We've started another wonderful George MacDonald book and the children beg for "just one more chapter".  We're reading an edition edited by Michael Phillips, titled, The Baronet's Song, produced by Bethany House Publishers. This book was originally published as Sir Gibbie.  It's a beautiful story and as usual MacDonald's words are often worth recording and find their way into my commonplace book.  Here is a memorable quote:  "So, teaching him only that which she loved, not that which she had been taught, Janet read to Gibbie of Jesus, and talked to him of Jesus, until at length his whole soul was full of the Man, of His doings, of His words, of His thoughts, of His life.  Almost before he knew, he was trying to fashion his life after that of the Master.  
     "Janet had no inclination to trouble her own head, or Gibbie's heart, with what men call the plan of salvation.  It was enough to her to find that he followed her Master."
      This reminded me of a quote by Charlotte Mason from Home Education,  "The Essence of Christianity is Loyalty to a Person--Christ, our King.  Here is a thought to unseal the fountains of love and loyalty, the treasures of faith and imagination, bound up in the child.  The very essence of Christianity is personal loyalty, passionate loyalty to our adorable Chief.  We have laid other foundations--regeneration, sacraments, justification, works, faith, te Bible--any of which, however necessary to salvation in its due place and proportion, may become a religion about Christ and without Christ.  And now a time of sifting has come upon us, and thoughtful people decline to know anything about our religious systems, they write down all our orthodox beliefs as things not knowable.  Perhaps this may be because, in thinking much of our salvation, we have put out of sight our King... Let us save Christianity for our children by bringing them into allegiance to Christ the King.  How?  How did the old Cavaliers bring up sons and daughters, in passionate loyalty and reverence for not too worthy princes?  Their own hearts were full of it; their lips spake it; their acts proclaimed it; their style of clothes, all was one proclamation of the boundless devotion to their king and his cause.  That civil war, whatever else it did, or missed doing, left a parable for Christian people.  If a Stuart prince could command such measure of loyalty, what shall we say of the Chief amongst ten thousand, the altogether lovely?'" 


    

Morals Do Not Come By Nature

 
This article is written as part of the Charlotte Mason Blog Carival.  You can see the schedule and subscribe to it here.
 
Reading School Education ch. 12 this week, several thoughts stood out to me.  

One, She asserts that it's not about rules, but rather about principles, that God's law surrounds us and influences us like gravity. It's not an arbitrary,  man-made set of rules, but truths and principles based on true reality given by the designer of us and our world Himself for our benefit.

She mentions that we as parents should "discern the signs of the times too; the tendency is to think that a man can only act according to his 'lights,' and, therefore , that it is right for him to do that which is right in his own eyes; in other words, that every man is his own final authority in questions of right and wrong.  It is extremely important that parents should keep in view, and counteract if need be, this tendency of the day."  It is interesting to me that the moral climate in England in Charlotte Mason's day was so similar to our present one.  Our present culture clearly teaches the same idea - that each must decide what is right for himself and not judge another. In our times it is acceptable to think of ourselves, as individuals, as the central focus of life rather than beginning with God as the measure of all things and thinking of ourselves accordingly.  Our culture looks through the wrong end of the telescope. She suggests that we as parents must be aware of this kind of teaching and counteract it.

She says here that, "Morals do not come by nature." and "A certain rough-and-ready kind of morality, varying with our conditions, does come by heredity and environment; but that most delicate and beautiful human possessions, an educated conscience, comes only by teaching with authority and adorning by example."

She goes on to explain how beautiful poetry and art, biography and especially Biblical biography and even the memorization of credes all promote morality and help a child form true ideas about what is right and what God expects of us.  This is where a Charlotte Mason education shines!  These are the exact means this kind of education utilizes and why I love it so much!

I liked her idea about having children collect mottoes daily.  It made me think of Laurie Bestvater's wonderful book The Living Page which lists so many of Charlotte Mason's wonderful ideas for commonplace books of various types. 

This chapter concludes with the idea that parents need to be clear in their own minds about the "manner of virtues they want their children to develop" and a caution, that children need to know that "being good is not their whole duty to God, although it is much of it; that the relationship of love and personal service, which he owes as a child to his Father, as a subject to his King, is even more than the 'being good' which gives our Almighty Father such pleasure in His children."  

Good reading - books by Stephen Meader

At the recommendation of Cindy Rollins at Ordo Amoris here, I ordered in a Stephen Meader book at our library.  We read it aloud and really enjoyed it.  So I ordered another and now another.  Tonight we finished The Fish Hawks Nest.  We were only half-way through when we started but it was early and we couldn't find a good stopping place - the adventure had us and we wanted to continue to the end.  Our first book by Stephen Meader was Boy With a Pack, and then Lumberjack. I recommend these books.  They've all been about boys but we have mostly girls at home now and have still enjoyed the adventures. We'll definitely be looking for more books by this author!  

 

Life in Ancient Rome

For World History we've been studying Ancient Rome. Following is our list of books:




Everyday Life in Ancient Rome by F.R.Cowell  - This is a bit like an encyclopedia with the following sections:  I.The City of Rome, II.Growing Up in Ancient Rome, III.Family Life, IV.Slavery, V.Earning a Living, VI.Leisure Hours, VII.Relgion.
We're moving through this slowly as there is so much to take in and it isn't given in story form.  Still, it gives good descriptions.


Roman People by Olivia Coolidge was interesting but a bit advanced in content.  She uses nine short stories to present what life was like for different types of people during this time period.  There is intrigue and murder and the author seems to like surprise endings.  I found the above two books at a used book sale and we have enjoyed them.

I hope to watch Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in the next few weeks and see if it is appropriate for our family.  I found several different ones to try and ordered them in from the library.

I also copied Julius Caesar from Plutarch's Lives for Boys and Girls. The Baldwin Project: Plutarch's Lives for Boys and Girls - Julius Caesar.  It was longer than I expected - it may take us awhile to read.  I think we'll read it before we watch Shakespeare's play.  If you are interested in other versions - Here is Ambleside Online's list.  Scroll down to what you are looking for and click the link.

We read Beric the Britain by Henty earlier this year.  With Henty, the first chapter or two come slowly and then I don't want to put the books down.  I like how historical novels give a wonderful feeling of place and culture.  We've also started For the Temple, by Henty.  This gives the history of this time-period from the perspective of the Jews.

We're also reading The Eagle of the Ninth by Rosemary Sutcliff.  She is a wonderful writer.  This story has a Roman legionary and a British warrior who has been captured and made into a slave.  They become good friends and seek together to find the Eagle Standard that the Roman's father had been carrying when his legion disappeared into the British frontier.  This book includes description of a pagan initiation rite for young warriors.  It isn't graphic but young readers may find it scary.  I reminded our children that Jesus is stronger than these false gods that the British Druids worshipped.




I'm looking forward to reading The Runaway by my favorite children's author, Patricia St. John.  It is set in New Testament times.







We started using Simply Charlotte Mason's Matthew Through Acts & Ancient Rome (History, Geography, Bible for Grades 1-12) last year and I want to get back to it.  It uses Famous Men of Rome and A Traveller in Rome as well as map activities (I use Uncle Josh's Outline Map book).

My two older students are reading through Augustus Caesar's World.

Some other books they have read are, The Bronze Bow, Stephen a Soldier of the Cross, Detectives in Togas, and Mystery of the Roman Ransom.  The oldest has Ben Hur on her list. 

I own Galen and the Gateway to Medicine so we'll probably read that, too.

We're starting to have a good sense for this time-period.

Any other recommendations?

We just finished another marvelous book and I'd like to recommend it!  

Nothing Else Matters, by one of our all-time favorite authors, Patricia St. John.

The following is from the back of the book, "A powerful and moving story based on real events in the bitter conflict in Lebanon, Lamia and her family are caught up in the fighting, with tragic consequences.  Lamia struggles with the hatred that threatens to destroy her, until she grasps that forgiveness and love are the most important things.  Nothing else matters."

Here are a couple of quotes I recorded in my commonplace book:  

"After he died, I think it was like being in hell...Guilt is a terrible thing Lamia.  You wake in the night and the stars are no longer beautiful.  You walk on the hills and the first flowers are no longer lovely.  All the colour goes out of life.  It is like a great burden....your heart is always heavy, until you feel that it will crush you."

"'He said there was only one really important question when we have to face death--where is my sin?  Am I carrying it myself, as a heavy burden that will separate me from God forever... or have I laid it on Christ on the cross?  If so, then death is the gate of life.'"

"'yes, I know...and yet, he never told us that our feelings are what matter.  I think he measures our love only by our obedience.  It's not how much do I feel, but how far will I obey?'"

...."The idea that loving went along with suffering was somehow resolving itself into a trinity; love, obedience, pain--but productive life-giving pain that sprang into deeper loving, the winter before the spring...."

"She could not explain; only the veil between life and death seemed very thin and death no longer the final tragedy. 'Today...with me.' Here or there, they would come home." ...

"But she could not sleep for a very long time, for the implications of her new discovery if they were true, were almost more than she could take in.  For if death was just a step into the presence of God, then her dead were not very far away; they at home in the love of Christ, and Christ, shedding his love abroad in the heart that received him--then they were all closer together than she had dared to imagine, united in that all-enveloping love."  

You can get a copy here for as little as $4 including shipping.  Or borrow it from Pastor Bob and Doris.

I Can't remember where I read the recommendation for Iris Noble's books, (Thank you to whoever recommended them) but I want to pass on how wonderful they are!!  We're just finishing The Honor of Balboa, which is the story of the first white man to see the Pacific ocean.  He claimed it for Spain in the name of King Ferdinand.  Though this is a biography it is easy to read and alive with wonderful details of his life and explorations in Central America. The book is not too long - just ten chapters and the children would often ask for a second chapter after I had read one.  I am saddened by the greed of the Spaniards and their terrible mistreatment of the Indians that lived there.  In contrast Balboa stood out for his policies of working together with the Indians in most cases, respecting them and learning from them. 

 Mary read Empress of All Russia: Catherine the Great and enjoyed it.  I'm looking forward to finding more titles by Iris Noble. 

Drawing and Painting - a learnable skill

Drawing and painting are like riding a bike or swimming - they can be scary and uncomfortable at first, but with practice most anyone can master these skills.  I often hear people say, "I can't draw", "I'm just not artistic", or "I can hardly draw a stick man".  But I believe that these are skills that can be learned with practice.  Like riding a bike and swimming they are easier learned younger.  I wonder if this isn't because when we're younger we're used to trying and failing and trying again.  As we get older we tend to take less risks and stay with the comfortable and familiar.  There are many ways that drawing and painting can fit into our curriculum.  We can draw our own pictures for our Century Book, copy great works of art by artists we are studying or use pictures as narration.  Of course our nature notebooks are a wonderful place to practice drawing skills.  Drawing is a perfect example of "practice makes perfect".   I include drawing at least once a week with our nature notebooks.  One of our daughters likes to bring her sketch journal to story time and draw while I read aloud.  She is getting very good.  We take books out from the library on drawing and they try different ideas they learn from the books.  

I enjoyed art classes in public high school but I wasn't particularly skilled.  I started painting as a hobby after I had several children.  One of my first paintings was a copy of a Duck Stamp painting I found in a magazine originally done by someone else.  My copy still hangs on the wall at my parents' house.  I think their affirmation and encouragement were a big reason I kept on painting.  Five or six years ago a friend's daughter took a watercolor class through community ed. then took the time to share some of what she had learned with my daughters and me.  I was hooked.  I got my Dad interested, too and we started painting together about once a week. The children would often gather around the table with us and paint, too. I took books from the library and read a couple a year and tried the projects and ideas I read about. Dad died of cancer over a year ago and I miss him terribly - but I have all those memories of painting together and pictures we each painted on my walls.  

One thing I've noticed is that drawing has forced me to slow down and look more carefully - to really see.  I often find myself looking at something in nature and asking myself what shape it is or what color it really is - what color is the shadow part?  These observations skills are wonderful for children.  If you and your children feel uncomfortable drawing and painting I want to encourage you to try and try again.  I believe drawing is a learnable skill, one that is well worth the effort and time spent.