Favorite Quotes

While I have been using a Charlotte Mason style education for 5 years now, I haven't (cough, cough) read her actual works. I've been busy!!!! But I'm taking the time to read them now...and it will take a while....

I'm going to be adding my favorite quotes from her books, mainly as a way for me to consolidate all the gems into one area. I won't be creating new posts each time; I'll just add on to this one. And I probably won't keep it strictly Charlotte Mason. It will probably morph into other thoughts, quotes and ideas as relates to education. My own personal page to inspire and uplift.

So if you're interested, bookmark this and check back often as it is a work in progess.

From Home Education (Book One) by Charlotte Mason

Children are thinking, feeling human beings, with spirits to be kindled and not vessels to be filled.

All children are entitled to a liberal education based upon good literature and the arts.

Liberal meaning, taking whatsover things are true, honest, and of good report, and offering no limitation or hinderance saver where excess should injure.

Education is an atmosphere - take into account the educational value of his natural home environment and let him live freely among his proper conditions.

Education is a discipline - the discipline of habits formed definitely and thoughtfully.

Education is a life - the need of intellectual and moral as well as of physical sustenance is implied. The mind feeds on ideas and therefore children should have a generous curriculum.

Education is a science of relations - the child has natural relations with a vast number of things and thoughts; so we must train him upon physical exercises, nature, handicrafts, science and art, and upon many living books.

We should allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and the spiritual life of children.

Do not let the children pass a day without distinct efforts, intellectual, moral, and volitional; let them brace themselves to understand; let them compel themselves to do and to bear; and let them do right at sacrifice of ease and pleasure.

The morning, after breakfast, is much the best time for lessons and every sort of mental work; if the whole afternoon cannot be spared for out-of-door recreation, that is the time for mechanical tasks such as needlework, drawing and practising.

The brain, or some portion of the brain, becomes exhausted with any given function has been exercised too long. The child has been doing sums for some time, and is getting unaccountably stupid: take away his slate and let him read history, and you find his wits fresh again.

Give the brain of the child variety of work.

No pains should be spared to make the hours of meeting round the family table the brightest hours of the day...Here is the parents' opportunity to train them in manners and in morals, to cement family love...

The whole house should be kept light and bright...indoor airings...ventilation of rooms

Intellectual, moral, even spiritual life and progress depend greatly upon physical conditions.

Never be within doors when you can rightly be without...food can be served outdoors...every hour spent outside is a clear gain.

Of the evils of modern education few are worse than this - that the perpetual cackle of his elders leaves the poor child not a moment of time, nor an inch of space, wherein to wonder - and grow.

When outside...they must be let alone...it is not the mother's job to entertain the little people...first send the children to let off their spirits in a wild scamper...then send them off on an exploring expedition.

Get the children to look well at some patch of landscape, and then to shut their eyes and call up the picture before them.

Children should know field crops, flowers, trees, the seasons. Mothers and teachers should know about nature.

Nature drawings should be left to his own initiative. Do not instruct 'this is how we do this' or 'that is how it should be done.'

Children should be encouraged to watch, patiently and quietly, until they learn something of the habits and history of bee, ant, wasp, spider, hairy caterpillar, dragon-fly, and whatever of larger growth comes in their way.

Every child has a natural interest in the living things about him which it is the business of his parents to encourage; for, but few children are equal to holding their own in the face of public opinion; and if they see that the things which interest them are indifferent or disgusting to you, their pleasure in them vanishes.

An observant child should be put in the way of things worth observing.

It is infinitely well worth the mother's while to take some pains every day to secure, in the first place, that her children spend hours daily amongst the rural and natural objects...to infuse into them...a love of investigation.

Other inspirational education quotes

Education is not the filling of a bucket, but the lighting of a fire. - William Butler Yeats

Son this is history. It’s our history. Some of it is painful, some of it is beautiful, but it is who we are. - Jason F. Wright

A man should hear a little music, read a little poetry, and see a fine picture every day of his life, in order that worldly cares may not obliterate the sense of the beautiful which God has implanted in the human soul. — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

If we continue to send our children to Caesar for their education, we need to stop being surprised when they come home as Romans. ~ Dr. Voddie Baucham

Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. - Roger Lewin

I never teach my pupils; I only attempt to provide the conditions in which they can learn. - Albert Einstein

There are two types of education… One should teach us how to make a living…and the other, how to live. - John Adams

The idea is to educate, not follow anyone’s schedule about when something should be studied. - Ray Drouillard

I believe it would be much better for everyone if children were given their start in education at home. No one understands a child as well as his mother, and children are so different that they need individual training and study. A teacher with a room full of pupils cannot do this. At home, too, they are in their mother's care. She can keep them from learning immoral things from other children. - Laura Ingalls Wilder

I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. --Mark Twain

I still say the only education worth anything is self-education. - Robert Frost

He is educated who knows how to find out what he doesn't know. - George Simmel

I learned most, not from those who taught me but from those who talked with me. - St. Augustine

Sitting together in the Big Creek auditorium at lunch, we taught ourselves trigonometry.  I had discovered that learning something, no matter how complex, wasn't hard when I had a reason to want to know it. - Homer H. Hickam, Jr.