Plutarch is a commonly referenced subject among Charlotte Mason homeschoolers. We know that Charlotte Mason primarily incorporated Plutarch for lessons in citizenship. This was not, however, the whole of citizenship education in the P.N.E.U., and Charlotte Mason’s thoughts on citizenship are many and deep. In fact, if we realize the extent to which Charlotte Mason was herself a patriot it might make some of her writings about the State, which often leave us confused, more palatable to us.
Perhaps we will explore that idea in a future article. For now, though, let us develop a working definition of citizenship and see where Plutarch fits in the picture, shall we?
What is citizenship?
citizenship noun cit·i·zen·ship | \ ˈsi-tə-zən-,ship; also -sən-\ Definition of citizenship 1: the status of being a citizen He was granted U.S. citizenship. 2a: membership in a community (such as a college) b: the quality of an individual’s response to membership in a community The students are learning the value of good citizenship.
In the United States this second meaning of citizenship is particularly relevant to us due to the covenantal nature of our republic. I was nearly 40-years-old before I realized there is a difference between a democracy and a republic, in large part due to the absence of formal civics education during my public school years. I now understand that the nature of a republic involves great personal responsibility and is a partnership between the government and the people. This illuminates Benjamin Franklin’s reply to a woman who posed a question as Franklin was leaving Independence Hall during the Constitutional Convention. When asked whether we had “a monarchy or republic,” his response was “A republic, madam — if you can keep it.”
Every man is called upon to be a statesman seeing that every man and woman, too, has a share in the government of the country. (p. 184)
In other words, to Charlotte Mason citizenship meant that latter definition: “the quality of an individual’s response to membership in a community” — one’s national community.
For Charlotte Mason a study of citizenship involved reading of Plutarch’s Lives because it exposes students to a description of man’s actions, both right and wrong, and requires that critical judgments be made about those actions. Additionally, Plutarch is full of inspiring ideas that make a person a valuable citizen. And we know how Charlotte Mason feels about inspiring ideas, don’t we?
…an early education from the great books with the large ideas and the large virtues is the only true foundation of knowledge — the knowledge worth having. (Vol. 6, p. 308)
Our work, then, is to present to the child such vivifying ideas as shall colour all his thoughts, his judgments, and his actions, and enable him to fulfill the duties and responsibilities he inherits with his privileges as an English citizen.
The thoughtful study of History should give abundant ideas for the development of life in all its aspects; it should especially help in the formation of character, and it is character alone which determines a man’s degree of usefulness in society and his ability to further the vital interests of the great nation in which he has been born a citizen. The aim of history is reached by the teaching of Plutarch, for in all his lives the character of men is well drawn out, showing cause and effect in their life and work. (pp. 29-33)
So, who was Plutarch?
Born in 50 AD in Greece (specifically, Chaeronea of Booetia) at a time of great decadence in Greece and military despotism in Rome, he was a philosopher most famous for his Parallel Lives. Written in pairs of one Greek and one Roman life, these works include details “of the greatest men of two great nations.” (Smeeton, p. 30)
Most of us know him as the “prince of biographers,” but few realize that he was also an educationalist with many thoughts on the responsibilities of parents and the training of children — in particular, character formation and citizenship. He wrote to warn his contemporaries what would result if the culture continued to decline morally and that this “loss of moral sanity must sooner or later cause national decay.” This objective remains relevant in today’s cultural moment, does it not?
I’ll be writing more thoughts on citizenship here at Afterthoughts in 2019, and will also be contributing a Plutarch column for Common Place Quarterly with the specific intention of removing the intimidation factor when it comes to this rich area of study. I hope you’ll join me for the conversation!
Today, I’m interrupting our Charlotte Mason series to bring you this season’s special conversation. Brittany McGann is back with me today; I hope you recognize her from last season. Brittney has been studying Charlotte Mason for over seven years. Mason’s philosophy embodies all the things Brittany loved about her own upbringing and everything she would have wished for in her education, had she known it was possible. Brittney hosted the Grace to Build Retreat in Black Mountain, North Carolina for three years and has presented workshops at multiple Charlotte Mason conferences. These days she is teaching her three children, leading two Charlotte Mason groups and working with her husband to restore native plants to their 3.5 acres.
Today, Brittany and I discuss the “Mother’s Compass”. We talk about Charlotte Mason and working within limitations — for both ourselves and our children. It’s a great discussion you won’t want to miss!
The law is liberal, taking in whatsoever things are true, honest, and of good report, and offering no limitation or hindrance save where excess should injure. – Charlotte Mason
Not all gifted children are early readers; it’s true. However, comma, from my extremely small sample size, I have deduced that the earlier a child reads, the more tempted they are to excess in this area — to spend their time only on reading.
We call this Book Gluttony, which is amusing. So amusing, in fact, that we wonder if it should be taken seriously.
Early reading is a secret vanity in parents of the gifted. It’s remarkable, really, to see a three-year-old flying through a book with which some six-year-olds would struggle. When we see a three-year-old growing into an older preschooler or kindergarten who doesn’t want to do much other than read, we say, “Well, of course. All children would do the same if they had access to such things at this age.”
While reading is wonderful, is reading all the time really a virtue? Or is it a a vice?
Meet Temperance
Temperance is one of those virtues our modern world ignores; half the time we’re not even sure what it means. Let’s see what Charlotte Mason wrote about it:
Temperance avoids every Excess. — Of the three rules of life by which our bodies should be ordered, perhaps temperance is least understood by young people. We think of Burne-Jones’s stately figure of Temperantia pouring pure water out of her pitcher to quench the flames, of temperance societies, and so on; and thus we come to associate temperance with abstinence from drink. That certainly is one kind of temperance; but the boy who is greedy, the girl who is slothful, are also intemperate, as you may tell by watching them walk down the street. They have not the springing step, the alert look, which belong to Temperance. (Vol. 4, p. 192)
Book Gluttony is a giving in to the temptation to excess — it’s as excessive as the other examples Charlotte Mason gives:
One may even be intemperate in the matter of restlessness. We may carry games, cramming for an examination, novel-reading, bridge, any interest which absorbs us, to excess; and all excess is intemperance.
The peculiar thing about this case is the small size of the child. It’s easy to say to an older child, “Look — you really shouldn’t have had so many treats off the plate that there weren’t any left for other people in attendance. That was gluttony and intemperance and you must have more consideration for others and more self-control.” The older child may or may not fight you on this, but they will know where you’re coming from, what all the words mean, and be able to have a discussion about what to do in the future.
The early reader, however, may or may not understand what you mean. Just because the child is gifted doesn’t necessarily mean you can or should reason with him about this.
As an aside, I think I should mention here that not all book gluttons are gifted. This is part of my gifted series, yes, but that doesn’t mean that your wonderfully average twelve-year-old won’t be tempted to lounge around all day reading a novel. Book gluttony is vice whether you are 3 or 33, but the solution I’m recommending below works better, I think, for younger children. With older children, you might still use it, but you’re going to have to also do some counseling and coaching, and less direct controlling.
Cultivating Virtue without Over Controlling
With small children, a combination of habit training and scheduling should be sufficient to solve the immediate problem, and the occasional passing comment of, “Oh, we shouldn’t overdo that. That would be excessive, and excessive means ‘too much’” is probably enough counsel.
By “habit training” I mean, first and foremost, the habit of obedience. That’s going to come in handy during the first week when little Susie is upset with you for coming into direct conflict with her uncontrolled passion for reading.
More than this, you can use your amazing mommy scheduling skills to build a habit or rhythm for your child’s day that allows reading, but not reading to excess. Take out a sheet of paper and list all the things you’d like to see your child doing. I don’t just mean activities like play with watercolors and clay; I mean things like meals, hygiene, naps, reading aloud, and chores. Please don’t forget outside time! Charlotte Mason was clear that it was imperative for preschoolers to spend many hours outside on fine days.
Get a blank weekly calendar template and map out a day and week for your child that includes all these things. Don’t designate “time for reading.” Instead, designate free time and in that free time the child must be truly free — if he wants to spend all of it reading, he may. You will have to decide how long is long enough when it comes to the amount of free time (and, by the way, you might want to break it up rather than giving it all at once).
Prevention is Superior to Cure
I had one child become a Book Glutton because I was on bed rest during a pregnancy. It was easier to let him read than to figure out what else to do. During that time, he forgot how to go outside and play! It was extremely difficult to retrain him to a more balanced life, so my advice to you is to avoid this situation if at all possible!
By training the young child to a habit of temperance — a daily or weekly schedule in which different activities have their place, and no one activity is allowed to, on a normal day, crowd out all the others — in which duty takes its place rather than self-indulgence — we actually provide the child with a virtuous norm to which we can appeal when she is older elementary or a teen and needs to be restrained and directed by her own Will rather than by Moms’ schedule.
In the case of my little Book Glutton, a definite schedule was precisely the tool I used to break his bad habit of intemperate reading. We gradually worked up to more outside time — it seemed compassionate to not throw him into the deep end of many hours per day. As he gained a wider variety of interests, I was able to back off and give him more free time. These days, I can trust him to give a wise consideration to his schedule, and guard himself the temptation to excess.
When my next early reader came along, I was prepared. I firmly believe we were able to avoid Book Gluttony with her by starting her off with a schedule that required more variety and less specialization. There were no battles over books, and that was quite a relief. This is why I say that prevention is superior to cure! It’s way easier.
Guarding Against Excess
This is a thing, and it’s not just a thing for our kids; it’s a thing for us. Our culture encourages excess in both good and bad things; I’ve even seen people be excessive in their minimalism, which is, perhaps, the height of irony.
Charlotte Mason has quite a bit to say about it, but I think most interesting is the principle she says underlies the virtue of Temperance:
Conscience is not, in fact, so much concerned with the manner of our intemperance as with the underlying principle which St. Paul sets forth when he condemns those who “worship and serve the creature more than the Creator.” (Vol. 2, p. 18)
That is, ultimately, what we need to guard ourselves and our children against: prioritizing our own passions and desires over all else. This is the heart of excess, and the real reason why all forms of gluttony are vice. At the end of the day, the call to the mother of a book glutton is the same call we mothers hear all the day long: let the little ones come to Me. Like law in the quote above, this mostly means we stay out of the way, but we can and must offer a hindrance in the places where excess would injure.
[L]et an hour’s reading aloud be a part of the winter evening at home — on one or two evenings a week, at any rate — and everybody will look forward to it as a hungry boy looks for his dinner. — Charlotte Mason, Formation of Character
I hates it,” says your child, sounding remarkably like Gollum. Or maybe he doesn’t say it, but you’re pretty sure he’s thinking it. Either way, it’s a frustrating situation. This can happen with a book assigned in the curriculum you’re using, yes. But if you’re as lucky as me, at least one of your children, upon hitting puberty, will swear off an entire subject area, and woe to those who try to change her mind.
Now, it’s not that I indulge temper tantrums, whether performed by toddlers or teens, but still: there are times when an indirect approach is strategically advantageous.
When he-who-shall-remain nameless perused the school books one summer and pointed to one title and announced, “I’ll never read that book,” I mentally filed this information away. I also took note of a certain young lady’s dislike of all things history. I fought both of these out on the most unlikely of battlefields: the family read aloud stack.
When Books Become Weapons
I want to briefly clarify that our children — no matter how frustrating they might be at times — are not the enemy. When I say a well-chosen book can be a weapon, I don’t mean a weapon we use on or against our children. We are on our child’s team, remember?
In this case, we stand side by side with our children when our children aren’t feeling much like fellow soldiers. This is when we step up and defend them from that dreadful enemy, Lack of Proper Affection, by which they are being assaulted.
While not all titles should be chosen as an act of warfare, a wise mother must know her weapons in order to use them well when the time comes. If your family already has a robust read aloud culture, even better. The joys of the past will sustain you in this dark hour. 😉
Charlotte Mason once wrote:
There is little opportunity to give intellectual culture to the boy taken up with his school and its interests; the more reason, therefore, to make the most of that little; for when the boy leaves school, he is in a measure set; his thoughts will not readily run in new channels. The business of the parent is to keep open right-of-way to the pleasant places provided for the jaded brain. Few things help more in this than a family habit of reading aloud. Even a dry book is readable when everybody listens, while a work of power and interest becomes delightful when eye meets eye at the telling bits. (Vol. 5, pp. 519-520)
Keep Open the Way
Miss Mason’s thoughts here agree with my real-life experience. I must have read this paragraph when I first read volume five eight years ago, but when I ran across this quote recently, I was shocked. I had completely forgotten it!
Boys as well as girls become consumed with their interests and their school work and their jobs. There are many distractions these days. Some are good, some are bad, but all families have them. (Can I get an amen?)
It’s tempting to feel powerless, but those days haven’t actually arrived yet. These children still live in our homes and, especially if reading aloud is a set habit, we can leverage it to our benefit.
Is Teen J missing out on a certain subject? Find an interesting book on it and put it into read aloud time. You just know Teen M going to hate reading that book next year? Read it aloud instead.
The read aloud stack can be many things: what you want to read and what you think they’ll like, yes. But also, it’s what you think they need. As long as you’re choosing good books, it’s likely it’ll work out okay.
Here’s how it’s happened here on many occasions. I introduce a new book. “We’re going to be reading Book X, which is on Subject Y.” At this point, at least one child groans. I ignore said child and proceed to read the first chapter (or half a chapter if they’re long). Everyone except the grumpy person likes it fine.
Next day, I pick up the Book X at the designated time. Grumpy Person groans again. I still ignore this child, and we read chapter two. Everyone except the grumpy person now likes the book enough to look forward to the next reading.
It’s usually at reading three that Grumpy Person begins to change her tune. She doesn’t groan this time, and things improve from there. On many occasions, by the time we were near the end, Grumpy Person likes the book enough that she’s forgotten she didn’t approve of it at first.
(Please note: Grumpy Person is not always a female at my house. This is just an example.)
Let’s review part of Miss Mason’s quote again:
The business of the parent is to keep open right-of-way to the pleasant places provided for the jaded brain. Few things help more in this than a family habit of reading aloud.
Over and over again, this has been proven true to me. Reading aloud has a hidden power to provide gentle, nonconfrontational correction to the mind. In a word, it has the power to develop taste.
Oh, they think they don’t like Subject Y just like they used to think they didn’t like broccoli. But a mother’s subtlety and cunning can often win out, hm? And just like you eventually wooed Junior to broccoli by discovering his favorite was dipping it in ranch dressing, reading aloud just might be the secret sauce you’ve been searching for.
Reading aloud. It’s a weapon of our motherhood warfare, helping us fight for our children’s hearts and minds. Simple and unassuming, yes. But, my the power!
Most AfterCast episodes are read blog posts, but in this case, I used a conglomeration of bits of different posts, so today I’ve provided a transcript of the episode. Enjoy!
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Back in 2014, I was reading The Story of Charlotte Mason by Essex Cholmondeley. It’s an extremely expensive biography right now. It was published in 1960. The author, Essex Cholmondeley, was herself trained as a teacher by Charlotte Mason at Ambleside. It is a wonderful biography, but with that said I don’t think I would recommend you spending the $200 or $300 that it’s often going for. I certainly didn’t spend that. It might be worthwhile, though, to keep your eyes open if you ever have a chance to snag a copy that is on the cheaper side, say $50, I think it’s worth about $50.
Alright, in the biography, Cholmondeley, the author, told a story early on about being interviewed by Charlotte Mason. Miss Mason asked her why she had come to the college. “I have to come to learn to teach,” Cholmondeley replied. And, then Miss Mason said the phrase that changed my life, as it changed Essex Cholmondeley’s life:
My dear, you have come here to learn to live.
Something about this phrase captivated me. Learning how to live — it sounds like a great adventure, doesn’t it? But, some people don’t see education as an adventure at all.
I once heard a complaint about Charlotte Mason education. The person liked the idea of it but didn’t like that there was so much study that seemed to be required. Can’t we just buy some books and read them? What’s the big deal?
Well, in a sense, yes, we can just buy some books and read them with our students, but one of the things that sets Charlotte Mason apart is that she seemed to think that the best teachers, her teachers, teach from overflow.
What do I mean? It’s probably best to let Charlotte Mason herself explain this. So, my sweet friend, Naomi, she was kind enough to type up a letter from Charlotte Mason written to L’Umile Pianta — that’s the magazine for the alumni of her teacher’s college. So, Charlotte Mason wrote a letter to it in 1896 and in it she gave two pieces of advice to her alumni: read and study.
I’m going to read a big quote:
Read, not only in the Book, which one cannot read without many life-giving thoughts, but almost any good book, poetry, biography, history, essays, good novels, — all will supply our need. You will find that if we read thoughtfully and steadily and only that which is worth reading, daily nourishment of stimulating thought will come to us; and, however foreign the subject may be, what we read, if it is worth reading, will help us to do our work better and will give us fresh thoughts to impart to the children.
I fear I am exceeding the space allowed to me so will offer just one other little word of counsel — study. I know that all good teachers have some study each day in preparing for the next day’s work, but, besides this, study some two or three subjects, definitely on your own account. Do not think this a selfish thing to do, because the advantage does not end with yourself. Every hour of definite study enriches your mind and increases your power, so that, the more you study in your spare time, the more there is in you to bestow upon your pupils.
Charlotte Mason’s teachers were students. By this I don’t mean that they were learning alongside the students in their classes, though I’m sure they were. What I mean is that Miss Mason was not much concerned with classroom management and technique; she was concerned that her teachers have the heart of a scholar — that they themselves came to embody the philosophy.
When I say they were students I mean this in the sense of identity or as a description of the sort of persons they were. This means that the Charlotte Mason teacher (the Charlotte Mason homeschool teacher, too) was characterized by a love and increasing possession of knowledge and wonder and delight and therefore by humility.
After gaining these thoughts in seed form I started noticing all the different ways that adult learning was offered and modeled in Essex Cholmondeley’s book and I decided to compile all of the various descriptions into a blog series that I called Learning How to Live: Becoming a Charlotte Mason Teacher in a Utilitarian World.
I looked at how Charlotte Mason continued her own education, how her teachers continued theirs, and how parents within Charlotte Mason’s organization also continued theirs. Everyone around Charlotte Mason was learning and growing and I think the sheer multitude of examples as well as the amazing variety can offer us inspiration for when we’ve gotten dry in our own lives.
Now, this is the first time I’ve devoted a whole season of AfterCast to a single blog series, but these posts go so well together that I didn’t want to split them up. I think they are much more enjoyable in a flow. So, for this season, we’re just going to take a romp through all the amazing ways for adults to learn and get some ideas for ourselves.
(Plus: Get Your FREE Mother Culture Habit Tracker!)
Even though I know winter here is laughable compared to a lot of places, winter reading still holds a special place in my heart. It’s definitely cold enough to cozy up under a blanket with hot herbal tea by my side (or coffee if it’s earlier in the day!). With that said, even in winter it’s easy to let my mother culture habit slide — there’s so much to do!
This is why I love my Mother Culture Habit Tracker! ♥ Habit trackers in general increase my self-awareness. I often think I do things more often than is true. With the tracker, I am far more consistent. Not only that, with my Mother Culture Habit Tracker I also vary my reading more because I’m not just tracking the habit; I’m also tracking the kinds of books I’m reading.
Perhaps the dramatists and novelists have done the most for our teaching; but not the works of every playwright and novelist are good ‘for example of life and instruction in manners.’ We are safest with those which have lived long enough to become classics; and this, for two reasons. The fact that they have not been allowed to die proves in itself that the authors have that to say, and a way of saying it, which the world cannot do without. In the next place, the older novels and plays deal with conduct, and conduct is our chief concern in life. Modern works of the kind deal largely with emotions, a less wholesome subject of contemplation. Having found the book which has a message for us, let us not be guilty of the folly of saying we have read it. We might as well say we have breakfasted, as if breakfasting on one day should last us for every day! The book that helps us deserves many readings, for assimilation comes by slow degrees. (pp. 10-11)
And:
The modern Psychical novel is rarely of use ‘for example of life and instruction in manners.’ It is too apt to accept persons as inevitable, to evade the question of Will, and to occupy itself with a thousand little traits which its characters manifest nolens volens. The way of the modern novel is to catch its characters and put them to disport themselves in a glass bowl, as it were, under observation.
And also:
Novels, again, are as homilies to the wise; but not if we read them merely for the tale. It is a base waste of time to read a novel that you can skip, or that you look at the last page of to see how it ends. One must read to learn the meaning of life; and we should know in the end, who said what, and on what occasion! The characters in the books we know become our mentors or our warnings, our instructors always; but not if we let our mind behave as a sieve, through which the whole slips like water. It would, of course, be a foolish waste of time to give this sort of careful reading to a novel that has neither literary nor moral worth, and therefore it is well to confine ourselves to the best — to novels that we can read over many times, each time with increased pleasure.
These are long quotes; let’s bullet point them out (yes I just verbed a noun).
What To Look For In a Novel
Classics. You can’t go wrong with these! If you’re new to novel reading, start with classics that “everyone” says “everyone” should read. They aren’t just safe bets; they’ll reveal what you’ve been missing without novels in your diet! With classics, you’re not reading through the latest novels trying to find one worthy gem. (I like to leave mining to the miners.) Instead, you’re in the jewelry store and everything has been sifted — it’s all worth your time.
Focused on conduct rather than emotion. This doesn’t mean it’s devoid of emotion. It simply means the novel isn’t focused on psychology. Action is being lived out in the books world rather than in the character’s emotional life.
Causes must have effects. This builds upon the previous point. Miss Mason wanted characters who made choices — choices that had consequences.
Not skippable. If it wouldn’t matter that you didn’t read it, that’s a clue that it’s probably not worth your time. Time (and properly stewarding it) was a big deal to Charlotte Mason. So much so that she makes me uncomfortable sometimes! I realize, though, that this is conviction — which means I should embrace it rather than try to shrug it off.
Vivid characters. Miss Mason says that these characters can be our mentors or our warnings. Weak novels are populated with characters that are neither. We’re not looking for stereotypical perfect heroes and heroines, or one-dimensional villains, but we are looking for people to admire and people to fear.
Worth reading again. This is one of the best tests. Of course you can only know if the book met this criteria after you are done. But still: if it passes, you’ll know you chose well. The richest books will beg you to read them again.
How to Read a Novel
I don’t mean this in a literary analysis sort of way. That is far to detailed for our purposes here — and highly unlikely to happen in the everyday life of a homeschooling mom. But Miss Mason’s general principles work well for us because we can train ourselves to read this way.
Read to learn the meaning of life. The best novels are teaching us something about the world, about reality, about the nature of man. Don’t just read to follow the plot; read to discover the embedded wisdom.
Narrate. Ugh, right? Well, no. Narration is a handy tool, even for mothers. Miss Mason says the characters will be our mentors or warnings, but not if we let our minds behave like sieves. I don’t know about you, but motherhood certainly predisposed me to Sieve Brain. Everything I read slipped right through if I wasn’t careful. Narration can take many forms — a conversation with a friend, a deliberate retelling to yourself, a blog post, etc. The point is that narration closes up the holes in the sieve so that your reading is more fruitful.
Read it again. “Assimilation comes by slow degrees,” and in the best novels there is so much goodness that it’s impossible to get it all the first time through.
Are you ready for your tracker?
I’m pleased to introduce you to the Winter 2019 Mother Culture Habit Tracker. Fill out the form below to grab it for free. Maritza redesigned the tracker for me and it’s so cute and cheerful — I just love it! Trackers are a wonderful way to keep up our good habits during the busy holiday season (as well as the post-holiday drag!).
Need some book titles to get you going?
I’ve published many book lists over the years. For today, I’ll just share one book from each of the categories that I’m reading right now:
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