The teacher who allows his scholars the freedom of the city of books is at liberty to be their guide, philosopher and friend; and is no longer the mere instrument of forcible intellectual feeding.
Interpretation
A good teacher empowers students by giving them freedom to explore knowledge, rather than just forcing them into a rigid curriculum.
Charlotte Mason emphasizes the importance of educators fostering an environment where students can freely explore literature and knowledge, rather than simply consuming information in a controlled manner. Such an approach not only enriches the learning experience but also transforms the role of the teacher into one of guidance and mentorship, fostering a deeper connection and understanding between the teacher and students.
In practice
During a teacher training seminar to highlight progressive teaching methods.
Therefore, teaching, talk and tale, however lucid or fascinating, effect nothing until self-activity be set up; that is, self-education is the only possible education; the rest is mere veneer laid on the surface of a child's nature.
As for literature – to introduce children to literature is to install them in a very rich and glorious kingdom, to bring a continual holiday to their doors, to lay before them a feast exquisitely served. But they must learn to know literature by being familiar with it from the very first. A child's intercourse must always be with good books, the best that we can find.
In this time of extraordinary pressure, educational and social, perhaps a mother’s first duty to her children is to secure for them a quiet and growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life, the waking part of it for the most part spent out in the fresh air.
Let children alone... the education of habit is successful in so far as it enables the mother to let her children alone, not teasing them with perpetual commands and directions - a running fire of Do and Don’t ; but letting them go their own way and grow, having first secured that they will go the right way and grow to fruitful purpose.
We have never been so rich in books. But there has never been a generation when there is so much twaddle in print for children.
We talk of lost ideals, but perhaps they are not lost, only changed; when our ideal for ourselves and for our children becomes limited to prosperity and comfort, we get these, very likely, for ourselves and for them, but we get no more.
My upbringing was in the church. We had to attend regularly. And, of course, the church provided a training ground for me, so to speak, as a young vocalist and certainly gave me all of the spiritual values that I needed as a young lady.
A question is a pursuit, an invitation to envision and explore a series of possibilities, to struggle and empathize and doubt and believe. The question moves, whereas our sense of what an answer is can often be static, a stopping point.
I often say that research is a way of finding out what you are going to do when you can't keep on doing what you are doing now.
Nine-tenths of existing books are nonsense, and the clever books are the refutation of that nonsense.
I listened more than I studied... therefore little by little my knowledge and ability were developed.
A library is a place where you can lose your innocence without losing your virginity.
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