My first priority for this blog is to type and post Charlotte’s six Volumes.

Why?

Well, there are a few reasons.

When I began home educating, there were limited resources for learning about a Charlotte Mason education. I found one blog that guided me through the initial baby steps, but the bulk and weight of learning a CM Education for me came from reading the Volumes. If the Volumes had not been available to me to read for free on a site, I would never have read them. I would not have spent money on a set of The Pinks for a method that I really wasn’t sure if I wanted to follow. Thankfully, I did find them at an online source, and have been continually reading since. I hope that by making these available to you freely, you may read and know if a Charlotte Mason is a fit for you. I hope that you will read and your family will benefit as mine did. I am grateful for the site that brought CM to me by the valuable work that they did to post the Volumes. My family has received a blessing. I received a blessing.

I also hope this may aid anyone who would like to read them online whether they are new to CM or not. Perhaps your hard copy isn’t available and that precious free minute comes to read. Perhaps these online Volumes will help when you don’t have your Volume in your back pocket.

Eventually, I hope to get the Volumes in a more searchable format along with posting the individual chapters as I am currently doing. The searchable feature was also a reason I began typing -because I wanted a searchable source for myself.

Typing the Volumes helps me intimately know the Volumes. Because I know the Volumes are so vital for a Living Education, this is one way I am using to educate myself. As I type I file quotes and passages into categories in order to gather Charlotte’s words and thoughts on a particular subject onto files in my computer. This aids me in writing-which I really want to do- but, first things first.

As I look back, the years of experience have shown me that all I needed to know to do a Living Education was in the Volumes. Sometimes (often) I wished there was another, easier source to just tell me that to do. It took me so long to understand what in the world she was talking about, so long to understand her English and sometimes her humour, her sarcasm,  so long to shed the past assumptions that clouded my vision of what education and ultimately living was. It was a painstaking, arduous, tough road. But I see now that it was beneficial. I relied on the Volumes because I was forced to. Any educator can rely on them. I type them because they are the vital source any mother-teacher needs to educate a child in a Living way.

I began with Volume 1 but realized it would be better use of time to type and post the Volumes that I am currently reading in book studies. Volume 1 will be completed, someday, but it is on the back burner now. Currently I am leading a CM Book Study that recently began Volume 5. I am typing where we are in that study. Our book study was reading Volume 4 when I began this project. It took a while for me to learn how to operate this blog and figure out how to do the editing and format style that I wanted, as well as train myself to the discipline of regular typing. While I learned, the book study passed me up, so to speak, and thus, I need to go back to the first part of Volume 4 and complete it. I’m typing Volume 3 because I’m participating in another CM book study reading that Volume. I hope to keep up with typing for where I am in this study – hope.

I am the one who types and edits. If- or when- you see spelling or other errors, I would welcome your catch! Email me   lisagardener@abbnebraska.com with any errors you see. (I hate proofreading BTW).

Please use these Volumes to read and print for yourself, personally, not for anything additional. Thank you for respecting my time and effort using these Volumes in the way intended. Since this is my typing project it has my mark so to speak. They are given freely and meant to be used freely in a spirit of generosity.

If you know of someone interested in a Charlotte Mason Education, consider referring them to the Volumes here, so they can begin their risk-free journey with the Volumes. But, a disclaimer, there actually may be a risk- the risk that they become hooked and eventually a CM fanatic!

Read away!

Lisa A Charlotte Mason missionary