Understanding the child’s estate, or nature, is important in deciding upon a method of education. Mason (a member of the Anglican church) quotes Wordsworth’s Intimations of Immortality, and the Holy Scriptures, to establish a high spiritual estate for children.—‘Trailing clouds of glory do we come,’ and ‘Of such is the kingdom of heaven.’ There is a Gospel code of education, in fact, laid down by Christ himself in commands that we ‘offend not—despise not—hinder not, one of these little ones.’ These three laws together cover the whole educational field—what we must not do, but also what we must do for our children.
Favorite Quotes
“Thou, whose exterior semblance doth belie/ Thy soul’s immensity.” [Wordsworth, of a child]
“Here is the Divine estimate of the child’s estate. It is worth while for parents to ponder every utterance in the Gospels about the children, divesting themselves of the notion that these sayings belong, in the first place, to the grown-up people who have become as little children.”
Cross Reference
related passages from other educational volumes by Mason
Some Christians have been concerned by claims that Charlotte Mason believed children are born without sin. The following paragraph from Ourselves (a book on personal character development, written by Mason for her students) is commonly quoted to counter this claim. Mason acknowledges here that, along with a natural inclination for God, we have a natural aversion to him.
There is in human nature an aversion to God. Whether it be, according to the Article [IX of the Church of England], that ‘original sin which is the natural fault and corruption of the nature of every man that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam,’ or whether it is that jerk of the shoulder from the hand of authority which belongs to freewill, we need not stop to inquire. Anyway, there is in human nature, as well as a deep-seated craving for God, a natural and obstinate aversion to Him.
In fact, in one of the next sections we will read in Home Education, Mason warns that:—
....with the fatal taint of human nature upon him, [the child] is more ready to imitate a bad pattern than a good.
Charlotte Mason wrote a six-volume poetic account of Christ’s life, entitled The Saviour of the World. You can read here an extended passage about the child’s estate.
“Except ye be as the children,
Have ye in my courts no place:”
Lord, how meekly would we ponder
The glad secret of their grace!
Study Questions
1.What do the Gospel sayings about children indicate?
There is a sense in which adults must become as little children before they can enter the kingdom of heaven. There is that about a child which Jesus wished his followers to understand, respect, and emulate.
Mason was an Anglican, and believed that children, though born in the original sin that is bodily death, are born innocent of actual (personal) sins and therefore are born spiritually alive and in fellowship with God’s Spirit. (“Freely goes He out and in...”—C.M.) Read more about Mason’s beliefs under the heading “Personal Notes.”
2.What are the three commandments of the Gospel code of education?
‘Take heed that ye offend not—despise not—hinder not, one of these little ones.’ (See the eighteenth chapter of the Gospel of Matthew.)
Personal Notes
The following is not a summary of my own beliefs, but an attempt to elucidate Mason’s beliefs concerning the spiritual nature of children (as I understand them from her own writings and from the Anglican Articles). It is an issue that has been often confused in discussion, and I hope the following notes will clear some of that.
Though such a tiny section with only two study questions, this has a lot of deep material to consider. What is the child’s estate (position, condition)? Understanding Mason’s beliefs concerning the nature of the child is very important to understanding and evaluating her educational method; the first decides the second. For this reason, I spent quite a bit of time researching the Anglican position (Mason was Anglican) on the spiritual state of children. A main resource was Arthur C. Custance’s book Man in Adam and in Christ. He wrote that, “The Thirty-nine Articles of the Church of England take the position that man is to be judged not for having a sinful disposition but for having been content to allow it to express itself throughout his responsible life.” [emphasis mine] Here are important quotes from Custance’s book; to read more, see under the heading “Resources.”
“Although every man begins life as a mortal creature, spiritual death occurs only when one becomes accountable for his behavior. It is not [original] sin, but [actual, or personal] sins which break our communion with God.”
“[A]s the individual matures, it is in his nature to be inescapably predisposed to rebellion against God. It is no longer possible for man to render perfect obedience to the law of God. The innocence of childhood which ought to mature into virtue becomes, alas, guilt instead.”
That children are born innocent and spiritually alive, is, Mason believed, “the glad secret of their grace.” As an Anglican, Mason did accept that the sin nature (original sin) will inevitably produce actual sins (after the age of accountability, when a child can choose between right and wrong), and thus makes self-redemption impossible; and she also accepted that God has predestined a people for the forgiveness of those sins.
° ° ° ° ° °
I also took the time to read all of the poem quoted so extensively by Mason in this chapter. In his ode on Intimations of Immortality, Wordsworth emphasizes the child’s connection to divinity and his ability to see “the celestial light” in the world—a perception that dims with age. The ode was quite controversial in its time, because of its “notion of pre-existence” (not to be confused with re-incarnation) which Wordsworth himself believed “far too shadowy a notion to be recommended to faith.”
Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our Life’s Star,
Hath had elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar...
I don’t know Mason’s opinion on pre-existence, but I think her main point in quoting this passage was to establish (in subordination to the Bible) the idea that a child is a spiritual being of heavenly origin.
Here is a passage from the Ode that particularly struck me. These lines express the idea that an adult can never forget (though he may try) the celestial light he saw as a child.—”High instincts before which our mortal Nature/ Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised.”
....I raise
The song of thanks and praise
.... for those obstinate questionings
Of sense and outward things,
Fallings from us, vanishings;
Blank misgivings of a Creature
Moving about in worlds not realized,
High instincts before which our mortal Nature
Did tremble like a guilty thing surprised:
But for those first affections,
Those shadowy recollections,
Which, be they what they may,
Are yet the fountain-light of all our day,
Are yet a master-light of all our seeing;
Uphold us, cherish, and have powers to make
Our noisy years seem moments in the being
Of the eternal Silence: truths that wake,
To perish never:
Which neither listlessness, nor mad endeavor,
Nor Man nor Boy,
Nor all that is at enmity with joy,
Can utterly abolish or destroy!
Although the passages she quotes support Mason’s point, Wordsworth’s poem as a whole would not seem to agree with her entire theological view. Mason acknowledges the Biblical truth that an adult can, in the spiritual sense, become “as one for these little ones,” while Wordsworth seems to express that Man can never regain his spiritual innocence on earth. Because of Christ’s completed sacrifice, the regenerate are truly and immediately innocent before God.
Personal Application
•Do a study of the Scripture’s words on children.
Resources
IX. Of Original or Birth-Sin. Original sin standeth not in the following of Adam, (as the Pelagians do vainly talk;) but it is the fall and corruption of the Nature of every man, that naturally is engendered of the offspring of Adam; whereby man is very far gone from original righteousness, and is of his own nature inclined to evil, so that the flesh lusteth always contrary to the Spirit; and therefore in every person born into this world, it deserveth God’s wrath and damnation....
“The Compelling Logic of the Plan of Salvation: A Study of the Difference between ‘Sin’ and ‘Sins.’” from Man in Adam and in Christ. Arthur C. Custance. Also, this “Truth Sheet” prepared by Living Stones Bible Church. “Are babies born spiritually dead or alive?”
“Concerning Children as ‘Persons’: Liberty versus Various Forms of Tyranny.” Charlotte Mason.
“Educating the Children, by the Master.” Linda Johnson.
Education for the Kingdom. This blog by Anglican pastor Dr. Benjamin Bernier explores Mason’s Anglican philosophy of education, particularly as it applies to the spiritual nature of the child.
Ode. Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Childhood. William Wordsworth. Analysis and criticism.
The Saviour of the World. Charlotte M. Mason.
Read these articles in a dialogue about whether Mason’s high opinion of the child’s estate is in conflict with the Biblical doctrine of original sin.
Additional Resources
“Of Such is the Kingdom of Heaven” from A Book for Parents and Teachers on the Christian Training of Children. Charles Spurgeon. In this interpretation from a Reformed Baptist tradition, “Of such is the kingdom of heaven” is taken to mean the simplicity with which the gift of salvation may be accepted.
“Infant Salvation.” Center for Reformed Theology and Apologetics. This is a Calvinistic perspective of infant salvation in the context of predestination.
Other Home Education Commentaries
Becoming Three: Charlotte Mason Volume I Part I.II The Child’s Estate
House of Five: Charlotte Mason on the Child’s Estate
Sparrow Tree Square: Charlotte Mason Monday Part 8
Next Time...
In the next section, Charlotte Mason takes up the first commandment in the ‘Gospel code of education’—Offend Not.
COMMENT ON THIS POST BY SENDING AN EMAIL TO THE HANDMAIDEN.
MEGAN said...
Very interesting post! I had read Ode: Intimations of Immortality prior to reading this section of Mason’s work, and I was a bit surprised at how much she approved of the poem considering its role in the Victorian “cult of the child” ideology. Mason previously spoke about the “child worship to which we are all succumbing” in less than glowing terms (I believe it was in “Traditional Methods of Education”), but Wordsworth’s poem was key to inspiring this attitude about children. I linked to an article from Victorian Web in Part 6 of my blogging series addressing the role of the poem in the Victorian conception of children, if you’re interested.
It’s also interesting to see, as you point out, that not everything Wordsworth speaks of in the Ode agrees with Mason;s own spiritual beliefs, Did Mason identify with some passages in the poem so strongly that she was willing to overlook what she didn’t agree with, I wonder? It would have been interesting to see her address some of the larger themes of the poem in more detail.
Monday, March 12, 2012 10:23 PM
HANDMAIDEN said...
Thanks for directing me to the article “The Child as Innocent.” pairing that with the section “The Child as Sinful,” one gets a better idea of the extremes within which Mason worked. (She referenced this in the section you mentioned.) There were those in her time who believed children perfect, and others who taught an “enervating and unscriptural piety” to save the children from their sin.
(“The Child as Sinful” contained several examples from Victorian books written for children. They reminded me of this quote from Mason: “It is quite inadvisable to put twaddling ‘goody-goody’ story-books into the hands of the young people: a revulsion of taste will come, and then, the weakness of this sort of literature will be laid to the charge of religion.”)
I just came across an excellent resource for understanding Mason’s Anglican philosophy of education. This might interest you too. [http://www.educationforthekingdom.blogspot.com]
Thanks for your comment!
Tuesday, March 13, 2012 04:08 PM
HANDMAIDEN said...
Yesterday I read a paper by Mason (“Concerning Children as ‘Persons’”), and it appears she might actually have preferred (?) a poem by Thomas Traherne. Perhaps she chose Wordsworth’s Ode because it was better known?
Mason: “Wordsworth did not search an unexplored field when he discovered the child. Thomas Traherne, a much earlier poet, is, I think, more convincing than he is; because, though we cannot look back upon our child-selves as Seers and Prophets and Philosophers, we can remember quite well the time when all children were to us ‘golden boys and girls’...”
You can read Traherne’s poem and Mason’s thoughts here: [http://www.providencerec.org/pdf/2010/03_CPERSONS.pdf ]
Wednesday, March 14, 2012 10:06 AM
BEN BERNIER said...
My name is Benjamin Bernier. I enjoyed looking over your blog, and would like to point our an important characteristic of Mason. Like F. D. Maurice, she was inclined to praise and acknowledge anything she found appropriate or important in the work of any writer. In this she was eclectic; she believed that a ray of light may come from any place, but at the same time she was very selective, or discriminating, in the adoption of ideas. That is why she quotes Wordsworth on the key aspects useful and inspiring for her subject, but only goes with him as far as she thought was right, simply ignoring or correcting the rest. In that sense she is a good example of Paul’s exhortation to the Thessalonians not to despise teachings, but to examine everything and retain what is best.
I also thought that you may be interested in reading Mason’s Meditations on the Gospel of John, and Mason’s poetry on The Life of Christ, which I think are best to grasp Mason’s Anglican spirituality.
You can find these works here: [http://www.lulu.com/shop/charlotte-m-mason/scale-how-meditations/paperback/product-16250832.html]
Thank you.
Ben
Sunday, April 15, 2012 02:29 AM
HANDMAIDEN said...
Thank you so much for the explanation. It rung a bell, and I found this passage of Mason’s: “Because philosophic thought is so subtle and permeating an influence, it is our part to scrutinize every principle that presents itself. Once we are able to safeguard ourselves in this way, we are able to profit by the wisdom of works which yet rest upon what we regard as radical errors.”
I hope to soon take advantage of the resources you offer—The Holy Infancy and the Scale How Meditations. These look very helpful.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012 05:24 PM
The Child’s Estate [HE/1.3]
Tuesday, February 28, 2012
I am rereading Home Education, the first in Charlotte Mason’s six-volume series on her theory and method of education. This time I will expand my reading by narration and personal notes—guided by the study questions provided in the appendix.
You are welcome to join me! Mason’s complete series is available for free online reading at Ambleside Online. I’d love to read your thoughts in a comment or email.