"Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."
What is your definition of true, honest, just? Isn't it lovely when children are learning discernment? Isn't it pure and good when they are learning "to know what is good and to perform the same?"
This doesn't really happen deeply and well when they are reading stories expressly written to teach this or that single virtue. Often, the opposite happens, and they learn to think and to be Pharisees, lacking in compassion for the fallen and the weak, but strong in the sense of their own personal good.
Charlotte Mason was often asked similar questions, and in volume VI, after explaining the use of Plutarch and Roman myths in citizenship readings, she sympathizes with the misgivings some have expressed,
"In giving children the knowledge of men and affairs which we class under 'Citizenship' we have to face the problem of good and evil. Many earnest-minded teachers will sympathise with one of their number who said,––
The Childe Harold poem referred to is by Lord Byron, who had a scandalous reputation (and still does).
She continues:
"Now Plutarch is like the Bible in this, that he does not label the actions of his people as good or bad but leaves the conscience and judgment of his readers to make that classification. What to avoid and how to avoid it, is knowledge as important to the citizen whether of the City of God or of his own immediate city, as to know what is good and how to perform the same. Children recognise with incipient weariness the doctored tale as soon as it is begun to be told, but the human story with its evil and its good never flags in interest."
For more, you want to look up volume 6, around pages 186/187
Elsewhere, in volume, she explains that children need the sorts of stories- she specifically mentions 'delicious fairy tales,' that fill their minds, squeezing out all thoughts of self.
A PR article about choosing literature for the young warns against goody-goody books, straight romance novels where there is no character development. There are several publishing companies and stories highly popular among homeschoolers which are exactly this sort of story, and regrettably, the use of these tales tends to narrow instead of expanding the sympathies, or to make children self-conscious or priggish, or the sort of child who is low on compassion, but strong on opinions about how much better he would be in those circumstances.
Ronald McNeill Volume 8, no. 9, 1897.
Charlotte Mason was often asked similar questions, and in volume VI, after explaining the use of Plutarch and Roman myths in citizenship readings, she sympathizes with the misgivings some have expressed,
"In giving children the knowledge of men and affairs which we class under 'Citizenship' we have to face the problem of good and evil. Many earnest-minded teachers will sympathise with one of their number who said,––
"Why give children the tale of Circe, in which there is such an offensive display of greediness, why not bring them up exclusively on heroic tales which offer them something to live up to? Time is short. Why not use it all in giving examples of good life and instruction in good manners?"
Again,––
"Why should they read any part of Childe Harold, and so become familiar with a poet whose works do not make for edification?" The Childe Harold poem referred to is by Lord Byron, who had a scandalous reputation (and still does).
She continues:
"Now Plutarch is like the Bible in this, that he does not label the actions of his people as good or bad but leaves the conscience and judgment of his readers to make that classification. What to avoid and how to avoid it, is knowledge as important to the citizen whether of the City of God or of his own immediate city, as to know what is good and how to perform the same. Children recognise with incipient weariness the doctored tale as soon as it is begun to be told, but the human story with its evil and its good never flags in interest."
For more, you want to look up volume 6, around pages 186/187
Elsewhere, in volume, she explains that children need the sorts of stories- she specifically mentions 'delicious fairy tales,' that fill their minds, squeezing out all thoughts of self.
A PR article about choosing literature for the young warns against goody-goody books, straight romance novels where there is no character development. There are several publishing companies and stories highly popular among homeschoolers which are exactly this sort of story, and regrettably, the use of these tales tends to narrow instead of expanding the sympathies, or to make children self-conscious or priggish, or the sort of child who is low on compassion, but strong on opinions about how much better he would be in those circumstances.
Ronald McNeill Volume 8, no. 9, 1897.
"Stories, again, of the Christmas holidays, of George and Lucy, of the amusements, foibles, and virtues of children in their own condition of life, leave nothing to the imagination. The children know all about everything so well that it never occurs to them to play at the situations in any one of these tales, or even to read it twice over. But let them have tales of the imagination, scenes laid in other lands and other times, heroic adventures, hairbreadth escapes, delicious fairy tales in which they are never roughly pulled up by the impossible––even where all is impossible, and they know it, and yet believe.
Imagination and Great Conceptions.––And this, not for the children's amusement merely: it is not impossible that posterity may write us down a generation blest with little imagination, and, by so far, the less capable of great conceptions and heroic
efforts, for it is only as we have it in us to let a person or a cause fill the whole stage of the mind, to the exclusion of self occupation, that we are capable of large hearted action on behalf of that person or cause. Our novelists say there is nothing left to imagine; and that, therefore, a realistic description of things as they are is all that is open to them. But imagination is nothing if not creative, unless it see, not only what is apparent, but what is conceivable, and what is poetically fit in given circumstances.
Imagination Grows.––Now imagination does not descend, full grown, to take possession of an empty house; like every other power of the mind, it is the merest germ of a power to begin with, and grows by what it gets; and childhood, the age of faith, is the time for its nourishing."
Give them open-ended stories that fill the imagination and force them to think about the story and to wonder why and how things happened that way and what it all means. Feed their imagination on things beyond their world.
Give them open-ended stories that fill the imagination and force them to think about the story and to wonder why and how things happened that way and what it all means. Feed their imagination on things beyond their world.
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