Charlotte’s Books

CONDENSEDVolume 1 Part 5. Chapter 4 IV.—READING Time of Teaching to Read, an Open Question.—Reading presents itself first amongst the lessons to be used as instruments of education, although it is open to discussion whether the child should acquire the art unconsciously, from his infancy upwards, or whether the effort should be deferred until he […]

CONDENSED Volume 1 Part 5. Chapter 3III.—FURTHER CONSIDERATION OF THE KINDERGARTEN For example, are not all our schemes of education founded on the presumption that a child’s mind—his ‘thinking, feeling man’—begins ‘very small,’ and grows great with the growth of his body? We cannot tell if this is indeed the case…. if one of us

CONDENSEDVolume 1 Part 5. Chapter 2 II.—THE KINDERGARTEN AS A PLACE OF EDUCATION …the Kindergarten is beautiful—‘ ’tis like a little heaven below’; but put a commonplace woman in charge of such a school, and the charmingly devised gifts and games and occupations become so many instruments of wooden teaching. If the very essence of

CONDENSEDVolume 1 Part 5. Chapter 1 PART VLESSONS AS INSTRUMENTS OF EDUCATION I.—THE MATTER AND METHOD OF LESSONS It seems to me that we live in an age of pedagogy; that we of the teaching profession are inclined to take too much upon ourselves, and that parents are ready to yield the responsibility of direction,

CONDENSEDVolume 1 Part 4. Chapter 8 VIII.—TRUTHFULNESS The vice of lying arises from three causes: carelessness in ascertaining the truth, carelessness in stating the truth, and a deliberate intention to deceive. Now, of the three kinds of lying, it is only, as a matter of fact, the third which is severely visited upon the child;

CONDENSEDVolume 1 Part 4. Chapter 7 VII.—SOME MORAL HABITS—OBEDIENCE First, and infinitely the most important, is the habit of obedience. Indeed, obedience is the whole duty of the child, and for this reason—every other duty of the child is fulfilled as a matter of obedience to his parents. Not only so: obedience is the whole

CONDENSEDVolume 1 Part 4. Chapter 6 VI.—THE HABIT OF PERFECT EXECUTION No work should be given to a child that he cannot execute perfectly, and then perfection should be required of him as a matter of course. For instance, he is set to do a copy of strokes, and is allowed to show a slateful

CONDENSEDVolume 1 Part 4. Chapter 5 V.—THE HABIT OF REMEMBERING Memory is the storehouse of whatever knowledge we possess; and it is upon the fact of the stores lodged in the memory that we take rank as intelligent beings. … much that we have learned and experienced is not only retained in the storehouse of

CONDENSEDVolume 1 Part 4. Chapter 4 IV—THE HABIT OF IMAGINING All their lessons will afford scope for some slight exercise of the children’s thinking power, some more and some less, and the lessons must be judiciously alternated, so that the more mechanical efforts succeed the more strictly intellectual, and that the pleasing exercise of the

CONDENSEDVolume 1 Part 4. Introduction PART IV SOME HABITS OF MIND—SOME MORAL HABITS …I venture to write upon subjects bearing on home education with the greatest deference to mothers; believing, that in virtue of their peculiar insight into the dispositions of their own children, they are blest with both knowledge and power in the management