Catholic History and Religion :: 2020-2021 School Year

Tis the season for school planning!

Have you been busy pulling together books, resources, and plans for your homeschool? I have been pre-reading quite a lot this summer, and enjoying it all. Usually I leave most of my prep work for my weekly prep session, but with high schoolers this year (and seven students in all!), I felt the need to get a jump start on whatever I could. It has been time well spent.

I have also been preparing a little share here of the Catholic resources we will be using this year alongside our studies for the CMEC. These suggestions are really suitable for any Catholic families studying the Renaissance/Colonial period with elementary through high school students.

I'm also adding in what we'll be doing for Bible and religion this year. I have a few preparing for sacraments and family and individual spiritual reading to schedule, so I have been happily shopping my shelves.

All the details below!

Bible

The CMEC follows the PNEU in scheduling Paterson-Smyth's books, which are a very good resource for Bible lessons. In fact, on the programmes, Mason did not even list out the Bible text; she relied wholly on Paterson-Smyth's breakdowns and worked from the Scriptures according to his suggestions.

There are a few reasons I really do like Paterson-Smyth. He knows how to get to the heart of a story without neglecting all of the interesting side stories and details. His abridgments of the Scripture texts are thoughtful and helpful. Mason used his guidance to "bring home the story to the children" and think his words do just that. I have learned a lot from his books and will be using them this coming year as helps in planning our own lessons. We will be using his commentaries on Matthew and on Genesis this year, as suggested.

However, there are a few moments in the text where he misses a key Catholic idea (for example, his comments on p. 114 against the primacy of Peter in the Gospel of Matthew). I like to take his suggestions and add in with Catholic resources, so I rely on a couple other books as well:

:: Knecht's A Practical Commentary on Holy Scripture. This tome (it's a thick one!) provides a look at both Old and New Testaments with lots of good Catholic connections, wisdom from the saints, and more. I have used it in various ways over the past few years and always with good results. It is a thorough but usable reference.

:: Mother Loyola's First Communion. If you have not read this, schedule it as a family read! She walks through the "types" for the Eucharist in the Old Testament and walks through the life of Our Lord in chronological fashion. We read her narrative alongside the Gospel of John last year, story by story, and it was truly lovely. This was our second time through the book as a family and the experience was rich.

My plan this year is to read Genesis from Knecht's Practical Commentary. It helpfully includes the abridged Scripture readings as well as the comments, so it will be a good text for me to work from for my Form 1 and 2 students. For the Gospel, I will use the Knecht commentary and the Paterson-Smyth book on Matthew to prepare our lessons and then will read from the Douay-Rheims, which we love.

My high school students will be doing the Bible reading as scheduled by the CMEC: a couple prophetic books from the Old Testament and their commentaries. Saviour of the World alongside the Gospel, and three Epistles spread over the year. Several friends have shared how much they enjoy the Navarre Bible, so I may use the Major Prophets volume for the older kids. The whole set looks so good!

Just a note about Bible lessons: very often I do not provide any additional commentary for my students. The Holy Ghost often "brings home" the story to the children in amazing ways, and in those moments, I don't feel that I should add anything more. But I do always have a thought or questions ready. The process of preparing Bible lessons has enriched me personally and has encouraged me to read Scripture in a new way.

Catholic Historical Supplements

This coming year, we will be studying 1450-1600 along with the CMEC. This is a period I enjoy very much, both in American and British history! There are so many good additional Catholic books for Renaissance England for all ages, so I am compiling some ideas here in one place for those that are using the CMEC and are Catholic. Non-Catholics who are interested in "both sides of the story" when it comes to the persecution of Catholics in Elizabethan England may appreciate these books as well. It is a part of history that is little included in most textbooks but full of living interest and heroic deeds.

I have all of these currently on my shelf and am in the process of selecting which will be assigned which terms for Sunday reading, which will be simply leisure reading and set on the free read shelf, and which might be family read-alouds. I haven't made any of those decisions yet! I'll be pre-reading this summer to decide.

Note: Several of these suggestions have come from Amber Vanderpol and Amy Snell, who are my go-to sources for good Catholic supplements!

Form 2 and 3

Garnett's Crossbows and Crucifixes (historical fiction about priest hunters and recusants -- my Big Kids loved this one when they were in elementary school)
Garnett's The Blood-Red Crescent (on the Battle of Lepanto, the Crusades, and 16th century Italy)
Vision books on St. Thomas More of London, St. Edmund Campion: Hero of God's Underground, St. Francis of the Seven Seas (family favorites)
Also a Vision book: Father Marquette and the Great Rivers (already scheduled by the CMEC as an option for Term 3)
Canton's The Story of St. Elizabeth of Hungary (scheduled by the PNEU even though it takes place slightly before this era)
Sun Slower, Sun Faster (more historical fiction involving priest holes, relics, and time travel -- what a combo!)
First Martyrs of North America (an out-of-print book I picked up a long while back and will have on the leisure shelf for additional biographies)

Form 4 & 5 (High School)
Some of these will be scheduled as biographies, some as historical fiction, some as spiritual reading.
Please preview before handing to your high schoolers.

Monsignor Benson's Come Rack! Come Rope! (I have an old edition and can't find a good in-print version to link to) and By What Authority? (both historical fiction -- I read these years ago and know my kids will enjoy them too)
Hunt's Treason (in looking for an edition of Come Rack! Come Rope! to link, I came across this book, which seems similar)
Waugh's Edmund Campion (thinking of this to replace Twain's Joan of Arc, which we have already read and LOVED)
Lyra Martyrum (beautiful poetry collection from Catholic martyrs of the English Renaissance)
De Wohl fictional biographies: The Golden Thread, Set All Afire (these are fictional saint biographies but often profound and very engaging -- please preview before reading!)
St. Teresa of Avila's The Way of Perfection and Interior Castle (to offer alongside the poetry of St. John of the Cross, which is already scheduled)
Eamon Duffy's books: Fires of Faith: Catholic England Under Mary Tudor and The Stripping of the Altars (I already own these but haven't read them, but I thought some non-fiction would be a nice balance? I need to pre-read them though.)
Belloc's Characters of the Reformation (pre-reading this to choose selections)

My older kids will also be reading from Starr's Continental Ambitions this year, a comprehensive Catholic history of America. I plan for them to read this alongside the CMEC's American history spine. I am hopeful about this pairing and from the pre-reading I have done so far, think it will serve my high schoolers well through their whole four years. (This was a recommendation from Amber, who also is part of the CMEC high school curriculum team.) ETA: There are sections of this book that we will be skipping. Be sure to pre-reading this text if you decide to use it!

As I said before: these books will all be added to the program for leisure reading and Sunday reading. The program doesn't need Catholic substitutions. But my eager readers will appreciate the additional selections!

A few more notes on history:

Ball's Great Astronomers, which my high schoolers will be reading from this year, tells the story of Galileo in the usual way. I would like my kids to read the fuller story so have printed this article on the common misconceptions about the Galileo affair and tucked it into the book.

One thing I like about the CMEC is it tries to tell the story of the French and Spanish settlers of America too, not just the English and Puritans. Even our travelogues highlight some of these lesser-studied figures and events. Much British writing from or about the period is very anti-Spanish by default, so I am happy to have, for example, Cabeza de Vaca's account to balance this out. Just because this was the period of treasure-hunting Spaniards does not mean all Spanish were brutal, obviously! And I'm pleased to be reading about Marquette, who has a beautiful story of adventure and service to the native peoples. I am hoping for a good combination and I am sure these will inspire worthwhile discussion in our home this year.

Arnold-Forster's A History of England and  H.E. Marshall's Our Island Story are both written from a British, Anglican perspective. As such, they laud "Good Queen Bess," pass fairly quickly over the Catholic martyrs, claim that the Church didn't want commoners reading the Bible, approve of the rebellion of the Scottish presbyterians, and so on. I love the books and think they are certainly worth using! I can't really imagine our homeschool without them. However, I do edit a few chapters covering this period and supplement with the above biographies and such about Catholics who lived then and what life was actually like for them. With this approach, I think my kids get to understand how the viewpoint of the author colors their work.

I have listed below the chapters that Catholic families may want to preview. You may decide to include them and discuss them with your kids, or you may choose to omit/abridge.

Our Island Story: chapter 63 (I begin the chapter at "When King Henry heard..." on p. 285), chapter 66 (I edit p. 301), chapter 68 (I omit the first four paragraphs on p. 308), chapter 76 (I read the first half only, stopping at "Like King James" on p. 346)

A History of England: chapter 41 (I omit), chapter 42 (I edit sections on "The Oxford Martyrs" and "The Death of Cranmer"), chapter 43 (we discuss the section on treason on p. 365-6)

Also, if students (or parents!) would like a fuller picture of Guy Fawkes, this article is interesting!

The high school book the CMEC uses for general history, Robinson's Medieval and Modern Times, is much more even-handed on the Renaissance and Reformation. This year's chapters were a pleasure to read. They will provide good context for what my students have read before and it is perfectly timed for their last pass through this historical period.

Religion Reading

I always schedule religion reading in a few different categories:
:: saints' lives (assigned by Form, listed above under history because they are also biographies)
:: spiritual reading (assigned by Form)
:: liturgical-year reading (usually as a family)
:: specific sacramental prep (as needed, assigned individually)

I'll start with that last category first...

Sacramental Prep

This year, I have two preparing for Confirmation and one for First Holy Communion...

Confirmation

My Confirmation kids read Knox's The Mass in Slow Motion (a reader recommended this version, but I have an older one) and The Creed in Slow Motion over the past two years, which I have found to be fantastic preparation.

This year, I have some Confirmation-specific reading for them:
For my 14yo son: Loyola's Soldier of Christ: Talks before Confirmation, Father Lasance's Young Man's Guide
For my almost-14yo daughter: Loyola's Home for Good, Father Lasance's The Catholic Girl's Guide

Really, though, these two kids have read so many wonderful Catholic books over the years that I don't feel like they need much focused preparation for this sacrament! I want to do some special reading to mark the event, but they have read about so many saints, about angels, about doctrine, about the Mass, about the liturgical year, about Our Lady, about the sacraments... Some of these books were written for children, some for adults, and all of them were very good. But we'll see how the year goes and what I end up adding to their stack! Their Confirmation, which was supposed to take place this fall, has been pushed out indefinitely for now due to COVID-related restrictions, so we may have more time for preparation than we expected.

First Holy Communion

For First Holy Communion: I have written up my general approach to First Communion prep before. My daughter who is currently preparing isn't reading fluently yet, which alters my plans somewhat. She has been reading Loyola's First Communion with the family for the past year or so and will finish it this coming year. She has narrated her way through two of the gospels. We will focus this year on learning the Ten Commandments to prepare her for her first Confession, and on memorizing the St. Joseph First Communion Catechism, which includes a short overview of the sacraments and the precepts of the Church and is a requirement of our priest. I think my husband will take the lead on both of those things, as he did for the two last First Communicants we had. It was such a nice time for them to prepare with him! I think I will read First Communion Days with her, and I will ask one of her older siblings to read from a few other books from that old post over the course of this coming school year. (My kids have all loved the story of Blessed Imelda and I wouldn't want her to miss it, for example!)

Liturgical Year

I recently bought three sets with simple devotions for the liturgical year and I can't decide which one to use this year! They all look excellent. I think we will jump into With the Church and then see if we would like to take up the Troadec or D'Hulst books for Advent or Chirstmas or Lent.

With the Church: Advent to Ascension (Volume I) and Ascension to Advent (Volume II)
Crib to Cross: Meditations on the Life of Christ M D'Hulst
From Advent to Epiphany and From Epiphany to Lent by Fr. Patrick Troadec

We have been reading from A Character Calendar most mornings and really like the little stories and meditations.

And as a side note: we recently got Chadwick's My Book of the Church's Year and my littles adore it!

Spiritual Reading

For my Younger Kids

We pulled together a big Kinderleben Guide for the CMEC this past spring, and one category of books we didn't include is religious reading! But it made me excited to straighten up my kindergarten shelves of religious books.

In addition to religious picture books, lists of which you can find in various places, we have some favorites I save for kinder-aged kids: Manners in God's House, I Believe, Jesus and Mary, Saints for Boys, Saints for Girls, Their Hearts are His Garden, and others.

Also, I highly recommend the Saints and Friendly Beasts series of easy readers from Neumann Press. Clara (Form 1) is learning to read this year, so I made her a little shelf of easy/early readers and these are some of the best!

For Form 2

My Form 2 kids haven't read Mother Loyola's Hail, Full of Grace or Marigold Hunt's A Book of Angels yet, so I think I will schedule those for them this year. (Last year they did My Path to Heaven and Montessori's The Mass Explained to Children.)

I also got back out the Catholic Treasure Box series (Set 1 and Set 2) for them to read in free time. It had been a while. They have been loving those this summer!

For the Older Kids

My older kids' spiritual reading is covered above under sacramental prep and history since we are using the CMEC's historically-tied religion reading for the Upper Forms. I also take a bit of time at the beginning of Advent and of Lent to choose a few books for their free reading shelf. They like having this to select from for devotional time.

I hope this is helpful to those joining us for the Renissance and Colonial times this fall! I am so happy to see our shelves begin to fill up for next year's studies.

So -- any wonderful books to add to the list above for this period? Let me know in the comments!

(Amazon links above are affiliate links. Thanks for your support!)

The Living Page :: Time Tools

(I'm sharing my thoughts here as I read Laurie Bestvater's The Living Page.  So far, I've discussed the place of Keeping in Charlotte Mason's vision for education, nature journals, and copybooks.  Today I'm hitting the last section of Chapter 2, which focuses on history notebooks.)  

I admit: I nodded wholeheartedly when at the beginning of this chapter, Bestvater asks whether my own history education was scattered, un-living, and (as a result) nearly completely forgotten.  Yes, yes, and yes.  I know this is a lament for many who were taught in traditional ways in traditional schools.  Most homeschooling mothers I know seem to think that more hands-on projects or crafty supplements are the answer, but Miss Mason recommends something different, which should come as no surprise for those familiar with her work.  Of course, living books and narration are the hallmarks of her approach to history.  But (just as we see in every other discipline) alongside those methods are various kinds of notebooks that prepare the mind, scaffold learning, and work as another form of narration.  These records--or "time tools," as Bestvater calls them--are a key to the student's successful historical understanding, and the ways they were conceived of and used in her schools was precise and, as with everything else in a Charlotte Mason education, carefully considered.

Jen summed up this chapter so nicely, explaining the key forms, when they were used, and what they were meant to look like.  I'm going to focus just a few thoughts here on the types of historical Keeping meant to be used with young students--or in other words, the types I'm planning to put into practice right away with my own young ones!

The notebooks suitable to the earliest years (Form I and early in Form II) are unique in that, unlike the Book of Centuries, they are meant to be kept for only a short time.  The Book of Centuries is meant to be a lifelong activity, beginning about halfway through the child's school education and continuing throughout life. These early formats were planned to prepare younger students for that kind of culling and mapping of time to come.

The Child's Own History

This is not something I have read about in the past, so I'm looking forward to trying it with my two Form I students soon.  The idea is to chart with the child the years of his life, starting from the present and working backward as far as the child can remember and to his birth.  Included for each year would be the child's age, the ages of his siblings, and other important events he might remember, starting from personal events, then including public events, and then national events--a special trip, the observation of a holiday, a memorable news event, and so on.  These can be written onto the chart or symbolically represented.  The goal is to work with the child to create a visual representation of his own history, which serves to prepare him to understand his own century, and then the vast stretch of history.

And since I'm always concerned with the format Keeping takes, I'll add that Bestvater is very clear on that point: "Something framed in the way of a sampler is suggested ... there are probably many ways to create such a cherished record for the child that awakens interest and is highly personalized just so long as it is not enclosed in a book.  The chart needs to be highly visible, a type of wall art" (46).  So this is intended to be a visual record, something worthy of display.  My children aren't up for a sampler (ha!), but I'm sure they would love to create this in a more artistic way than just a paper chart.  Any ideas?  Bestvater suggests the final project be something special, a keepsake.  I'm not a particularly crafty mommy, but I think working in a different medium might make this a fun summer project.  Maybe they could paint on a small canvas?  Collage onto a wooden box?  Something out of clay or wood?  Fabric arts?  Pastels or watercolors?  If you have any ideas (or if you have done this project already in your own home), please do share.

Table of History

In order to give definiteness to what may soon become a pretty wide knowledge of history--mount a sheet of cartridge paper and divide it into twenty columns, letting the first century of the Christian era come in the middle, and let each remaining column represent a century BC or AD as the case may be.  Then let the child himself write or print, as he is able, the names of the people he comes upon in due order, in their proper century.  We need not trouble ourselves at present with more exact dates, but this simple table of the centuries will suggest a graphic panorama to the child's mind, and he will see events in their time order. (quoted in Bestvater, 39-40)

According to Bestvater, this quite Table of History was probably introduced toward the end of Form I.  We actually began something quite similar when my children started Year 1, and I have found it invaluable in encouraging my children to make connections across their studies.  Ours doesn't quite fit Bestvater's reading of what was being used in Miss Mason's schools, but I'll share it here and then point out the differences between what she describes and ours:

My children each have a personal binder timeline that they add to weekly--they choose what to include and how often, but it's usually one or two entries a week.  Most of the entries are just the names of historical figures, but there are events in there occasionally as well (they both just added "The War of the Roses" last week, for example).  They choose what to include.  It is set up in columns just as described here, and the children just make simple lists in the appropriate century's column without considering the exact date.  Ours is not visual in the sense of being hung on the wall--and that's a big difference, since Bestvater sees this as an essential feature of this table.  I find that the binder timeline is still reminiscent of a "graphic panorama" in that it has a simple graphic layout and is accessible to the children whenever they like, so it suits our purposes for now.  The other reason I went with a binder version is the size, which is another difference between ours and the one described here.  Our columns are a couple inches wide, making the whole timeline much longer than the recommended one-page spread.  I can't quite wrap my head around how lists of names could be written by children in the narrow columns prescribed here, so the larger format is suited to our needs.  (Bestvater has the names written vertically in her model--was this perhaps what was intended?  It doesn't seem all that useful to me, but perhaps I'm missing something.)  I have been pleased with this format so far in that it does encourage the children to start to "see events in their time order" and to understand the relative passage of time through the simplicity of the design, and they have taken ownership of it.  They refer to it several times a week, just flipping through and making connections: So Haydn, Mozart, and Beethoven all lived at the same time! and Laura Ingalls Wilder was writing in America when Rudyard Kipling was writing in England!  and so forth.  And when in a couple years they are ready to begin their Book of Centuries, they will have already begun to grasp the abstraction of time through these concrete methods.

~~~

Speaking of the Book of Centuries, I'll admit: this section made me really happy that my children aren't yet at the age to have started one quite yet.  As Bestvater herself describes in this chapter, a much fuller understanding of the precise form and methods of these time tools has developed over the last few years thanks to the accessibility of PNEU documents, and I feel fortunate to be able to put this fuller understanding to use in my home teaching.  And I also have to say--I so appreciate Bestvater's insistence on going to the source and on presenting as precisely as possible how these tools were conceived of by Miss Mason and used in her schools.  There will be times I need to adapt her suggestions to suit my own family, but I just love an author that makes the purist case and allows me to consider the practical side of things for myself.

Some have argued that there is no use in being a Mason purist, and I take the point.  Likely any timeline is better than no timeline, but if Mason and the PNEU gave careful thought to scaffolding the child's growing time sense, are not some important principles at stake if we depart for the sake of convenience or personal preference for a less considered activity?  For example, if the figures and dates are pre-printed or already selected for the child's insertion on a ready-made timeline, hasn't some mind other than the child's really done the connecting, selecting, and most of the sorting?  It seems likely that there will be less attention and interest paid to this sort of timeline than to the personalized one Mason has envisioned, and hence less connection and retention.  With a pre-printed or parent-chosen model, at best the child uses his scissor skills and finds the appropriate century to insert the cutout.  Likewise, a classroom-sized timeline tracing the circumference of the room, while it upholds the mandate to keep the timeline a visible reference point, loses its condensed map-like impact.  If a timeline only covers the history being studied in that year in that particular classroom (taking part of the role of the history chart), it is a helpful tool but still manages to be less effective than what it seems the PNEU proposes.  I am not suggesting we follow this rather involved trail just because it is the path Charlotte Mason trod; I hope I am presenting enough evidence to instigate a closer look at all her various practices in a search for the very good reasons underpinning them. (49-50)

I am grateful to her for presenting this evidence and taking this closer look, and I'll certainly be considering our current and future practices in light of it all.  It's an exciting time to be starting out as a Charlotte Mason homeschooler.

First Grade in Our Home: Timelines

I knew going into this year that I wanted to start some kind of visual history record with the children, but I was really on the fence about how I wanted to it to look and work.  I'm leaving the true Book of Centuries for their later elementary years or beyond, so I wanted something more like a timeline.  But I wanted it to be simple.  If they had to draw a picture for each entry, it would probably add another thirty minutes onto our school week!  Thirty fun minutes perhaps--at least at first--but I have the feeling that it would quickly begin to feel like busywork...and my kids hate busywork. I definitely didn't want our timeline to become a major project that I was going to basically be completing myself.  I also wanted something each of the children would do individually--a family timeline sounds fun, but I have several other littles in line after these first two go through the readings, and I felt like there wouldn't be much to add if we were all sharing a timeline.  So: something easy, simple, CM-friendly, able to be done by a child on his own, and useful in providing a good start toward understanding how the various events and figures in history relate to one another in the span of time?  I couldn't seem to find an easy method that would meet all those criteria, so we started the school year without and I kept thinking.

Then I came across the wall timeline Jennifer had designed for her children at Joyful Shepherdess, and it seemed to fit all I had in mind.  I wasn't looking for a wall timeline, though, so I made a smaller version--one to fit in each child's school binder.  I divided a sheet of paper vertically into three columns, then copied the template onto seven sheets of plain cardstock, printing on both front and back.  Then I labeled the columns by century, starting from the 21st century BC and ending with the 21st century AD, just as Jennifer did.  Then hole-punched and popped them into the binders--done!  

The next day, they began their entries.  We're keeping it very simple: just a list of names and a few dates, no drawings or narrations (unless they want to--that will be up to them).  And we're not entering all the people and events we read about--just the ones that stick out in the children's minds.  It takes just a few minutes each Friday to make a couple entries.

Right now, we're playing a bit of catch-up; we just finished Term 1, so we're working now to get current for the start of Term 2.  But so far, I think this is a great method for us!  My children were surprised to see Laura Ingalls Wilder, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Camille Saint-Saens in the same column, three figures from their studies that they hadn't connected at all.  They were also surprised to see just how long Rome spent trying to conquer Britain!  The best part about this method is it was so simple and can easily be changed out or altered later on--no big upfront costs or time.  So thank you, Jennifer, for the idea!

Chapter 4: History

From the many, many history discussions I have read online in forums and email groups, I'm sure I'm not the only homeschooling mother who has been kept up at night debating within myself the merits of various history cycles and timeline formats!  History is central to a Charlotte Mason education in that, for many book lists, it also directs the literature, geography, music, poetry, and art choices for a given school year.  It holds a similar place for classical education, so it's quite a "hot topic" in the homeschooling world.  Which period to study when?  Which books?  What supplements are needed, if any?  How can we make history "come alive" for our children?

So I must say that I was underwhelmed by this chapter.  Beckman tries to point out the benefits of studying history in a CM-friendly way, but there is only a rather generic description of what that actually means and very few examples of how such a study might look in practice.  He uses his own school as his only example, but as he himself notes, this is only one way a history schedule might look following Charlotte Mason's model, and his scope and sequence actually doesn't match that of Miss Mason's schools very closely, which would have been helpful for a reader to know.  For example, Mason's schools studied two threads of history concurrently (world history and English history) and scheduled it all into a 12-year cycle.  These two elements are not essential for teaching history in a CM-way, certainly, but they are important in understanding what Charlotte Mason was aiming for in her approach.  The long cycle, for example, emphasizes that central idea of creating a relationship with the age and its people and events rather than just hitting the high points and moving forward, as a shorter cycle might require.  And as a homeschooler trying to implement a Charlotte Mason education in my home, I like to know when I am deviating from her suggestions and in what ways--that awareness helps me to adjust other elements of my schooling accordingly so that I can keep the heart of Charlotte Mason's principles while still accommodating my particular circumstances.  I also would have liked to see more here about the Book of Centuries, the keeping of which is central to the student's grasp of history and the connection across disciplines, places, and times.  The "copybooks" that he describes sound interesting and worthwhile, but sound more like a book of written and drawn narrations than the record Charlotte Mason describes.

All that aside, the history cycle that he describes takes a different tack than others I have seen and is useful for comparison.  He also makes it clear that Mason privileges living books and first-hand sources over textbooks, which is true for all subjects but particularly so for history.  If we want the "pageant of history" to live in the minds of our children, we must choose books wisely.  The ultimate goal of our study of history is "a child's grasp of its flow and his place in that flow." (163)  That doesn't mean, of course, that history is important only as it relates to the child; rather, history is important because it teaches us the human story--the rises and falls, the story of mankind and its relationship to God.  The student learns that his "place in that flow" is as a child of God and he should be inspired by the tales of heroes and learn from the mistakes of the past.  Human history should be studied not as a list of dates but as mind-food, and what we learn should shape our thoughts and actions for life.  As Beckman quotes Charlotte Mason here: "We may not be able to recall this or that circumstance, but 'the imagination is warmed'; we know that there is a great deal to be said on both sides of every question and are saved from crudities of opinion and rashness in action.  The present becomes enriched with the wealth of all that has gone before." (163)