Charlotte Mason
Biography and Correspondence
Charlotte Maria Shaw Mason (Jan. 1, 1842-Jan. 16, 1923) was born in Wales as an only child and as such her parents educated her at home. She became a teacher and taught for ten years in Worthing, England at Davison School. Worthing is about ten miles from Brighton, which is referenced in her letter. She also taught at the Bishop Otter Teacher Training College to help train governesses and co-founded the Parents’ Educational Union (PEU), which was designed to help parents teach their children at home by providing resources. This later became the Parents’ National Educational Union (PNEU).
Charlotte wrote a popular series of geography textbooks called the Ambleside Series from 1880 to 1892, but she is more known for her development of new educational methods for teaching young children. She published Home Education in 1886, as well as Parents and Children (1896), School Education (1904), and Formation of Character (1905) all outlining her philosophy of education. She also wrote the book Ourselves (1904) which was written directly to the children themselves to help them develop strong morals and discipline. She was the first educator to see the educational value of scouting in 1905, using Baden-Powell’s book in her syllabus at the PEU. She also published The Saviour of the World (1904-1914), a six-volume account of the life of Jesus and what he taught, written in verse.
Mason’s teaching philosophy and method argued that children should be seen as people in their own right, and that education must focus on the whole person. Her chief motto was “Education is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life.” She saw that children absorbed much of their knowledge from their home environment, or atmosphere, so that the rules lived out by the parents became a third of the child’s education. By discipline, Mason meant the cultivation of good habits, especially in the child’s character, which made up a second third of the child’s education. The third part of a child’s education should be made up of living knowledge, not just dry facts. So she encouraged students to explore nature, the arts, and subjects that interested them. Learning was accomplished by giving things our fullest attention and best efforts in a quest for knowledge that was the reward in itself.
Mason’s final book was Towards a Philosophy of Education (1923), which revised and summed up her many years of thought and practice as an educator. It is often considered one of her best works and is still read by advocates of home schooling and educational theory.
House of Rest
Cambridge Gardens
Kilburn, N.W.
Feb. 11, 1886
My dear Mrs. Smith,
It was a great pleasure to me yesterday to meet you once more in England. Those glorious meetings in Brighton where I had met you have become glorious fruit in my experience and work, and in that of hundreds if not thousands of others. The devil was never likely to let a moment like that pass unchallenged, and he had no difficulty in finding instruments for his work in timid half-hearted Christians.
But all that hubbub made no difference to me. The Lord revealed Himself to me at that time, although I had been a Christian and a worker for years, and the resolution continues “a living bright reality” to the present moment.
But I did not mean to write this when I took my pen- somehow it has got upon the page and so I shall not obliterate it.
I want to ask you whether you could come to us, D.C. on Friday March 5th. You will see by the enclosed paper that we have an all day meeting the first Friday in every month; in the afternoon we have some one to give a little account of the Lord’s work. Will you kindly come and tell the people about Woman’s Work in America? English women do so much need to be told the things you spoke of yesterday in the meeting in Seaton Hall.
Kindly let me know as soon as convenient, and believe me very truly yours in the love of Christ,
Charlotte Mason
