An Educational Manifesto - Part II

Excerpted from Charlotte Mason's Vol. 3 "School Education: Developing A Curriculum"
Originally published in 1925

Children can be most fitly educated on Things and Books.

Things, e.g.: -

i. Natural obstacles for physical contention, climbing, swimming, walking, etc.
ii. Material to work in -- wood, leather, clay, etc.
iii. Natural objects in situ -- birds, plants, streams, stones, etc.
iv. Objects of art.
v. Scientific apparatus, etc.

The value of this education by Things is receiving wide recognition, but intellectual education to be derived from Books is still for the most part to seek.

Every scholar of six years old and upwards should study with 'delight' his own, living, books on every subject in a pretty wide curriculum. Children between six and eight must for the most part have their books read to them.

This plan has been tried with happy results for the last twelve years in many home schoolrooms, and some other schools.

By means of the free use of books the mechanical difficulties of education -- reading, spelling, composition, etc -- disappear, and studies prove themselves to be 'for delight, for ornament, and for ability.'

There is reason to believe that these principles are workable in all schools, Elementary and Secondary; that they tend in the working to simpflication, economy, and discipline.