Can You Do Classical and Charlotte Mason Together?
If you google “What is classical education?” you will find pages and pages of answers that all generally say the same thing, albeit with some subtle differences and descriptions depending on the starting point of the author. If you google “What is Charlotte Mason education?” the same holds true. You can even google variations of the question: “How does classical education compare with Charlotte Mason?” - but first make sure you have some hot, strong tea or coffee beside you because you will be up all night as you journey down that rabbit hole!
So why another attempt to define, describe, and compare the two methods, you may ask? Well, we at Invictus Classical Press are attempting to find the “sweet spot” between the two. We love aspects of both of them and believe that it doesn’t have to be “either-or” to be true, good, and beautiful. The wonderful thing about homeschooling is that it offers the freedom to choose what works best for you and your family as you seek to glorify God through the grand education of your children. So, that being said, here is our small contribution to the conversation.
What is Classical Education?
Traditionally, classical education was centered around Latin and Greek, the two languages of the Greek and Roman world. Beyond that, it focused on the history, philosophy, literature, and art of those same worlds. Students would master the languages first, and then memorize copious amounts of ancient literature, study and debate the philosophies of men like Cicero and Marcus Aurelius, ruminate on the military and political strategies of Alexander the Great and Julius Caesar, and immerse themselves in the great truths of the civilization from which these people came.
It was during the Middle Ages that the classical way of learning was studied and eventually systematized. Study was divided into two parts called the Trivium and the Quadrivium. The Trivium (Latin for “three ways”), also known as “the verbal arts,” was studied first and consisted of grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric in connection to words – their meaning, their relation, and their ability to persuade toward truth. The Quadrivium (Latin for “four ways”) was recognized as “the quantitative arts,” and consisted of arithmetic (numbers), music (numbers in time), geometry (numbers in space), and astronomy (numbers in time and space). It was concerned with humanity’s understanding of and relationship to the natural world. Together, the Trivium and the Quadrivium made up the Seven Liberal Arts.
It was also during the Middle Ages that the practice of Lectio Divina, traditionally said to be founded by St. Benedict (c. 480-547) and Pope Gregory I (540-604), and later formalized by a monk named Guigo II in his book The Ladder of Monks, became a standard of practice within the monastic tradition. Lectio Divina, or Divine Reading, is a four-step method for approaching scripture. It consists of lectio (I read), meditatio (I meditate), oratio (I pray), and contemplatio (I contemplate). The goal of lectio divina is to promote communion with God and increase knowledge of God’s word so that one may go out into the world in virtuous action.
It was early in the 12th century that an Augustinian monk named Hugh of St. Victor (1096-1141), wrote The Didascalicon of Hugh of St. Victor: A Medieval Guide to the Arts that summarizes the practice of lectio divina in relation to scripture, and then applies its principles to reading texts outside of scripture. He talks about the important aspects of medieval reading, including memory, reading, and meditation. Memory was the first and most important step in a person’s education. It consisted of furnishing the mind with the entire story of salvation as revealed in scripture through its significant themes, people, events, and symbols. Students would organize the details into a kind of “memory ark” that could be accessed at will and served as a perpetual source of heart, soul, and mind transformation, as well as protection against pride and doctrinal error. It was only when memory training was complete that students began to read (lectio) systematically through a prescribed book list.
Lectio is the diligent effort to understand the primary meaning of a text, always considering its historicity, genre, context, etc. The student would wait to analyze and criticize the text until he was confident that he first understood what the author was trying to say. When satisfied that understanding had been reached, he would begin the process of relating the author’s arguments to what was stored in the memory ark of his mind. Was the author’s argument true, good, and beautiful? Did it resonate with Scriptural truths or deny them? Had the text exposed error in his own heart and mind that now required repentance and change?
Following lectio, the student would turn to meditatio, a kind of deep rumination on any important and beautiful passages or ideas in the text. He would read aloud, read again, rethink, and re-evaluate, always in a prayerful state (oratio) and prepared for the Holy Spirit to reveal further truth leading to repentance and change, peace and delight, and wonder and worship.
Compositio (I compose) was the final stage, where the long labor of learning enabled the student to create external things (texts, artworks, architecture, etc.) that were true, good, and beautiful, as well as internal mansions of the mind, the heart, and the soul that would lead him steadily toward virtuous action and love for God and his neighbor.
For centuries, through the Renaissance, Reformation, and Enlightenment, this kind of education - with some variation of course – was the norm. It wasn’t until the modern era of the 1800’s that education began to change. Slowly but surely the paradigm shifted from a “classical” education to a “progressive” education, so that by the 1950’s, only fragments of a classical education remained.
It has only been in the past forty years that a renewed interest in a classical education has risen, and it came from interaction with a brief essay written by Dorothy Sayers in 1948. In this essay, entitled The Lost Tools of Learning, Sayers laments the state of education in her time and argues persuasively for a return to a Middle Ages type of education – one centered around the Trivium and the Quadrivium – whose end goal is to produce virtuous people who can think for themselves and know how to learn. She brilliantly expands upon the three divisions of the Trivium, recognizing within them the natural stages of child development and mirroring the steps of lectio divina.
Grammar level students love to memorize, sing, chant, recite, and collect things, so we should capitalize on their natural tendencies and present them with beautiful, true things to practice those skills on so their “memory ark” is filled.
Dialectic students love to argue and back-talk and be disagreeable in general, so we should teach them to think carefully and read slowly and make important connections wisely using logic and reasoning, so at least while they drive their parents crazy they can do it well.
Students at the rhetoric level desire independence and the opportunity to express themselves as they synthesize everything they have learned and compose stories and speeches and soliloquies about it, so we furnish them with freedom within a framework of knowledge and allow them to immerse themselves in avenues of interest as they humbly discover how much there is still to learn.
Classical education a la Dorothy Sayers, commonly known as Trivium-based education, is the kind of education that most K-12 classical schools are following today, although it has been expanded and enriched over the years as organizations, schools, and individuals research more into the texts and practices of classical, medieval, and renaissance educators and experiment in the classroom. It is still grounded in the classical languages, predominantly Latin, but has expanded to encompass not only classical Greek and Roman history, literature, philosophy, and art, but that of the whole of western civilization up to the Modern Era. Study is generally, but not necessarily, focused on four chronological historical cycles (Ancients, Middle Ages/Renaissance, Early Modern, Modern) and repeated in order three times, so that by the time a student is finished high school they have tackled each cycle three times, once at the grammar stage, once at the dialectic stage, and once at the rhetoric stage.
What is Charlotte Mason (CM) Education?
Charlotte Mason (1842-1923), was a British educator who, though she never had children of her own, helped parents raise their children into well-rounded, liberated persons. She became a teacher, and it was while she taught at the Davison School in England that the idea of a “liberal education for all” was formed. At that time, children were educated according to what class they were born into, so upper class children were exposed to literature, art, music, and philosophy, and lower-class children were taught a trade. However, Mason believed that all children deserved a liberal education – one that would make them free – and after some time established the House of Education where anyone working with children could come and be trained in her educational philosophy. She also wrote a six-volume set of books that detail her philosophy of education, wisdom concerning child training, and parenting.
The past thirty years has seen a revival of Charlotte Mason’s philosophy that has parallels to the classical education renewal. In 1987 Dean and Karen Andreola discovered Mason’s long out-of-print volumes in England and brought them home with them to the United States where they arranged for their re-publication under the name The Original Homeschooling Series. The Andreola’s homeschooled their children using CM pedagogy, researched ever further into the method, and began to write about their experiences. In 1998, Karen published A Charlotte Mason Companion: Personal Reflections on the Gentle Art of Learning, which became a staple in homeschools across the nation. Since that time, numerous other CM inspired books and curriculum have been published as parents seek to give their children an “educational life.”
In the preface to Volume 6 of the series, Towards a Philosophy of Education, Mason outlines her 20 Principles. The first and most important principle she espouses is that children are born persons. This may seem obvious, but it is sometimes too easy to forget that children are unique individuals made in God’s image and come fully equipped with an intellect, emotions, and will. This belief stands in direct contradiction to both the Aristotelian and Lockean idea that we come into this world tabula rasa – a blank slate – waiting to be written on by our experiences and by those around us. More importantly, however, this belief demands that we educate the whole of the child, not just the mind, hence Mason’s definition of education as tripartite: “...an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life.”
By “atmosphere” Mason means that everything in a child’s natural life should contribute to their education. There is no need to create artificial “child environments,” because children learn best from the natural reality around them. There is no need for “sprinkling with rose-water, or softening with cushions.” Wherever a child spends the majority of time is his “natural environment,” so if you are homeschooling, then the home environment is, and should be, a powerful tool in your child’s education.
By “discipline” Mason means that children should be trained in virtuous habits, or character development, as well as in bodily self-control. Today’s modern psychology would perhaps interpret this as “You are what you think...do… eat...” Mason believed that the brain and body could be trained in virtue, so cultivating character was integral to her philosophy and played a key role in the classroom. The danger of falling prey to every whim and fancy presented to students is “averted by giving children as their daily diet the wise thoughts of great minds…so that they may gradually and unconsciously get the courage of their opinions.”
By “life” Mason is referring to a child’s need for “intellectual and moral as well as of physical sustenance.” By this she means that education should apply to all aspects of the person and should be rich and varied with a “generous curriculum” where facts are learned in connection with their “informing ideas.” It is the ideas that feed a child’s life and “are taken into his being; all the rest is cast away…” A generous curriculum includes such things as living books, experiences, exercise, crafts, science, art, and music, which enable the child to forge “natural relations” with vast numbers of things and thoughts.
A discussion of all 20 principles is beyond the scope of this writing, but if you would like to read more about her philosophy, you can read all of her books for free on the Ambleside website. We do have another blog post about “single-reading narration,” which was very important to CM and a core tenet of her pedagogy, so make sure you check that one out. It’s not as intimidating as you think!
What is an Invictus Education?
We at Invictus Classical Press love both the Trivium-based classical model and Charlotte Mason’s philosophy. We see the brilliance behind Sayer’s expansion of the Trivium to the developmental stages of children, and we appreciate Mason’s idea of approaching the student as a whole person and laying a feast of good things before them while cultivating virtue and discipline. The Invictus Memory Guides attempt to find the “sweet spot” of harmony between the two. An Invictus education uses the tools of the Trivium and combines them with the Principles of CM.
Surprisingly, according to her essay, other than Latin, Dorothy Sayers didn’t think the material that grammar stage students memorized was the most important thing, only that they actively memorize, and she believed that the things memorized did not necessarily need to be understood by the student during this stage: “What the material actually is, is only of secondary importance; but it is as well that anything and everything which can usefully be committed to memory should be memorized at this period, whether it is immediately intelligible or not” (Sayers 13).
She believed that children could find great joy and satisfaction in the memorization of material that was far beyond their ability to comprehend and that one of the errors of modern education was supposing that every fact, date, law, or list memorized at this level required a rational explanation be provided simultaneously. She believed that filling the memory banks of children who love to memorize but are not yet able to fully analyze was the best preparation for when their brains were developmentally prepared to find connections between those facts and argue about them, and then ultimately take a stand on one side or the other and virtuously persuade someone to the truth.
In contrast to this, Mason believed that the quality of material presented to children, and the ideas behind the material, were vitally important and should not be separated: “But we, believing that the normal child has powers of mind which fit him to deal with all knowledge proper to him, give him a full and generous curriculum; taking care only that all knowledge offered him is vital, that is, that facts are not presented without their informing ideas.”
So how do we balance these two conflicting ideologies? We contextualize and integrate memory work! If the student is memorizing a history prompt about Julius Caesar, after we play with it using different modalities a few times, we pull out living books about him and read them aloud and then have the student narrate. We find a great work of art depicting him and study it and then have them imitate it. We examine maps that illustrate where Julius Caesar lived and conquered and then trace them and label them. We research the different musical instruments of the Roman world and listen to interpretations of Roman music. We read a child’s version of Shakespeare’s play, or the original if the children are old enough, and take time to meditate on powerful words found in the funeral speeches, or we throw on some togas and dramatize the stabbing scene. We talk about honor and courage and loyalty and betrayal and ground them to the timeless truths found in scripture and the kind of life that Christ calls us to.
We fit the feast to the facts and the facts to the feast and celebrate the educational life together with our children. It really is that simple. Sayers and Mason are not as far apart as many believe, and their end goals are surprisingly similar. In fact, I think they could have been friends! Sayers desires students who can think and learn for themselves and Mason desires students who understand that their chief responsibility as persons is the acceptance or rejection of ideas.
The way they get there may vary to some degree, but we at Invictus Classical Press believe it’s possible to utilize the best of both methods in the education of our students. To this end, we humbly present a definition for an Invictus Education:
An Invictus education is motivated by God’s glory and utilizes beautiful and true material within the Trivium-based method. Its goal is the formation and equipping of the whole person made in God’s image, who can learn, reason, and persuade people to the enduring truths of God and act virtuously toward their neighbor.
Allow us to unpack that a little.
An Invictus education stands on three foundation stones: Motive, Material, and Method. By “Motive” we mean that our educational efforts must be motivated by the idea of God’s glory. This is the first and most important stone in the foundation. Without this stone firmly in place, the house will fall. 1 Corinthians 10:31 states: “So, whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” Likewise, in Romans 11:36 we are told: “For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things. To Him be the glory forever! Amen.” Sacrifice and death are the keys that open God’s glory (John 12:20-28), and when we take on a teaching role, it is a call to sacrifice and a daily dying to self; that is why our motivation for doing it must be grounded in something far greater than ourselves – God’s glory.
Resting on the foundation is the Material stone. By “Material” we mean the feast we place before our students. Memory work should be carefully chosen for its importance within the present and future realities of the student. Living books, art, music, nature studies, science, and physical fitness opportunities should be a homeschool staple, presented in beauty, and grounded in the Truth and Goodness of God.
Lastly, from the Method stone, which rests upon the material, we find the tools of the classical Trivium and the skills of Charlotte Mason that can be used in the grand construction of the educational life: Memorization, Recitation, Integration, and Narration, which, with consistency, compassion, and commitment on the part of parents can lead children, ultimately, to the three transcendentals: Truth, Goodness, and Beauty.
And that’s it! It’s not a comprehensive background by any means, but this post is already long, so I encourage you, with hot tea in hand (and maybe a few cookies!), to keep Googling, keep reading, and keep talking about it with your friends!