; like every other power of the mind, it is the merest germ of a power to begin with, and grows by what it gets; and childhood, the age of faith, is the time for its nourishing. The children should have the joy of living in far lands, in other persons, in other times––a delightful double existence; and this joy they will find, for the most part, in their story books. Their lessons, too, history and geography, should cultivate their conceptive powers. If the child do not live in the times of his history lesson, be not at home in the climes of his geography book describes, why, these lessons will fail of their purpose." (Vol. 1, p. 153) "It is a great thing to possess a pageant of history in the background of one's thoughts." (Vol. 6, p. 178) "To us in particular who are living in one of the great epochs of history it is necessary to know something of what has gone before in order to think justly of what is occurring to-day." (Vol. 6, p. 16