Character is Conduct

As most of you are likely aware, Miss Mason started a teaching school, called The House of Education, where young ladies came to be trained in her methods.  There was a nearby practicing school with students from the area where the young ladies worked as teachers, putting into practice Mason's methods.After graduation they became governesses, teachers, wives, occasionally missionaries, always working to further the aims of Mason's educational methods.
  

In 1909 they had a conference with nearly 100 attendants- all of them had to be either graduates from the training school or current students.  Miss Bradley was one of the speakers, and her topic was 'Influence and Ideals,' with the main thrust being how to properly use one's influence and position to give students ideals and moral principles leading to correct behavior, while respecting the personhood of the students.  The above quote comes from that notes on her paper which appeared in the school journal, L'Umile Pianta.  


I've been thinking about that sentence for days- individual effort to make right action follow right thought.  This is such a simple concept, but so challenging to implement in our lives, let alone in our children's lives.   That's the character we want to exhibit, and hope to see in our students- thinking the right thoughts, and making the effort to have the right actions follow those right thoughts.  

Mason says it several times, the goal of a living education worth having is conduct and character. Other members of the P.N.E.U. said it, too, in one way or another. 

There are 9 references in volume six alone.  Here are just a couple of them:

"We have, too, quite a code of 'principles' affecting character and conduct, aesthetic development and so on,"

"The life of the mind is sustained upon ideas; there is no intellectual vitality in the mind to which ideas are not presented several times, say, every day. But 'surely, surely,' as 'Mrs. Proudie' would say, scientific experiments, natural beauty, nature study, rhythmic movements, sensory exercises, are all fertile in ideas? Quite commonly, they are so, as regards ideas of invention and discovery; and even in ideas of art; but for the moment it may be well to consider the ideas that influence life, that is, character and conduct; these, would seem, pass directly from mind to mind, and are neither helped nor hindered by educational outworks. "

"If we realise that the mind and knowledge are like two members of a ball and socket joint, two limbs of a pair of scissors, fitted to each other, necessary to each other and acting only in concert, we shall understand that our function as teachers is to supply children with the rations of knowledge which they require; and that the rest, character and conduct, efficiency and ability, and, that finest quality of the citizen, magnanimity, take care of themselves"

"Academic success and knowledge are not the same thing and many excellent schools fail to give their pupils delight in the latter for its own sake or to bring them in touch with the sort of knowledge that influences character and conduct. The slow, imperceptible, sinking-in of high ideals is the gain that a good school should yield its pupils."

"...character and conduct, intelligence and initiative, are the outcome of a humanistic education in which the knowledge of God is put first."

"What we desire is the still progress of growth that comes of root striking downwards and fruit urging upwards. And this progress in character and conduct is not attained through conditions of environment or influence but only through the growth of ideas, received with conscious intellectual effort."

Regarding using her methods in the 7-8 hrs a week available in the continuation, or night, schools for the working classes: "We can give to the people the thought of the best minds and we can secure on their part the conscious intellectual effort, the act of knowing, which bears fruit in capability, character and conduct."


"...the habits of the child produce the character of the man, because certain mental habitudes once set up, their nature is to go on for ever unless they should be displaced by other habits. Here is an end to the easy philosophy of, 'It doesn't matter,' 'Oh, he'll grow out of it,' 'He'll know better by-and-by,' 'He's so young, what can we expect?' and so on. Every day, every hour, the parents are either passively or actively forming those habits in their children upon which, more than upon anything else, future character and conduct depend." (Vol. 1, page 118)


"Can Spirit act upon Matter?––The functions of education may be roughly defined as twofold: (a) the formation of habits; (b) the presentation of ideas. The first depends far more largely than we recognise on physiological processes. The second is purely spiritual in origin, method, and result. Is it not possible that here we have the meeting point of the two philosophies which have divided mankind since men began to think about their thoughts and ways? Both are right; both are necessary; both have their full activity in the development of a human being at his best....
What is it but the impact of spirit upon matter which writes upon the face of flesh that record of character and conduct which we call countenance?" Volume 2

"...the parent's inactivity must be masterly; that is, the young people should read approval or disapproval very easily, and should be able to trace one or the other to general principles of character and conduct, though nothing be said or done or even looked in disparagement of the ally of the hour."

" That the discipline of the habits of the good life, both intellectual and moral, forms a good third of education, we all believe. The excess occurs when we imagine that certain qualities of character and conduct run out, a prepared product like carded wool, from this or that educational machine, mathematics or classics, science or athletics; that is, when the notion of the development of the so-called faculties takes the place of the more physiologically true notion of the formation of intellectual habits. The difference does not seem to be great; but two streams that rise within a foot of one another may water different countries and fall into different seas, and a broad divergence in practice often arises from what appears to be a small difference in conception, in matters educational"

Volume 3


From a 1922 Conference report delivered by Miss Mason and reprinted in In Memoriam:


From the Parents' Reviews:

[Socrates] ...originated the thought that Ethics and Politics not only deserve, but require, severe study and close attention, dealing as they do with the fundamental principles which should regulate the daily life of every individual, both as regards his own character and conduct, and also in respect to his private and his public relationships and duties.  (Maxwell Y. Maxwell, volume 12)

This book review, which I believe was probably written by Miss Mason:
The Springs of Character, by A. T. Schofield, M.D., author of The Unconscious Mind (Hodder & Stoughton, 3/6). Dr. Schofield's book will, we believe, accomplish the object for which it was written; it will give us pause, cause us to "think on these things." The author tells us that his object was threefold; first, "to emphasis in various ways the transcendent importance of character, second, to show what are its foundations and springs, and third, to see how it can best be cultivated and improved." The chapters deal with Character and the Mind, The Personality of Character, Character and the Body, Character and Ethics, Character and Heredity, Character and Habit, Character and Growth, Analysis of Character, The Qualities of Character, Character and the Will, Character and Conduct, Character and Conscience, Character and Christianity, Character and Destiny. These are all matters which come home to every man's business and bosom and appeal, especially to those whose work in life it is to modify, direct, retrieve, sustain, and, in every direct and indirect way, labour towards the achievement of character in weak and dependent beings, that is to say, to parents. The reader will find that Dr. Schofield's book does him, in almost every page, a twofold service--it stimulates him and instructs him. It shows him how great an achievement and possession is character: "Our minds cast shadows just like our bodies, and daily and hourly those shadows are falling upon others for good or evil. This one fact alone proclaims the overwhelming importance of character in social life. The reasons we feel one man's presence and not another's is, indeed, as simple and unerring as the law of gravity. A presence is felt in exact proportion to the strength of its character." "Oh! Job, how did you know Hercules was a God? Because I was content the moment my eyes fell on him--he conquered whether he stood or walked or sat." "'Men of character,' says Emerson, 'are the conscience of the society to which they belong, and to produce all this effect no word need be spoken, no deed done--the presence often suffices.'" "'In silent company with another,' says Maeterlinck, 'the character is often deeply formed. The truth cannot often be uttered in words, but it can be learnt in silence.'" This kind of writing is stimulating. We say to ourselves, "get character," and, again, before all things, "get character." Having stimulated us, Dr. Schofield proceeds to instruct us. Character, he tells us, is not to be attained by introspective methods, but by the pursuit of ideals. "The measure of a man is truly the measure of his vision, that is, of the ideal before his eye." Again,--"Loss of faith in ideals is destructive of character and stops its growth. Moreover an ideal not followed is soon lost." Again,--"We have little idea how character develops by the pressure of moral opinions and current thoughts. One single hint or new idea may influence an entire character." Again,--"Schopenhauer traces some bad characters to the effect of the single idea of regarding the world as 'not myself' and all good as centering in the unextended ego." We have not space to estimate severally chapters dealing with matters of such exceeding weight, but we hope we have said enough to direct the reader's attention to Dr. Schofield's valuable work, in which he will find, as we have said, such stimulation and such suggestion as should make him desire "character" before all things, and should enable him to set about the intelligent production of that which he desires."

(Dr. Schofield was on the executive committee of the Parents' Union and worked closely with the Union and supported its aims. He regularly contributed articles for publication and gave lectures to Parents' Union chapters and at conferences.)

How do we make ourselves do the things we know we ought, but we do not wish to do? 
Are we starting with the right idea?
Are we making any real effort?
 Are those efforts the right actions?
Look again, try again, and pay attention to your progress.

Paul struggled with the same question, so I am not sure we need to wallow overmuch in the luxury of guilt on the question.  HOwever, the knowledge that others better than we have tried and failed doesn't mean it isn't worthwhile to try.   The one who makes an attempt at the long jump and fails still goes further than the one who sits down and cries about how hard it all is.

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Don't miss these!

Charlotte Mason helps:

   $3.00 Five Little Peppers and How They Grew Copywork (grades 2/3)

  $3.00 Aesop's Fables Copywork for Year One!

 New! $5.00- Education for All, a new CM journal, Buy Now!  and Feed Your Mind!  This issue contains several articles on nature study and science.

Table of Contents (numbers are page #s) 1. Cover (even our cover has living ideas! 2. Each Helps All (the proper spirit for C.M. Educators, found in a previously unplublished L'Umile Pianta) 3. lack of handcrafting experience hurting medical students 4. Our Children's Play- a PR article 7. Team Sports vs Free Play ~ Charlotte Mason 8. Raising Children with Grit, a PR article 12. Sample Cooking Lesson from a House of Education student 13. Imagination in Childhood, a newly republished PR article, available in easily readable format for the first time in a hundred years 17. Two Christmas Crafts 18. Three Quick Takes: Sensory Play, 'Things of Education,' Character Training in Home Life 19. The Principles Behind Handiwork, excerpted from a PR article 20. A Philosophy of Handicrafts, 21. Craft: Candle Decorating 22. The Value of 'I Don't Know' in Nature Study, Comstock 23. Sloyd, Training for Life, from an 1890 Teacher's Guild Presentation 24. Benefits of Nature Study, 25. Why Children Need Outside Play 27. Craft: Pre-basket weaving (make a frame) 28. Why We Draw, from a PR article by W. G. Collingwood, 28. Fish & Flowers in a Homeschool Room, from a PR article 29. Rainy Afternoon Activities, PR article 30. In Conclusion (application of a fantastic passage from vol. 6) Helpful and inspiring quotes sprinkled on every page