On Time -- an Unhurried Education

by Melanie Walker-Malone 

 

A friend of mine once gave a talk about time, and it literally left me spellbound. I had this awakening, this epiphany, this sudden spark of an idea that maybe I wasn't living as I ought, that maybe I was racing through life at breakneck speed for no reason at all -- and thinking there were all these reasons. What if she was right and I was doing life all wrong? Ouch! 

I asked my friend if she would mind me reposting a blog entry she wrote a few years ago on the same subject, and she said yes! So here it is. Enjoy! --Megan

On Time -- An Unhurried Education

The idea of time and the way it shapes my teaching and learning has been rolling around in my head for quite a while now. Aware of an internal rushing that I was always managing, I have longed to silence it. This sinister voice, ‘get going, seize the moment, multi-task’ seemed cloaked as a virtue, but somewhere deep down I could hear, though the signal was weak, that it was really a vice.

We live in two time zones. We’re all familiar with Greenwich Mean Time and it’s ticking clocks, blinking digital numerals, various chronometers and alarms. But there is also what older voices might have dubbed “real time.”

There are four clocks or timekeepers that mark real time:

The body’s clock that measures when I am hungry or satisfied, weary or energized, sad, lonely, or content.

The day’s clock which is marked by the movement of the sun and moon, from sunset to sunrise, to noon. The waxing and waning of the day.

The season’s clock with spring, summer, autumn and winter.

The church’s clock which measures time with the liturgical calendar. While it is a way to pay attention to movements in the soul, it does so by paying attention to the other clocks, especially the rhythm of a day (vespers, compline, matins, dawn…), and of the seasons (advent, epiphany, lent, easter…).

Our view of time flows into the other postures we hope to cultivate. By adding attention to our senses we find that we are now gazing, scenting, savoring, listening and stroking…not just seeing, smelling, tasting, hearing and touching. Mindful presence adds so much more. No attending can be done in a hurry.
 

An Unhurried Education

From the inception of our school eight years ago, I have been haunted by an idea I heard from Chip Denton of Trinity School, of an “unhurried education.” What an intriguing thought! Not knowing why, but in the true spirit of our impulsive response to being seized by an idea, we rushed out to put this quote under all of our clocks:

“He who is in a hurry delays the work of God.” (St. Vincent)

I think that each teacher knew it was an indictment rather than a description. There was something compelling about this thought and now, a few years in, we keep seeing ways that the mystery of this truth holds water and shapes our community of learners.

In paying more attention to GMT than to our other real time clocks, we have perhaps read the Scriptures' words about time in a false way. Solomon had no watch on when he said that there is a time for every purpose under heaven. We feel that time is running from us, slipping away, and therefore read words like “redeem the time” and “teach us to number our days,” as a call to hurry up. We buy more elaborate calendars with bible verses on them while ignoring baby’s cries on our “Ezzo-esque” hyper-schedules. “Redeem the time” has come to mean “fill in every second of the day or you will miss opportunities,” often losing the gifts of the moment by either regretting how we missed the last one or dreading the oncoming one.

The idea of real time calls us to pay attention to each part of the day or year as it comes…in its own sweet time.

Slow Movements

Two organizations, awake to the frenzied, chaotic pace of current living, have added mindfulness to the areas of food production and travel. Carl Honore,’ an Italian, conceived the idea of the Slow Food Movement one day while he was walking by the Spanish Steps in Rome, and saw the construction of a McDonalds across the street. (Frank and Pardis Stitt in my own community are part of this movement). Listen to some of their comments:

“Slow is not about doing everything at a snail’s pace; it’s about working, playing and living better by doing everything at the right speed.” (I can cook eggs in the microwave, but have you ever eaten them that way?)

“The Slow Food Movement was an organization that was founded to counteract fast food and fast life, the disappearance of local food traditions and people’s dwindling interests in the food they eat, where it comes from, how it tastes, and how our food choices affect the rest of the world.”

The Slow Travel Movement pays attention to the journey, not just the destination.

Antidotes for a Hurried Education: Waiting

Not long after the school year began, I remember sitting with a child, aware that the math concept was not attaching. I felt the inner angst, but knew that the habit needed in this scenario was not math propensity in the child, but an ability to wait in me.

Unhurried. Waiting. An ability to be inactive while expecting something.

The natural world waits with such grace. The quiet cocoon, the simple bud, the tiny seed…all beautiful in their silent, fallow forms. Each embody Job’s words, “waiting for my change to come.”

Jan Comenius was a Moravian Bishop who lived in an age of violence and exile. Born in what is now the Czech Republic in 1592, his own schooling was rigid, full of rote learning and harsh discipline. Writing about education and teaching filled his days. Themes including ‘a liberal education for all,’ an emphasis on atmosphere, the need for personal motivation in learning and direct experience were his directives. He wrote that Nature spoke to education in these ways:

1. Nature observes a suitable time.

2. Nature prepares the material, before she begins to give it form.

3. Nature chooses a fit subject to act upon, or first submits one to a suitable treatment in order to make it fit.

4. Nature is not confused in its operations, but in its forward progress advances distinctly from one point to another.

5. In all the operations of nature, development is from within.

6. Nature, in its formative processes, begins with the universal and ends with the particular.

7. Nature makes no leaps, but proceeds step by step.

8. If nature commences anything, it does not leave off until the operation is completed.

9. Nature carefully avoids obstacles and things likely to cause hurt.[3]

One can only imagine how deeply Charlotte Mason was informed by Comenius. He was a champion of cultivating the inner landscape, and although he lived with many sufferings and deprivations in his lifetime, he was a man of expanded spirit and a gentle, compelling person. It was Comenius who said to “start with local, then branch out,” themes found in these slow, time-conscious movements.

Proportion and Rhythm

A richer view of time will help us live more proportionally -- to work, live, and play at the “right speed.” Charlotte Mason said, “we allow no separation to grow up between the intellectual and the spiritual life of children, but teach them that the Divine Spirit has constant access to their spirits, and is their Continual Helper in all the interests, duties and joys of life.” This idea allows us to see the value of every dimension of life and pay attention to each. We can become full participants in life, instead of amputating sections of our being to make up more time.

The Rule of St. Benedict survives to this day primarily because its adherents find a view of life there that helps them live in proper proportion. Prayer, community, work, rest, food are all attended to in a rhythm that attends to each without neglecting the others. He was able to keep the dialectic between silence and community, leisure and work, being and doing, resting and waking, listening and responding. A large part of that was knowing that each has its due season, but also that each must be set aside to attend to others' arenas. There is a time to take my work up, but there is also a time to set it down. “That’s enough for today.”

Presence

Hospitality, Openness, Lack of self consciousness

The ultimate hope is not so much seizing the day or enjoying the moment, as being present in the day and in the moment. This is the way to hospitality -- to becoming open to others (people and ideas). This rhythm fosters the ability to say of any interruption, any suffering, “who knows what God has brought me in this child, this event, this thought, this moment?” and to then give it my full attention.

The work of giving time to each person, idea or moment yields the fruit of increasing humility, a lack of self-consciousness, which Charlotte Mason says is the distinct “goal” of a life of abundance. How freeing to be so present to you that I forget myself? Then you are not burdened by pride and fear, and neither am I.

Listen to Jean Louis Servan-Schreiber in The Art of Time: 
 

“It is in our early years that we are most profoundly, naturally and intimately involved with time. Never again will we be as open as the child for whom everything is new and who can dream, and be surprised and forget everything else to benefit from the moment. Without the burden of a past, without a care for the future, we live our childhood happily in the present, before our memories and our projects gnaw it down from both ends. The fundamental experience of the present, of the fullness of the moment, the intensity of feeling (joy/pain, pleasure/suffering) here and now is not that difficult to acquire since it is within the reach of every child. What is harder is to not forget it.” 

He is simply talking about recapturing what was once natural to us, a child-like view of the world. So…

In thinking about life ( i.e. education), perhaps I might pay more attention to time. The life of the soul and the life of community are deeply connected to waiting and to a steady, restful, yet attentive pace. My lesson plan says that we should be at a certain point, but what are all these young faces telling me? Why am I still working when the sun has gone down hours ago? Was it back in the fall when I last had coffee with my colleague? What do I learn from the long, bright days of summer and the shorter, darker days of winter? Does this season of the year call me to pay attention to ideas that I have neglected? What is my eight year old saying about my calendar, especially now that it has merged with my cell phone? Shall we take time this week to think about time?

Here is one final thought from Pierre Teillhard de Chardin:

“Above all, trust in the slow work of God. We are all, quite naturally, impatient in everything to reach the end without delay. We should like to skip the intermediate stages. We are impatient of being on the way to something unknown, something new, and yet it is the law of all progress that is made by passing through some stages of instability – and that it may take a very long time.

And so I think it is with you. Your ideas mature gradually – let them grow, let them shape themselves, without undue haste. Don’t try to force them on, as though you could be today what time (that is to say, grace and circumstances acting on your own good will) will make you tomorrow.

Only God could say what this new spirit gradually forming within you will be. Give our Lord the benefit of believing that his hand is leading you and accept the anxiety of feeling yourself in suspense and incomplete.”

So, tell me dear comrade, what thoughts do you have about all of this? 
 

A Catcher in the Rye: Musings on the Formation of Character

by Megan Hoyt

"We throw them back upon their own endeavours; convict them of naughtiness, but do not convince them of goodness; make them uneasy and unhappy, so that they wince under our touch; and fail to open to them free paths to goodness and knowledge." Charlotte Mason

The Penitent Magdalen by Guido Reni

This week, I've been thinking a lot about how to help my children along toward solid character and toward an adoration for the Lord and for all things holy and pure. It's a daunting task at times -- and other times sheer bliss as I watch their tender hearts swell with joy at the goodness of God and His love for them and for all creation, really. Those are the beautiful bits. But the road is winding and long and it's so often an uphill climb. Sometimes we slip and slide down a ways and have to apply ourselves afresh to the rocky trail with renewed vigor and determination. Other times, I sit down and cry and want to give up. I feel like I'm still a child myself, constantly being molded into His image. How can I take my children's sacred souls in my war-worn hands and bring them to a place of strong character when I'm such a mess, too? Let's see what Miss Mason had to say about this, keeping in mind that we can find answers throughout the Bible, too. And so can our children!

A Disciplined Will necessary to Heroic Christian Character.––Once again, though a disciplined will is not a necessary condition of the Christian life, it is necessary to the development of the heroic Christian character. A Gordon, a Havelock, a Florence Nightingale, a St. Paul, could not be other than a person of vigorous will. In this respect, as in all others, Christianity reaches the feeblest souls. There is a wonderful Guido 'Magdalen' in the Louvre, with a mouth which has plainly never been set to any resolve for good or ill––a lower face moulded by the helpless following of the inclination of the moment; but you look up to the eyes, which are raised to meet the gaze of eyes not shown in the picture, and the countenance is transfigured, the whole face is aglow with a passion of service, love, and self-surrender. All this the divine grace may accomplish in weak unwilling souls, and then they will do what they can; but their power of service is limited by their past. Not so the child of the Christian mother, whose highest desire is to train him for the Christian life. When he wakes to the consciousness of whose he is and whom he serves, she would have him ready for that high service, with every faculty in training––a man of war from his youth; above all, with an effective will, to will and to do of His good pleasure." (Volume 1, p. 323) 

Whose he is and Whom he serves... Now I'm beginning to understand. 

 

I pulled out all the "classics" on my bookshelves the other day to see which ones I had read and which to put in my future reading pile -- which is really a messy, overflowing stack on my nightstand that slouches precariously toward me with foreboding as I tumble into bed, too tired to read. Some I smiled knowingly at -- Pride & Prejudice, Sister Carrie (if you haven't read Theodore Dreiser, you should) and all the Mennyms books. Okay, those aren't classics, but they bring back such fond memories of reading around the table with my children that they make me smile!

Then I saw Catcher in the Rye.

I had never read this book. I like Salinger's writing style, though, so I picked up Catcher in the Rye and began reading. That's when I met Holden Caulfield. Holden seemed edgy to me. He had a chip on his shoulder. As an author, I picked apart the first few chapters mercilessly. Salinger was too slow to move the plot forward, I thought. He overused the word(s) god da** for effect instead of showing us Holden's personality in other ways. I thought it was just another stupid, angsty book that only got attention because it was one of the FIRST stupid, angsty books of our era. (okay, MY era. I'm old!)

Then I got to about chapter five and found out this kid's little brother had died of Leukemia. Holden had slept in the garage the night his brother died. He had punched out all the garage windows and tried to punch out the windows of the station wagon, too. His hand was permanently damaged. He could no longer make a fist. He cherished his brother's  left-handed baseball glove and took it with him to boarding school.

Now I understood Holden Caulfield.

And it occurred to me that we all have stories. Some aren't as dramatic and terrible as Holden's, but some are even worse -- abusive fathers, molestation by priests or coaches, homelessness. I have to admit that I have judged people I've known based on their behavior toward me. If it was admirable, I judged them to be high quality people. If they were edgy or temperamental, I judged them to be low quality people. That is how I have maneuvered through life, how I've avoided being harmed by a world in turmoil, spinning through its orbit as if everything is predictable and calm while really lives are spinning out of control and often no one even knows. Or cares.

I am getting to how this relates to Charlotte Mason, but stay with me. So here I was, taken by this poor, helpless, hurting boy, and I suddenly had this epiphany about the entire human race. We're flawed! We're marred by life! And guess what? I'm a Holden Caulfield, too. Ouch. That realization wasn't pleasant. Have I ever harmed anyone, spoken from that wounded place within MY soul? Of course I have! I can think of two examples right now where I flipped out when someone mistreated a friend. And because of my woundedness and my introverted personality, I didn't lash out at the perpetrator or encourage that person to go make things right, which might have led to a change of heart. I went straight to my wounded friend to comfort her and then hashed it all out with several other friends until I "processed it" and moved on. That's called gossip. Yeah. Not great. I didn't tell the whole world, but then you don't have to. If you talk about something with one or two people and they tell two friends and so on and so on and so on (like that old shampoo commercial) that's all it takes to ruin someone's reputation. Don't get me wrong. I generally DON'T gossip, because the Holy Spirit Who resides in me usually quickens my heart (literally -- my heart starts racing) and I can't do it.

But then I began thinking about the person who hurt my friend. What was her story? What was her childhood like? Should I have gone to her and shared my story, told her how the grace of God wooed me to salvation ever so gently, moment by precious moment, while I was still lost in my sin? She had an abrasive, outspoken personality. I'm sort of afraid of people like that. But I could have tried to talk to her anyway. In the end, I lost her friendship completely. She was wrong to hurt my friend. Very wrong. But I had mishandled the situation and caused a rift in our tentative friendship. And no good came of the situation. It became unredeemable. I was Holden Caulfield. And so was she. And the conflict left no survivors. 

And -- lucky me -- my children got to watch me walk through that situation. Ouch. Remembering that children learn from us often by example, I cringe at the thought that I wasn't doing the best job at emulating proper behavior. I'm a work in progress.

So how DO you properly handle relationships in this fast-paced, in your face, cruel world of ours? And how do we teach our children to handle relational conflict? We are all so terribly fragile -- those of us who shudder upon reproach and those of us who lash out.

This morning, my son was watching tv with us and an anti-bullying commercial came on. The announcer asked, "What would you do?" when a boy was being teased on a school bus. Our son promptly retorted, "You pound them with your fists, and they'll learn really fast not to mess with you."

Hmmmmm. Not quite the answer I was hoping for. 

Here's what Charlotte Mason had to say about the formation of character in our children. Yes, the task falls mostly into the mother's lap, but there's more to it than mere habit training or reading great books about men and women of heroic character or even telling them Who they serve and showing them His goodness toward His beloved children.

"My peace I leave unto you" conveys a legacy to children as well as to their elders. They appropriate this peace while they are quite young, and live in gladness and at ease; but we disturb them too soon. We throw them back upon their own endeavours; convict them of naughtiness, but do not convince them of goodness; make them uneasy and unhappy, so that they wince under our touch; and fail to open to them free paths to goodness and knowledge.

That children should have the peace of God as a necessary condition of growth is a practical question. If we believe it is their right, not to be acquired by merit nor lost by demerit, we shall take less upon ourselves, and understand that it is not we who pasture the young souls. The managing mother, who interferes with every hour and every occupation of her child's life, all because it is her duty, would tend to disappear. She would see, with some amusement, why it is that the rather lazy, self-indulgent mother is often blessed with very good children. She, too, will let her children be, not because she is lazy, but being dutiful, she sees that––give children opportunity and elbow-room, and they are likely to become natural persons, neither cranks nor prigs. And here is a hope for society; children so brought up are hardly likely to become managing persons in their turn, inclined to intrude upon the lives of others, and be rather intolerable in whatever relation.

No doubt children are deeply grateful to managing parents, and we are all lazy enough to be thankful to persons who undertake our lives for us; but these well-meaning persons encroach; we are required to act for ourselves, think for ourselves, and let other persons do the same.

It is our puritan way to take too much upon us for ourselves and others: we must 'acquire merit' and they must acquire merit; and the feeding in quiet pastures, the being led beside still waters, we take to be the reward of peculiar merit, and do not see that it is a natural state and condition, proper to everyone who will claim it. lf we saw this, we should be less obtrusive in our dealings with children; we should study to be quiet, only seeing to it that our inactivity is masterly." (Formation of Character, p. 417)

I don't think Miss Mason is advocating non-action but rather telling us to celebrate with them the joy of their salvation and rejoice over them when they make right choices rather than constantly fussing over every tiny infraction and staying ever near to catch them misbehaving. Not that we shouldn't always be ready to teach and lead by example. My mother used to sing this little song to me whenever I became discouraged: 

Accentuate the positive; 

Eliminate the negative; 

Latch onto the affirmative, and

Don't mess with Mr. In Between. 

(lyrics courtesy of Johnny Mercer)

 

She was trying to jolly me out of a pensive mood, and it generally worked -- although I have always tended toward the melancholy by nature. Why does that little song come to me now, at age 49, whenever something is troubling me? I have no idea! It's these little things that we do as mothers (and teachers) that remain inside our children's hearts for years to come. And we never know which little thing it will be that sticks with them.

I believe in being supportive and leading by example. Encouragement goes a long way toward enabling children to succeed in life. It gives them confidence. Now what do I say to my teenager who thinks the answer to bullying is to beat up the bully? I'm open to suggestions!

Accentuate the Positive

You've got to accentuate the positive
eliminate the negative
Latch on to the affirmative
But don't mess with mister in between

You've got to spread joy up to the maximum
Bring gloom down to the minimum
have faith, or pandemonium's
liable to walk up on the scene

To illustrate my last remark
Jonah in the Whale, Noah in the ark
What did they do
just when everything looked so dark?

They said we better
accentuate the positive
eliminate the negative
latch on to the affirmative
But don't mess with mister in between.

ADDENDUM:

(from The Parents' Review, volume 4, "The Teaching of the Educated Mother")
 

What do we mean by manners? The word comes from manus, “a hand,” and may technically be said to refer to the way in which a thing is handled, and is therefore the way of performing or handling anything. We say everything depends upon how a thing is handled; almost anything can be done if it is handled rightly. What an idea of power does this not give in regard to manner, and what an important part the cultivation of manners plays in education, at home, at school, and in the world. There is a prevalent idea in England, not to be found, so far as I know, in other countries, that courteous manners may be an indication of insincerity. There is a certain class of minds upon which the best manners have this effect; they at once ask the question, “Is he or she sincere?”

When first coming in contact with this view of good manners, one is startled, and for a time carried captive by its special pleading for truth. It is asserted where no special interest in a person is felt, it is a violation of truth to greet such person, or in fact any stranger, with a smile of friendliness, or a genial, sympathetic appearance. But we must not forget, when attracted by this cold, truthful view of manners, to perceive there is a deeper principle lying below the fundamental one of Truth, and that is love. The effect of a cold, blunt manner is to produce a chilling effect on those who are acted upon, whereas the loving or genial manner creates in the recipient a feeling of pleasure akin to love, and must be really the more truthful of the two, for God is love, and has made the foundations of His universe to rest on love and truth. Kant advocates this greeting of others as though we loved them and argues its advantages are great, because it calls forth love on both sides. The difference in the children in one family in regard to manners is often marked. We say, “This child has naturally good manners, and that has no manners.”

Practically, is it not almost always the good-tempered, happy-dispositioned child who shows early in life the right mode of handling people and things, and is it not the more honest, straightforward child who gives us most trouble in the handling of people and things? The educated mother must therefore make love the ground of her instructions and example, and while she fixes the courteous child’s mode of action on this attribute of God Himself, she will be especially careful to train the uncourteous child in this simple idea of love and its eternal union with truth. What “God has joined together let not man put asunder.” …  

The educated mother must influence quietly in this matter by her own manners, and the way in which she exemplifies the principles of love and truth. Hard and unnecessary judgments of others in the presence of children are an offence to good taste and manners, and very injurious, as tending to encourage the uselessly critical spirit.

Realizing that the children of today will rapidly develop into individuals keen to learn and be taught, she will always be alive to the necessity of cultivating her own mind, and the work of self-education and improvement will go on for her while life lasts. …

Beyond this the educated mother will seek to prepare her sons and daughters for that trying period in their lives when, emerging from childhood, they stand on the threshold of woman and manhood, oppressed often by new, bewildering thoughts, and open to guidance in a peculiarly sensitive and receptive manner. …

In conclusion, the influence and teaching of the educated mother is all for righteousness; and the formation in her children of character, based on self-control and self-sacrifice, the daily object of her life.

The CM Blog Carnival -- A Deliciously Delightful Journey

by Megan Hoyt

This is my first time hosting the Charlotte Mason Blog Carnival, and I do feel like a child skipping through the crowds on the Midway back at the Texas State Fair, munching on fluffy clouds of cotton candy that melt into sweet nothingness on my tongue, skimming skeeballs up the chute, and winning a turquoise blue stuffed poodle. More on the poodle below, but for now... 

Let the Carnival begin!

The topic this week is The Way of Reason. Gulp. Lest we think more highly of our reasoning capabilities than we ought to, I assure you Miss Mason's point here wasn't that we can reason our way through life but rather to warn us that we probably shouldn't. That said, Shirley gives us a great reason to use reason in Developing Reason to Defend the Faith.

Thank you, thank you, thank you, Nebby, for this explanation of The Way of Reason. I am learning so much from you -- I also loved your article on Composition. I, too, used Progymnasmata through the Fable and Narrative stage and then went back to narration. 

Dewey does it again -- Dewey's Treehouse, that is, in The Way of Reason in Fellowship of the Ring, a beautiful analysis and portrayal of what goes wrong when faulty reasoning takes over. Or tries to. Stay strong, Frodo! 

Tammy blew me away with this examination of the pitfalls of reason in science. I did not know all this. Wow. 

Marguerite Henry

Nancy Kelly takes us to the Grand Canyon this week -- along with Marguerite Henry's Brighty!

Take a look at First Steps to Reading from a Charlotte Mason perspective with Bobby Jo Nickel. I love this content and photo rich article. You have a beautiful blog, Bobby Jo.

Loved Amy's look at nature study. I always enjoy hearing how she lives out the CM life in Peru. I don't get to travel much, so I live vicariously through Amy. :) But I think I love this post even more. Thanks for such a personal glimpse at the way of the will. I'm going to have my 16-year-old math dawdler read it.

Brandy gives us an awesome analysis of Endangered Minds and a side by side comparison with the Series in her blog post this week: Jane Healy and Charlotte Mason. 

I just spent way too long drooling over all the books Carol shared on poetry here. Wow! Thanks so much for posting all these. It's so fun to get recommendations for books from and about other countries -- loved hearing about Australia's poems.

Celeste takes us on a gorgeous nature study outing this week at Joyous Lessons. I love the duck in your nature notebook, Celeste! 

And what a fantastic lead-in to Jen's Snowfall Academy blog post sharing pics from her daughter's nature notebook. You can watch the progression from 2010 to today. How wonderful! Jen also gives us a meaty analysis of Miss Mason's second principle in a separate blog post. 

One of my absolute favorite Charlotte Mason blogs is more of an online Commonplace book. The reason I treasure Laurie's blog so much is that she finds things I haven't yet discovered -- beautiful things -- and then I get to put them in my Commonplace notebook, too. Thanks, Laurie!

Personal plug here for the music of Gungor and their incredible song Beautiful Things. Click on it and you can listen while you read the other blog entries. I really love Gungor. 

This one wasn't sent in as part of the carnival, but when I read it I gasped. Here's a look at the sterner side of nature! Apologies if this was already posted in a previous carnival. I don't remember seeing it back in March. Jen G., you should be a documentary filmmaker! Also, check out Jen's other posts. Looks like she's having a regional CM conference in her neck of the woods soon. 

My latest blog post has little to do with reason. Or beauty. In fact, after reading it, you'll find it has more to do with nonsense than sense. And a wee bit to do with the assimilation of knowledge and narration. Take a peek! 

Now about that poodle... When I was very young, say around four or five years old, I used to go to work with my parents rather than stay home with a babysitter or an older sibling. My parents were symphony musicians in Dallas, Texas, and they worked at Fair Park Music Hall back then. When they were rehearsing during the state fair, I was always itching to get off that stool backstage, to stop listening to the beautiful orchestral music and head out to the Midway! But alas, I was only four years old. I wasn't allowed to melt into the crowd alone like that. And rightly so. I must have looked pretty dejected to everyone around me when I was told it wasn't possible for me to go to the fair. So imagine my excitement when one of the stage hands came back from his lunch break with a surprise for me -- a fluffy, stuffed poodle! I treasured that poodle. I slept with it and played with it until it fell to shreds. What a sweet man. He didn't have to do that for me, but he saw a bored little girl wandering the halls or sitting quietly in the wings for two hours and had pity on me. To the kind stagehand who won me a poodle, you showed me that people can be kindhearted and good. What a great example to a self-focused child. 

As we wind our way through life with starts and stops and moments of supreme faith, often superceded by seasons of pride in our own abilities to reason, I so appreciate the work of all of you wonderful, amazing teachers and bloggers.

Thanks for stopping by and a huge thank you to all our contributors this time around. It's so nice to know I'm not alone on this winding ascent.

Megan

This Memorial Day blog carnival is dedicated to the memory of my mother's dear friend and fellow Dallas Symphony musician, Mimi McShane.  
RIP, Mimi! Thank you for being such a caring, devoted cello teacher, a loyal friend to the end, and a wonderful human being!

Feeding the Mind -- a treatise on education by the esteemed _____________?

by Megan Hoyt

This week I have a real treat for you! I'm going to post a large excerpt or two from a pamphlet on education that was written by someone you have all heard of -- and you get to guess who wrote it. (No cheating from those who already heard me read this aloud several months ago!)

There are some gems of truth in this witty piece that prove we are on the right track with narration. And it's really so very simple. I promise!

Like learning to ride a bicycle, once you get the hang of it, you never forget how to read and remember. Thank goodness.

 Without further ado, here's the treatise:

"Breakfast, dinner, tea; in extreme cases, breakfast, luncheon, dinner, tea, super, and a glass of something hot at bedtime. What care we take about feeding the lucky body! Which of us does as much for his mind? And what causes the difference? Is the body so much the more important of the two?

By no means: but life depends on the body being fed, whereas we can continue to exist as animals (scarcely as men) though the mind be utterly starved and neglected. Therefore Nature provides that, in case of serious neglect of the body, such terrible consequences of discomfort and pain shall ensue, as will soon bring us back to a sense of our duty: and some of the functions necessary to life she does for us altogether, leaving us no choice in the matter. It would fare but ill with many of us if we were left to superintend our own digestion and circulation. 'Bless me!' one would cry, 'I forgot to wind up my heart this morning! To think that it has been standing still for the last three hours!' 'I can't walk with you this afternoon,' a friend would say, 'as I have no less than eleven dinners to digest. I had to let them stand over from last week, being so busy, and my doctor says he will not answer for the consequences if I wait any longer!'

Well, it is, I say, for us that the consequences of neglecting the body can be clearly seen and felt; and it might be well for some if the mind were equaly visible and tangible -- if we could take it, say, to the doctor, and have its pulse felt.

'Why, what have you been doing with this mind lately? How have you fed it? It looks pale, and the pulse if very slow.'

'Well, doctor, it has not had much regular food lately. I gave it a lot of sugar-plums yesterday.'

'Sugar-plums! What kind?'

'Well, they were a parcel of conundrums, sir.'

'Ah, I thought so. Now just mind this: if you go on playing tricks like that, you'll spoil all its teeth, and get laid up with mental indigestion. You must have nothing but the plainest reading for the next few days. Take care now! No novels on any account!'

Considering the amount of painful experience many of us have had in feeding and dosing the body, it would, I think, be quite worth our while to try and translate some of the rules into corresponding ones for the mind.

First, then, we should set ourselves to provide for our mind its proper kind of food. We very soon learn what will, and what will not, agree with the body, and find little difficulty in refusing a piece of the tempting pudding or pie which is associated in our memroy with that terrible attack of indigestion, and whose very name irresistibly recalls rhubarb and magnesia; but it takes a great many lessons to convince us how indigestible some of our favourite lines of reading are, and again and again we make a meal of the unwholesome novel, sure to be followed by its usual train of low spirits, unwillingness to work, weariness of existence -- in fact, by mental nightmare.

 Then we should be careful to provide this wholesome food in proper amount. Mental gluttony, or over-reading, is a dangerous propensity, tending to weakness of digestive power, and in some cases to loss of appetite: we know that break is a good and wholesome food, but who would like to try the experiment of eating two or three loaves at a sitting?

I have heard a physician telling his patient -- whose complaint was merely gluttony and want of exercise -- that 'the earliest symptom of hyper-nutrition is a deposition of adipose tissue,' and no doubt the fine long words greatly consoled the poor man under his increasing load of fat.

I wonder if there is such a thing in nature as a FAT MIND? I really think I have met with one or two: minds which could not keep up with the slowest trot in conversation; could not jump over a logical fence, to save their lives; always got stuck fast in a narrow argument; and, in short, were fit for nothing but to waddle helplessly through the world.

Then, again, though the food be wholesome and in proper amount, we know that we must not consume too many kinds at once. Take the thirsty a quart of beer, or a quart of cider, or even a quart of cold tea, and he will probably thank you (though not so heartily in the last case!). But what think you his feelings would be if you offered him a tray containing a little mug of beer, a little mug of cider, another of cold tea, one of hot tea, one of coffee, one of cocoa, and corresponding vessels of milk, water, brandy-and-water, and buttermilk? The sum total might be a quart, but would it be the same thing to the haymaker?

Having settled the proper kind, amout, and variety of our mental food, it remains that we should be careful to allow proper intervals between meal and meal, and not swallow the food hastily without mastication, so that it may be thoroughly digested; both which rules, for the body, are also applicable at once to the mind.

First, as to the intervals: these are as really necessary as they are for the body, with this difference only, that while the body requires three or four hours' rest before it is ready for another meal, the mind will in many cases do with three or four minutes. I believe that the interval required is much shorter than is generally supposed, and from personal experience, I would recommend anyone, who has to devote several hours together to one subject of thought, to try the effect of such a break, say once an hour, leaving off for five minutes only each time, but taking care to throw the mind absolutely 'out of gear' for those five minutes, and to turn it entirely to other subjects. It is astonishing what an amount of impetus and elasticity the mind recovers during those short periods of rest.

And then, as to the mastication of the food, the mental process answering to this is simply thinking over what we read. This is a very much greater exertion of mind than the mere passive taking in the contents of our author. So much greater an exertion is it, that, as Coleridge says, the mind often 'angrily refuses' to put itself to such trouble -- so much greater, that we are far too apt to neglect it altogether, and go on pouring in fresh food on the top of the undigested masses already lying there, till the unfortunate mind is fairly swamped under the flood. But the greater the exertion the more valuable, we may be sure, is the effect. One hour of steady thinking over a subject (a solitary walk is as good an opportunity for the process as any other) is worth two or three of reading only. And just consider another effect of this thorough digestion of the books we read; I mean the arranging and 'ticketing,' so to speak, of the subjects in our minds, so that we can readily refer to them when we want them. Sam Slick tells us that he has learnt several languages in his life, but somehow 'couldn't keep the parcels sorted' in his mind. And many a mind that hurries through book after book, without waiting to digest or arrange anything, gets into that sort of condition, and the unfortunate owner finds himself far from fit really to support the character all his friends give him.

'A thoroughly well-read man. Just you try him in any subject, now. You can't puzzle him.'

You turn to the thoroughly well-read man. You ask him a question, say, in English History (he is understood to have just finished reading Macaulay). He smiles good-naturedly, tries to look as if he knew all about it, and proceeds to dive into his mind for the answer. Up comes a handful of very promising facts, but on examination they turn out to belong to the wrong century, and are pitched in again. A second haul brings up a fact much more like the real thing, but, unfortunately, along with it comes a tangle of other things -- a fact in political economy, a rule in arithmetic, the ages of his brother's children, and a stanza of Gray's 'Elegy,' and among all these, the fact he wants has got hopelessly twisted up and entangled. Meanwhile, everyone is waiting for his reply, and, as the silence is getting more and more awkward, our well-read friend has to stammer out some half-answer at last, not nearly so clear or so satisfactory as an ordinary schoolboy would have given. And all this for want of making up his knowledge into proper bundles and ticketing them. ...

Mr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, in his very amusing book, The Professor at the Breakfast Table, gives the following rule for knowing whether a human being is young or old: 'The crucial experiment is this -- offer a bulky bun to the suspected individual just ten minutes before dinner. If this is easily accepted and devoured, the fact of youth is established.' He tells us that a human being, 'if young, will eat anything at any hour of the day or night.'

To ascertain the healthiness of the mental appetite of a human animal, place in its hands a short, well-written, but not exciting treatise on some popular subject -- a mental bun, in fact. If it is read with eager interest and perfect attention, and if the reader can answer questions on the subject afterwards, the mind is in first-rate working order. If it be politely laid down again, or perhaps lounged over for a few minutes, and then, 'I can't read this stupid book! Would you hand me the second volume of The Mysterious Murder?' you may be equally sure that there is something wrong in the mental digestion.

If this paper has given you any useful hints on the important subject of reading, and made you see that it is one's duty no less than one's interest to 'read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest' the good books that fall in your way, its purpose will be fulfilled."

George MacDonald and daughter (No, he didn't write it!)

Well, who do you think wrote this treatise on reading and mental digestion? Any ideas? Here are a few that may or may not have come to mind...

Charlotte Mason

Thomas Rooper

Henrietta Franklin

John Amos Comenius

Abbie Farwell Brown

Arabella Buckley

Margaret Gatty

Thomas Traherne

Elsie Kitching

But no, it wasn't any of these worthy contributors to the study of the mind.

Wordsworth, Keats, Shelley, Tennyson? No, it wasn't written by a poet.

The Liddell sisters

Stop here and keep thinking. If you want to scroll past the answer and leave your guess, you can do that. But here it comes. Just below this beautiful picture (and no, it isn't Henry Wadsworth Longfellow or James Fenimore Cooper, Fanny Crosby or Charles Dickens, Louisa May Alcott or Mark Twain).

Alice Liddell

Remember the champion of fantasy, the creator of wonderland, the maker of "eat me" and "drink me?" The shrinker of Alices and disappearer of chesire cats?

Yes! It was written by Lewis Carroll!

And he also took all these photographs. More of his work can be found here and here.