THE MYSTERY OF PERSONS
Children are born persons.—C.M. Mason
Don’t be deceived by the brevity and apparent simplicity of this statement; it is, in fact, the wellspring of Charlotte Mason’s entire philosophy and method {of ‘any valid educational creed,’ Mason believed}, and the following nineteen principles will be seen to stem from this single root.
And yet, what really is so profound about this first principle? ‘Children are born persons.’ Isn’t that something we can all agree on? But, ‘Do we really accept children as persons?’ Mason asked {emphasis mine}.
Do we? In his book The Lives of Children, George Dennison gave this account of a troubled student’s experience in public school: ‘One would not say that he had been schooled at all, but rather that for five years he had been indoctrinated in the contempt of persons, for contempt of persons was the supreme fact demonstrated in the classrooms, and referred alike to teachers, parents, and children.’
Mason believed her first principle was ‘of a revolutionary character, for what is revolution but a complete reversal of attitude.’
What is meant by that word person? ‘Perhaps,’ Mason wrote, ‘we regard a person as a product, and have a sort of unconscious formula... [W]e do not realize [appreciate] what Carlyle calls “the mystery of the person.”’
By person, Mason does not mean merely human being. She refers to that ‘mystery’ of the divine image inherent in each of us. Wordsworth, her favorite poet, phrased it this way: ‘Thou whose exterior semblance doth belie thy soul’s immensity.’ Christians might glibly agree with this idea, and yet I urge you to contemplate a moment that mysterious profundity. What does the image of God give each of us, from the day that we are born?—whether we be lost or found in Christ.
‘We attempt to define a person, the most commonplace person we know, but he will not submit to bounds; some unexpected beauty of nature breaks out; we find he is not what we thought, and begin to suspect that every person exceeds our power of measurement.’—C.M. Mason
‘This concept, the the mystery of the person, is very wholesome and necessary for us these days,’ Mason wrote in days not more needy than ours. ‘If we even attempted to realize it, we should not blunder as we do in our efforts at social reform, at education, at international relations.’ This is not a principle for education only, but for all of life.
Mason’s principles for a philosophy of education begin with the foundational truth that a child’s personhood is his essential, created nature—is not a product of parenting or education. ‘If we have not proved that the child is born with a mind as complete and beautiful as his little body, we can at least show... that his mind is the instrument of his education and that his education does not produce his mind.’
With an enthusiasm and deliberation seldom matched by another of Mason’s caliber and profession, she traces from this single, straightforward idea a curriculum so wide and rich and joyous that she describes the task of teaching as that of ‘spreading the feast.’
And with some feeling of awe upon us, we shall be the better prepared to consider how and upon what children should be educated.—C.M. Mason
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July 1, 2014