Learning Languages the Charlotte Mason Way - Parents' Review, Programmes, and Miss Mason Herself (Part 2)

In Part 1, I went through Francois Gouin's suggestions regarding foreign language study.  As we know from the programmes, Miss Mason did use his series in her schools, and she approved of many of his methods--particularly in the ways they took a sharp detour from the contemporary approach.  Just to touch on a few points from my last post, I think we can take from Gouin some basic principles of language study for young children; for example,

:: an emphasis on listening and speaking before reading and writing

:: the use of copywork and recitation to cement knowledge

:: the use of narration and visual memory to assimilate the language

:: learning in the context of sentences and series of sentences rather than simple words

:: the delay of grammatical explanations and rules

:: the importance of accent and conversational ability

Now, his prescriptions are very particular: though he did encourage teachers to adapt his content to match their students' experiences (it was very important to him that the series learned be actions the student had personally witnessed or experienced), he did not encourage them to use his methods in ways other than he specified--at least not if the teacher expected the results Gouin promised.  We can understand why, I think, from this passage from "When and How To Begin Modern Languages" by Clara L. Daniell:

"A slight amount of gesture and action will help to give life and stimulate imagination, but to go through the whole series of actions is apt to make the lesson ridiculous. A big girl learning German on the Gouin method, and taking the series "Walking," was balancing herself with great difficulty on one foot while struggling through the sentence 'Ich hebe den rechten Fuss auf.' 'Ich hebe den rechte (hop-hop) das rechtes (hop-hop) die rechten (hop-hop, hop). . .' Of course, she felt tired, disgusted, humiliated, and fully convinced that, for her, at all events, German was an impossible language. I think Gouin might justly exclaim 'Save me from my followers,' for some extraordinary teaching has been inflicted in his name by those who have quite failed to grasp his psychological reasoning or his method."

(As a sidenote--if you look up modern usage of Gouin, you'll find something similar.  Lots of gestures, not a lot of content.)

Of course, we are free to use Gouin's methods however we please in our homeschools, adapting as needed.  BUT we don't want to lose sight of his principles in doing so.  I think we Charlotte Mason homeschoolers can understand this well.  How many parents come to Miss Mason's work super excited about it all...but then soon they're creating unit studies to go with Our Island Story (forgetting narration entirely), having their child memorize chronological lists of artists and composers (forgetting music and art appreciation entirely) and keeping their children so busy with timeline cards and even living books that they rarely have time for free play outdoors or a simple nature walk? We are free to be as CM-ish as we want, more so or less so depending on our family's needs--there are lots of different ways to homeschool!  But if we expect the results Miss Mason promises, we should attempt to understand both her methods and the principles behind them.

So--how can we adapt Gouin in a way that suits our needs yet still grasps his "psychological reasoning" and avoids the "ridiculous"?  I think that's precisely what the PNEU did, and by reading their suggestions, along with Miss Mason's thoughts from Volume 1 and 6, we can gather a host of examples as to how we might do that as well.

I'm going to be referencing the following articles:

:: "When and How To Begin Modern Languages" by Clara L. Daniell

:: "On the Teaching of Modern Languages" by A.S. Tetley

:: "How to Learn a Language" by Rev. Henry Bell (I'm actually not quoting him here--his is simply an enthusiastic endorsement of Gouin a year after the work was published into English.  If you want to understand the benefits of Gouin's method, I would suggest this article.)

:: "Nursery French" by Frances Epps

:: As well as Miss Mason's suggestions in Volume 6 (pg. 210-213 and pg. 276) and Volume 1 (pg. 80-81 and pg. 301-307)

It's obvious from reading the Parents' Review articles by teachers (I'm thinking particularly of Daniell) that they had read Gouin's work personally, and the programmes for the years following the publication of his book into English list several pages from Gouin lesson books on the syllabus each term.  For example, the programme for Term 44 includes "The Gouin Method: French Lessons on the Gouin Method, by F. Themoin, Part I., for children (Hachette, 1/2), pages 11-20. Make new sentences with the words learnt in the Series."  So these educators were familiar with "the Series" and had experience with how to use it as one tool among several.  The articles do not agree completely with one another (for example, Daniell suggests starting a second language as young as possible, while Tetley suggests thoroughly grounding the children in English study before starting a second language in later elementary years, and so on), but they agree in most of their suggestions, and I found them to be very useful in thinking through our studies here at home.  So here is a look at some of the other kinds of assignments PNEU teachers were using in their classrooms.

:: Picture lessons.  By this, they refer to a certain activity: a picture is shown to the class, and the teacher describes the scene.  The children do the same, so it becomes a form of narration.  This is a very basic type of narration and was very popular in the early Forms.  

"There is a real comprehension and not mere parrot mimicry in these lessons. For instance, with a class of little girls of seven or eight years of age, the teacher tested the reality of the impression produced by her words in this way. There was a snow scene depicted, and after a few phrases about people and animals walking in the snow, the teacher said in the same tone "L'eglise marche dans la neige." Not one child repeated this in parrot-fashion; with twinkling eyes and a burst of merriment, they enjoyed the absurdity of a church walking in the snow." (Daniell)

But not all picture lessons are created equal:

"Picture lessons are very good for this oral work, but they want to be treated skilfully. Some of the pictures specially prepared by Hoelzel for the teaching of languages are, in my opinion, too full of incident; one cannot be sure that the eyes of the pupils are so excellently under control as to look only at the parts given in the lesson. Even if they were, there is a temptation which the teacher finds hard to resist—that of giving the children too much at a time. For small classes the coloured plates of Christmas numbers of the illustrated papers often serve very well if judiciously selected—scenes that illustrate home-life, with children, dollies, animals, and so on." (Daniell)

:: Literature.  After picture lessons comes literature lessons: the teacher reads a short literary work (first, sentence by sentence, later whole fables or fairy tales), and then the children would narrate in the foreign language.

"Books with plenty of pictures and short tales should be chosen first; then a continuous story of simple words. Division into syllables is very puzzling and makes reading very slow and pronunciation choppy. A book that can be finished in one term is better than a more lengthy one. Stories of French or German history, handled in a skilful manner, can be utilized as the pupils advance, they will respect themselves and their work more if their foreign lessons are not all in story-book form. Conversation is easier about real events, and seems better worth spending time upon." (Daniell)

and from Miss Mason herself:

"Children in Form IIB have easy French Lessons with pictures which they describe, but in IIA while still engaged on the Primary French Course children begin to use the method which is as full of promise in the teaching of languages as in English, that is, they are expected to narrate the sentence or paragraph which has been read to them. Young children find little difficulty in using French vocables, but at this stage the teacher should with the children's help translate the little passage which is to be narrated, them re-read it in French and require the children to narrate it. This they do after a time surprisingly well, and the act of narrating gives them some command of French phrases as far as they go, much more so than if they learnt the little passage off by heart." (Volume 6, pg. 211)

:: Poetry.  

"Poetry should be learned by heart from the earliest lessons. It helps the child to appreciate and understand the sound and rhythm of the language more than anything else; and of course can be made the medium for numberless questions." (Tetley)

:: Vocabulary through conversation.

"In the picture lesson, care must be taken to avoid merely naming the objects represented—the actions must all be brought out vividly, and thus the verbs of every-day use are practised." (Daniell)

"Now, here we must insist on the answer repeating, so far as possible, every word of the question..."Each sentence is followed by a question to which the sentence itself supplies the answer; or, if in question form already, answers must be suggested at first and will soon occur to the children.  In this way the form of each kind of sentence becomes so fixed in the mind that it is reproduced automatically and without conscious effort. Adverbs, prepositions and conjunctions fall into their right places. There is no casting about for "quand," "ou," "pourquoi," "comment"—no thinking in the mother tongue to be translated word for word into the foreign speech." (Tetley)

"Again, the child's vocabulary should increase steadily, say, at the rate of half a dozen words a day. Think of fifteen hundred words in a year! The child who has that number of words, and knows how to apply them, can speak French. Of course, his teacher, will take care that, in giving words, she gives idioms also, and that as he learns new words, they are put into sentences and kept in use from day to day. A note-book in which she enters the child's new words and sentences will easily enable the teacher to do this. The young child has no foolish shame about saying French words––he pronounces them as simply as if they were English." (Volume 1, pg. 301)

And for the younger student--and the older too!--this conversation can and should take place out of doors:

"The French lesson may, however, be made to fit in with the spirit of the other out-of-door occupations; the half-dozen words may be the parts––leaves, branches, bark, trunk of a tree, or the colours of the flowers, or the movements of bird, cloud, lamb, child; in fact, the new French words should be but another form of expression for the ideas that for the time fill the child's mind." (Volume 1, pg. 81)

:: Games and fingerplays.  Used for fun, but used sparingly, for "children soon think it very much beneath them to play at lessons, they are quick to feel the pleasure and dignity of work."  At the start, however, games can "help to practise the ear and tongue."  (Daniell)

:: Songs, particularly those with actions.  Songs in the foreign language were a standard part of memory work/recitation, with students learning one or two per term.

"Songs bringing in some of the words learnt in the picture lesson help to vivify the impression, and are a reward for good repetition." (Daniell)

"With regard to songs, they can be made useful sometimes to fix more firmly the lesson of the picture. Following a farm picture, "Il etait une bergere" might be taken...A delightful little pastoral play can be made out of it for little children, too. Other songs in which the actions bring into play the various parts of the body, as in "Savez-vous planter les choux?" or in which the different musical instruments are named, or birds, etc., etc., may be chosen." (Daniell)

:: Grammar through copywork.  According to Daniell, reading and writing should be deferred until age eight (which, incidentally, is about the time a student would be beginning written narrations as well).  Once they have reached that age, though, written work would commence in the Gouin style:

"the blackboard will be wanted, and the sentences referring to the actions in picture or song can be written down...The next step will be to copy the sentences for themselves in writing. Soon they will begin to ask questions about plural endings and agreement of adjectives (not, of course, in that grammatical way, but they are almost sure to notice the differences in spelling), and with skilful leading they can find out reasons and rules bit by bit and will remember them because the joy of discovery will be theirs." (Daniell)

:: Conversation with a native speaker.  The common use of a French governess to teach the little ones isn't practical for most of us, but I wonder whether an hour conversation session weekly with a native speaker might be possible.

"It is not often advisable that young English children should be put into the hands of a French governess or nurse; but would it not be possible for half a dozen families, say, to engage a French lady, who would give half an hour daily to each family?" (Volume 1, pg. 302)

:: A careful emphasis on pronunciation.

"When reading is begun, the greatest care must be taken for the first year that the child should not attempt to pronounce the words till he has heard them from the teacher. First impressions are wonderfully strong, and prevention is better than cure. Even after two or three years' practice it is better for the teacher to read first." (Daniell)

:: Plays.  Francis Epps has some delightful suggestions on how to implement play-acting in a foreign language, including even some charming examples!  (Angela--you need to take a look! :))  She also describes her reasoning behind such assignments:

"It is difficult to find anything more delightful to children than all "pretend" games, in which they have the bliss of "being" someone else. This love of impersonation may well be turned to account to help on the Nursery French, by arranging little plays in which the mother takes a leading part, and also prepares the little actors before they begin, prompts them during the performance, and by thoughtful as well as playful repetition fixes the new words or sentences in their memory." (Epps)

and others suggest such activities as well:

"Plays are useful to counteract that excessive shyness in speaking a foreign language which seems part of the heritage of a free Briton. A good deal of effort and concentration will be wanted to master the parts, but I have known this concentration to be amply repaid by the real hold the phrases have taken, and the consciousness of knowing something has given an immense impetus." (Daniell)

:: Travel.  Would that we could all jet off to a foreign locale for a little real-life conversation... :)

"Help at home in conversation is most valuable, and something might be done in the holidays. There are many delightful spots in Brittany or Normandy where summer holidays might be spent." (Daniell)

Lots of great suggestions, no?  I think that a combination of these methods will keep us plenty busy over the new few years!

Speaking of, before I wrap this up, I want to touch briefly on what Miss Mason's schools were assigning to and expecting of their older students.  Here's a section from Volume 6 that gives some insight into what a high schooler's lesson might look like:

"The French mistress gives, let us suppose, a lecture in history or literature lasting, say, for half an hour. At the end the students will narrate the substance of the lecture with few omissions and few errors. Here is an example of the sort of thing Mr. Household heard, on the occasion of a short visit to the House of Education, Ambleside,––

'A French lesson was given to the second-year students by the French mistress, a native of Tournal, who came to Ambleside in 1915. She had been teaching in England for some years but had not previously come into contact with Miss Mason's methods. Those methods were exactly followed during the lesson. There was the book of recognised literary merit, the single reading, and the immediate narration––of course in French. The book was Alphonse Daudet's Lettres de Mon Moulin, and the story read was 'La Chèvre de M. Seguin.' Before the reading began, a few––a very few––words of explanation were given––of course, in French. Then nine pages of the story were read straight through by the mistress, without pause or interruption of any kind, at the same pace that one would read an English story. The students followed by ear only: they had no books. As soon as the reading ended, on the instant, without hesitation of any kind, narration began in French, different members of the class taking up the story in turn till it was finished. All were good; some astonishingly good. To all French was a tongue in which they could think and speak with considerable facility. Yet the time given to French is two hours and three quarters a week only. Such results compel attention. It may be added that last year the writer heard a history lecture on the reign of Louis XI given in French by the same mistress to the then senior students, and the content of the lecture was narrated in a similar manner, with the same astonishing success.'" (Volume 6, pg. 212-3)

and from earlier on:

"Each Form has its own texts to read and narrate, so students are building on their skills from the early years and applying them to literatures in the foreign language: Thus Form II is required to 'Describe in French, picture 20.' 'Narrate the story Esope et le Voyageur.' Part of the term's work in Form III is to 'Read and narrate Nouveaux Contes Français, by Marc Ceppi.' Form IV is required amongst other things to "Read and narrate Moliere's Les Femmes Savantes.' Forms V and VI are required to 'Write a résume' of Le Misanthrope or L'Avare,' 'Translate into French, Modern Verse, page 50, 'Leisure.'" (Volume 1, pg. 211-212)

So narration remains the main method of learning--this is the listening/speaking portion of the studies.

According to the programmes, the reading/writing portion usually takes the form of tried-and-true traditional grammars and exercises:

"I have hardly touched on the question of grammar—of writing exercises—of composition—of translation. There is no doubt that, however much we may try to clear away the thorns and nettles, there will still be a pretty thick hedge to be struggled through—still a considerable amount of rules and difficulties that nothing but sheer grind can conquer. One of the most ardent of the reformers of modern language teaching was asked, "What do you do about French irregular verbs?" "You must ram them in," was the reply." (Daniell)

And literary readings form a large component as well: in the case of Italian, the task of students in Form IV and V (high school) might be, for example, "Read three cantos from Dante's Il Purgatorio and compare with Longfellow's translation."

This certainly gives me something to aim for!

Soon I will be back with Part 3: our Italian plans for this year (second grade), as well as some resources I'm hoping to include in the future.  In the meantime, please do share if you have suggestions--I would love to hear them!

Update: here's Part 3 - Designing a Course of Study!

Learning Languages the Charlotte Mason Way - Volume 1 and Francois Gouin (Part 1)

"There is hardly another civilised nation so dull in acquiring foreign tongues as we English of the present time; but, probably, the fault lies rather in the way we set about the study than in any natural incapacity for languages." (Mason, Home Education, p. 301)

"Let us state it as impressively as we can: the incapacity of the child is the incapacity of the teacher and the defectiveness of the method. To learn to speak no matter what language is a thing as natural and easy to a child as learning to fly is to a bird. For ourselves, however serious may seem the engagement, we would undertake to make ourselves responsible and to guarantee the development and real progress in a foreign language of any child, however backward, who 'loves a game and knows how to play.'" (Gouin, The Art of Teaching and Studying Language, p. 128-9)

We are getting ready to start our new school year next week, and I'm also going through the last few sections of Volume 1 of Home Education.  The timing is perfect because just as I am thinking through our Italian plans (a subject I'm hoping to give a greater emphasis next year), I'm revisiting Miss Mason's thoughts on foreign language study for young elementary students.  

Since I have chosen a less-common language for our home study, I have the challenge each year of hunting down appropriate materials for my little Italian-learners.  Obviously, this means some extra work for me...but the benefit is that it gives me the opportunity to build a program from the ground up, piecing together exercises and resources on my own to ultimately devise something that both addresses Miss Mason's suggestions AND fits the particular needs of our family.  So I have been reading quite a lot on this topic over the last month, thinking about the goals of foreign language study and the principles that should direct it.  As you might guess, Miss Mason has much to say on both counts. ;)  I found as I began to read and write on the subject that there is so very much to say that I'll be breaking this down into a few posts.  Today I want to talk a bit about her thoughts in Volume 1 and the work of Francois Gouin, whom she references in this section.

The quote at the top, from this section of Volume 1, really encourages me to really take a thoughtful approach to our language lessons.  Does the method of study matter so very much to success in studying foreign language?  She certainly thought so--particularly when it comes to elementary-aged children, which is who she's talking about here.  By the time she wrote Volume 6, Miss Mason thankfully seems a bit more optimistic about language learning for British schoolchildren:

"This hitherto unused power of concentrated attention in the study of languages whether ancient or modern appears to hold promise of making us at last a nation of linguists." (Volume 6, p. 276)

So why the change?   What does the "concentrated attention" she mentions look like?  What methods has she put to use with her students, and what kind of study does she suggest?

I want to start with her thoughts in Volume 1, her first thoughts on foreign language, which are less her own ideas than an endorsement of the work of Francois Gouin.  He was a French educational theorist who, frustrated with the methods of language learning that had been used so extensively in that time (including by himself, with very little success), developed his own method based on the way we learn our mother-tongue as children.  His programme is very orderly and his suggestions very specific, and he claimed great success in teaching both students and adults in this fashion.

I read Francois Gouin's The Art of Teaching and Studying Language, the book she references in this section, and I can see why she agreed so heartily with his educational principles--most of them sound quite a lot like her own!

But first--a look at the Gouin method:

His general method is based on "Series," which are the series of steps in a common action or event (for example, the steps by which an acorn grows into an oak tree, or the steps by which one opens a door).  These steps are written out as a list of sentences, narrating the action from start to finish.  These series are read by the instructor and then understood and recited by the students, with an emphasis on careful listening so as to develop a pure accent.  It is essential that this oral/aural step not be missed, as to neglect proper pronunciation at the start does great damage to the student's ability to speak well later on.  

Once the child has assimilated the series and is able to narrate it himself, the sentences are copied by hand out of the student's exercise book or from memory.  Various iterations would be introduced to add vocabulary (the acorn is changed out for another kind of seed, for example) or to practice grammar (the sentences are re-narrated with a new subject or tense, for example).  In the course of the series, the student learns a very wide range of both nouns and verbs, conjugation, syntax, proper pronunciation and spelling, and much more.

And more than that: as the instructor leads the student through a recitation, he adds in various comments and questions that introduce students to what he calls "subjective language," which includes idioms, common phrases, judgments, commands, and other conversational elements.  For example, after each "step" of a series, the instructor might say, "Good job!  Please go on."  During the next recitation, he might substitute another phrase, "Wonderful--and next?"  In so doing, the student easily adds this relative language to his arsenal simply by hearing it repeated again and again.  The goal is for the student not just to learn to speak, read, write, and translate well--but even to think in the language.  The whole method is quite engaging and very carefully thought out by Gouin.

I want here to think through Gouin's principles and how they line up with Miss Mason's educational theories.  I see much in common between the two of them, and I think examining how they agree will allow me to pull from his work the principles that might underlie our family's course of study:

:: Seeing children as persons.  He insists that if we look at how a child learns, how Nature functions in the child, what powers the child's mind has been gifted with, we can use those same powers for efficient learning.  The child's mind does not work in a lesser fashion that an adult's; indeed, a child is fitted by Nature to learn most efficiently.  Consider how very much a child learns in just the first three years of life--particularly as regards language, as Gouin observes first-hand!  Gouin draws the example of a biologist wandering through a forest.  He seems to chart an erratic course, but his wanderings are actually an orderly system of examining only those specimens that are new to him while bypassing those with which he is already familiar, and thus are a truly efficient path.  Similarly, the way a child learns may not seem methodical or practical, but he has been fashioned to take, in the most efficient way possible, what he needs from a lesson.  Learning a language via an immersion method might seem haphazard, but it is in reality quite efficient in that the mind will assimilate what it needs to, as long as the proper mind-food (in this case, language spoken well) is presented.

This extends to trusting that the child will be delighted by learning, provided that the learning is challenging and engaging:  "But the irregular verbs! some one will exclaim. The irregular verbs, by our process, far from frightening the child, interest him even more than the other verbs. And this ought to be so; for in itself the regular verb is monotonous; now the genius of childhood is the enemy of monotony." (202)  Gouin does not assume that foreign language learning will be drudgery, and the teacher need not use bribery or other methods of influence to coerce the student into completing his work.

::  The importance of visualization.  "Seeing in the mind's eye" is essential to his series because by visualizing the steps as they happen, Gouin believes the student assimilates the words much more effectively.  As he recites the series back to the instructor, he is not simply parroting back the words but narrating the scene as he sees it.  We know what an important role visualization plays throughout Miss Mason's approach, but this reminds me in particular of her suggestions for poetry memorization and recitation for young children--she maintained that much could be learned with very little effort if the child were to rely on visualizing the poem.  The words shouldn't be learned devoid of their meaning; they should take root in the child's mind in a visual context.

:: Scaffolding new information.  Guoin talks about a "web of language," wherein phrases and sentences already studied mix with new vocabulary and constructions to constantly reinforce previous lessons in a way that holds pleasure for the student: "Language appeared to me under the form of an embroidery, where the same thread ran from end to end, always identical in itself, yet nevertheless creating constantly varying designs by combining with its neighbors" (47).

His series allow for never-ending iterations on the theme, so the child takes and learns what is new while practicing what is known.  As he puts it, "to express each new perception, it was necessary, so to speak, to employ the whole of vocabulary already acquired." (47)  But rather than a manufactured style of workbook learning, the kind of continued practice he describes involves the repetition that naturally occurs in the course of conversation.

Beyond scaffolding via a naturally-spiral approach to vocabulary, Gouin also believes that memory and assimilation are aided greatly by the logic of succession or time: "a picture whose details arc logically linked together, linked together by the most natural of all relationships, that of causation, or rather that of succession in time, a relationship that the feeblest mind can grasp, and which becomes the all-powerful auxiliary of the memory." (134)

:: Learning in context.  In Gouin's method, phrases and sentences are highly privileged over isolated words.  There are no lists of vocabulary words to learn.  There are descriptions of actions, composed of whole sentences only.  His reason for this is, once again, based on how the child learns: "The child of three conquers and assimilates the mother-tongue not word by word, but phrase by phrase, sentence by sentence." As he says later, "Each isolated word is an abstraction; the child does not comprehend by abstractions." (45)  This reminds me of Miss Mason's insistence on learning spelling through copywork, dictation, and literature; learning reading by sight words and word families rather than through isolated phonograms.  Context is so important, both for effective learning and for piquing the student's interest.

:: Short lessons. Like Miss Mason, Gouin encourages teachers to strike when attention is most focused and move on when it wanes:

"After the twenty-fifth sentence involuntary nervous move ments begin to show themselves. Legs begin to shift, feet scrape on the floor, papers rustle, and faces lengthen. Evi dently the wits are wandering in quest of other things. The human patience is at an end ; the intellectual force is over loaded ; the limit of voluntary effort is overstepped. The bow bent to excess is relaxed. In fine, the souls have flown else where." (95)

The goal is to hone those powers of attention in an effort to use time wisely, work more independently, and make more rapid progress. 

:: But the lesson must be long enough to introduce real mind work.  Short lessons do not mean easy lessons.  A student should be trained to give his full attention to his work, and his work should be pleasantly challenging:

"In order that an intellectual effort may become fruitful, the mind must take this effort seriously; it must work upon itself, must become heated, must bestow pains to produce a result; in a word, this intellectual in order to be hatched, to an incubation of a determined period of time. Experience has proved to us, and continues to prove every day, that an exercise which contains less than eighteen sentences fulfils but ill the conditions which result from the preceding principle. The pupil disdains and despises it as being too far beneath his power. He does not stay thereat the time desired; he is not sufficiently interested; he does not ponder over or 'incubate' it, and therefore he does not assimilate it." (95-6)

If a child is not challenged, if he is made to endure dumbed-down assignments or is not respected as a person, his interest will fail and he will not learn.

:: The role of masterly inactivity.  I found his description of masterly inactivity to be so very interesting in light of Miss Mason's recommendations.  He encourages teachers to step back and allow the language work the students have done to brew:

"All intellectual development, to be durable, must be submitted—we repeat it once more—to a species of 'incubation.' The mind must brood for a certain time over each one of its morsels of knowledge. This is a law of Nature which pedagogic science will have to inscribe at the head of its code. This mental incubation is an essential condition of all real progress. It is not enough, in fact, to acquire knowledge; it must be 'taken possession of.' Our work, to be entirely 'in accordance with reason and with Nature, must count two distinct moments:—First, conquest —and that by active force; Then, thinking over and taking possession." (132)

:: The use of narration.  Truly, Gouin's series are not narrations in Mason's sense of the word; the student does not compose them himself.  Gouin's goal, though, is for them not to be mere recitations either.  He wanted the students to visualize the action while speaking the steps so that it is almost as if the narration is indeed composed by them--the students are describing something as they see it, and that description becomes theirs.  (This is why Gouin so strongly argued that the series used are actions the student has done or seen done so that the visualization is more natural.)  That difference--between simply memorizing/reciting the steps and describing a visualized scene--was absolutely essential to his approach:

"The process followed has permitted (and this is not one of the least of its merits) the thought of the master or the expression of the book to become the personal work of the pupil." (135)

versus

"Indeed, change the order, and begin by the writing, or even by the reading lesson, as is now everywhere done, and the lesson ceases to be fruitful.  The pupil no longer thinks — he translates; he no longer assimilates — he dwells upon the written word, the written line. The visualising faculty is no longer brought into play to look at the fact itself taking place before it, but is content to notice the place of the expressions of this fact in the book, to remark if this expression is to be seen on one page or over-leaf, at the top of the page, or at the bottom, or in the middle." (133-4)

The difference between the first instance and the latter is the difference between true mental assimilation and mere recitation.  This brings his form of narration a bit closer to Miss Mason's version than it might otherwise seem.  And his confidence in its efficacy is very much like hers. ;)

:: Copywork as a way of knowing.  Part of a Gouin lesson involves copying out the steps in an exercise book.  In so doing, the student internalizes the words:

"Now, our exercise has been confided to the ear by the lesson given by the teacher, and is graven upon the imagination. It should now be confided to the eye by reading, then to the touch by writing. Each pupil should now open his book and read, then open his exercise-book and write." (133)

:: High standards.  What a child is exposed to determines what he will be able to produce:

"The child speaks with a good accent, pronounces correctly, when his nurse or his mother speaks with a good accent and pronounces correctly. Where, indeed, can he acquire a bad accent if he never hears any other than a good accent: How should he be likely to pronounce badly when he has never heard anything pronounced other than well?" (136)

Similarly, he claims, an improper accent may "falsify pronunciation" for good. (58)  As Miss Mason would say, a word spelled incorrectly creates an incorrect visual image in the mind that may never be undone. Better for a child to listen, listen, listen until he is ready to speak correctly:

"Talk yourself, talk continually. At the commencement let the pupil speak as little as possible; it is in his ear and not on his tongue that it is important to fix the word or the phrase. When the spring is abundant it will flow of itself, and the liquid supplied by it will have the advantage of being pure. Let us not forget that the little child listens for two years before constructing a phrase, and that he has possession of both the sound and its idea, that is, the spoken word, long before attempting to produce it himself." (140)

So, Gouin and Miss Mason shared many of the same principles and methods, and she approved of his series when she writes of him in Volume 1.  But she doesn't stop there--she talks more about foreign language in her later volumes, and the PNEU schedules and Parent's Review articles shed further light on Miss Mason's suggestions for foreign language, which incorporate but go beyond series--especially as it relates to teaching at home.  More on that soon!

P.S. Has anyone used Gouin Series in teaching their own children?  I'd love to hear about it!  There is a CM-friendly version for Spanish-learners available, but nothing for Italian yet.  I do, however, have a Inter-library loan request out for a Italian Gouin lesson book from the turn of the century that I'm hoping to have the chance to peruse and maybe incorporate bits of.  Otherwise, I'll be stuck creating my own!

Update: here's the rest of the series!
Part 2 - Parents' Review, Programmes, and Miss Mason Herself
Part 3 - Designing a Course of Study

Volume 1: Grammar and French

Back to our Volume 1 discussion!

The next two sections are grammar and French, and in both of these areas,  Charlotte gives some very practical advice for teachers. First, grammar.

"Grammar, being a study of words and not of things, is by no means attractive to the child, nor should he be hurried into it. English grammar, again, depending as it does on the position and logical connection of words, is peculiarly hard for him to grasp." I'm sure we've all noticed how little ones, in their speech and writing, can sometimes have trouble figuring out the grammatically correct way to phrase a sentence. As opposed to Latin, which follows much more logical patterns, English is quite a challenging language to master, grammatically. And the key point here is that because it is a study of words, not concrete things, it doesn't belong to the realm of the child. Abstractness is not their forte, and  there's no reason to rush.

Indeed, with respect to Latin, Miss Mason makes a specific recommendation for a text to begin with 8 or 9 year olds, but she also includes a caveat, that it is entirely open to discussion whether children should begin their studies at that early age. As in so many areas of this generous education, there's no sense of needing to put the cart before the horse and ask things of children they are not yet ready to do.

When we do begin English grammar, why not begin with a whole, interesting sentence, and discuss the parts which it contains, rather than jumping into "the fog of person, mood, and part of speech?" These sorts of things, the minutia of grammar, are to a small child like random bits of information floating in the air, with nothing to weigh them down.

The example lessons Miss Mason includes are wonderful: an example of a non-sentence, and one of a complete sentence. The definitions are simple: what makes a "subject" and what we say about that subject. Then there are some sentences for the student to complete which follow these rules. I especially love her definition of verbs. "They are the chief words of all," because we cannot make sentences without them.

These ways of beginning to learn grammar are simple, clear, useful, and take into account the personhood of the child. He is not to be bogged down with rules which have no real application for him, but rather he is trusted with real sentences and applicable knowledge.

In her section on French, Charlotte suggests ways of beginning to learn a foreign language, which are of course extendable to whichever language our own children are learning. "French should be acquired as English is, not as a grammar, but as a living speech. To train the ear to distinguish and the lips to produce the French vocables is a valuable part of the education of the senses, and one which can hardly be undertaken too soon. Again, all educated persons should be able to speak French."

Modern research backs up Miss Mason's claim about the early procuring of a second language, which is so much easier as a small child than as an older one, or indeed as an adult. And French was long considered the ideal second language for European English speakers, but from our American perspective, Spanish would be  even more useful, I'm sure. Celeste has family ties to Italian, which makes it the perfect choice for her, and though we have family connections to German, I am ignoring them in favor of French because it's the one second language I have any facility with...and it's prettier:)

So, how to proceed then, in our chosen languages? Some practicalities:

Begin early. Pronunciation should start in early childhood, when our tongues are less set in their ways. By doing this, we can remove "a certain awkwardness in producing unfamiliar sounds." And "the child should never see French words in print until he has learned to say them with as much ease and readiness as if they were English. The desire to give printed combinations of letters the sounds they would bear in English words is the real cause of our national difficulty in pronouncing French." For example, the French word for July is "juillet." There is no way to apply the English rules of pronunciation to that word. It simply won't work. One must have heard it pronounced properly: zhwee-YAY.

Learn a lot of words. "The child's vocabulary should increase steadily, say, at the rate of half a dozen words a day. Think of fifteen hundred words in a year! The child who has that number of words, and knows how to apply them, can speak French. Of course, his teacher, will take care that, in giving words, she gives idioms also, and that as he learns new words, they are put into sentences and kept in use from day to day. A note-book in which she enters the child's new words and sentences will easily enable the teacher to do this. The young child has no foolish shame about saying French words––he pronounces them as simply as if they were English." That is a lot of words! And the teacher must be able to use those words in sentences and keep them all in use. In the case of a mama who is learning the language along with her children, I think even more diligence is required. It is so hard to learn a language from scratch as an adult, and unless it is a decided choice to learn, it easily falls along the wayside. Preaching to my own choir here...

Hear the language. More important than seeing the language in print is to hear it and develop a true accent. Books on cd, music, and audio lessons are wonderful tools we have at our disposal.

Worry about spelling later. "How about the spelling?' you will ask. The spelling? You would learn it as the young French children learn it, as you yourself have learnt the English spelling, ten times more difficult than the French; and this without letting the study of the spelling spoil your already acquired pronunciation. Besides, the spelling is a thing that can be reformed––the pronunciation hardly at all."

Volume 1: History

I am a very amateur history buff. I love it. It was always my "tied for second" subject in school, next to literature, of course:) I was very nearly a History major in college, but happily my discovery of historical criticism allowed me to combine both literature and a fascination with the past.

Part of my excitement in giving my children a CM education is a desire to see the past come alive for them, to watch their eager minds connect the dots in "an inexhaustible storehouse of ideas" full of books, poems, art, music, nature, science, and yes, history. Without a knowledge of history, the child will not have "principles whereby he will hereafter judge of the behaviour of nations, and rule his own conduct as one of a nation." This is character development by way of history! This concept has been so revelatory for me...can you imagine how your view of the world and your place in it might have changed if you had this kind of cohesive liberal arts education, one that made wonderful use of books to grow your virtues? I had glimpses of it, but never in the sort of rigorous way Charlotte proposes. She has such a profound love and understanding of both history and child's mind, and in these few pages in Volume 1, she lays a foundation for our understanding and application as well.

Most of us were given dates to memorize, and perhaps those dates stuck. You might know when Queen Elizabeth I ruled, but how much can you tell about the woman herself? If you had been given fascinating, well-written books about her life, her loves, her beliefs, the world around her in England and beyond, you'd know the Elizabethan era in a very different way. This is what Miss Mason proposes.  "As for the dates, they never come right; the tens and units he can get, but the centuries will go astray; and how is he to put the right events in the right reign, when, to him, one king differs from another only in number, one period from another only in date?" We need to offer the fuller, more human story of history, and allow the child to come to judgement about its men and women with all the information, not just the bare facts with a moral tacked on.

Another common tool used in many history classes is an outline: a rough list of important dates, people, and events. By using this wide, broad view, students can more "efficiently" sweep through history and get a general idea of what happened when. Ugh. No wonder so many children grow up disliking history! Here is what Miss Mason suggests:

"Let him, on the contrary, linger pleasantly over the history of a single man, a short period, until he thinks the thoughts of that man, is at home in the ways of that period. Though he is reading and thinking of the lifetime of a single man, he is really getting intimately acquainted with the history of a whole nation for a whole age. Let him spend a year of happy intimacy with Alfred, 'the truth-teller,' with the Conqueror, with Richard and Saladin, or with Henry V.––Shakespeare's Henry V.––and his victorious army. Let him know the great people and the common people, the ways of the court and of the crowd. Let him know what other nations were doing while we at home were doing thus and thus."

Last year, I read one of the best history books I've ever had the pleasure of coming across. John Adams, by David McCullough, is history told in the best way. It's beautifully written narrative, deeply human and engaging, chock full of fascinating detail about Adams' daily habits, books he read, journal entries, marriage, worries over his children, and of course his many trips from home at the service of our nation. This is how we can engage our children in history. If they are able to get to know one great man or woman, and if the book is well-written, they will have a deep sense of how and why things happened, and form a connection to it. History will have been made their own. After reading McCullough's work, I felt as though I had walked next to Adams. I felt his sorrow over the death of his wife. I related to his need to be judged and found worthy. I cried when he and Jefferson, once rivals, died the same day (the 4th of July! Can you believe it?). I felt he was my friend. No history text book ever made me cry, but they did make me wish for more and come up empty.

Where shall we begin with our young ones? Charlotte says the best place to begin is at the beginning, by telling the stories of one's own nation. Where possible, we should allow a writer from that time to tell their story to the child, so teachers should present a first hand narrative. "These old books are easier and pleasanter reading than most modern works on history, because the writers know little of the 'dignity of history'; they purl along pleasantly as a forest brook, tell you 'all about it,' stir your heart with the story of a great event, amuse you with pageants and shows, make you intimate with the great people, and friendly with the lowly. They are just the right thing for the children whose eager souls want to get at the living people behind the words of the history book." Miss Mason makes some suggestions of material, from the Venerable Bede to the Chronicles of the Crusades to the History of the British Kings. These are wonderful starting points indeed, and her choices her support her assertion that to dive right in to a nation's ancient myths is to present a harsh and bald version of the past. Better to begin with the age of kings, at least for British history.

So, what children want is "graphic details concerning events and persons upon which imagination goes to work; and opinions tend to form themselves by slow degrees as knowledge grows." And when they are quite young, they are capable of assimilating and enjoying wonderful stories from history, if we will allow it. I think there is a fear that if we go slow, if we offer stories of lives and events rather than outlines, dates, and snippets, the children won't learn everything, or they won't have been exposed to all areas of history. The reality check is that they won't. None of us will ever learn everything there is to learn about history, because the world is so full of amazing stories. Those children in your average school classroom, learning history by dates and outlines? They don't learn it all. And even worse, they have been given so little mind food, so little for their growing imaginations to work on, that they do not care. They often walk away with very little to hang their hat on, so to speak, when it comes to the lives of the real people who lived the history they studied. We can do so much better than that! Especially if we are about the business of respecting the child as a person.

Charlotte includes a wonderful quote from Mr. Arnold Foster, which really is a manifesto for what we must try to avoid and what we give these little people in our charge: "To read English history and fail to realise that it is replete with interest, sparkling with episode, and full of dramatic incident, is to miss all the pleasure and most of the instruction which its study, if properly pursued, can give."

N.B. Please do also read Miss Mason's wonderful advice about narrations (which shouldn't be "a mere feat of memory"...I laughed out loud), play acting historical events, and the creation of history-based drawings. Excellent advice and ideas all around.

Young Students and "the Fairyland in Geography"

"We talk of fairyland to the children, and they believe in it. There need be no fear of not finding a fairyland in Geography." 

(from Some Methods of Teaching Geography by Burrows)

In this section of Volume 1, Miss Mason discusses her method of geography study for young students, and she does so in a way that makes the subject seem positively exciting.  Not a word you would usually associate with geography?  Well, I promise you--read on and be inspired!

First, let's back up a moment: what does she mean by geography?  We usually think of geography as a lesser subject--basically just memorizing map facts.  It seems that even in Miss Mason's time, geography was handled the same way:

"Now, how is the subject commonly taught? The child learns the names of the capital cities of Europe, or of the rivers of England, or of the mountain-summits of Scotland, from some miserable text-book, with length in miles, and height in feet, and population, finding the names on his map or not, according as his teacher is more or less up to her work. Poor little fellow! the lesson is hard work to him; but as far as education goes––that is, the developing of power, the furnishing of the mind––he would be better employed in watching the progress of a fly across the window-pane." (Volume 1, page 272)

I think we can safely say she was not a fan of this approach. ;)  How is it that more than a century later, geography is still being taught in schools in the same deadly-dull way?  Instead, Miss Mason is talking about something much broader, including the study of...

:: the world's physical forms, and how those forms are affected by the weather, the seasons, the movements of the earth, etc.

:: the world's major cities, countries, waterways, mountain ranges, and other prominent features of each landscape

:: the world's peoples and how their dress, customs, habits, economy, languages, etc. are affected by their environment

:: how maps are made and how they function

:: the stories of explorers and travelers through history and in the present day

:: the locations of current events

and so on.   For her, geography involves anthropology, meteorology, politics, geometry, philology, geology, linguistics, history, and much, much more.  And her methods are probably a bit different than you remember from school as well.  In fact, they look a lot like how I would learn as an adult...but we'll get to that in a moment.

Instead of memorizing the imports and exports of the South American countries, she thinks about what we really want to know about geography.  What is its value for the student?  In what ways does it interest us?  As adults learning about far-off places, we demand stories of travel told in a way that is "interesting, graphic, with a spice of personal adventure."  The title of her next section is "Geography should be Interesting," and geography described in that way does sound awfully interesting, does it not?  "But none of this pleasant padding for the poor child, if you please; do not let him have little pictorial sentences that he may dream over; facts and names and figures––these are the pabulum for him!"  Oh, Miss Mason--gotta love a bit of Victorian sarcasm.  She's right, though--why should the child not learn in the same way, through exciting stories and lively descriptions?  Indeed the child should eventually know well the capital cities of Europe and the rivers of England.  But this information only has value if it is digested into the body in the form of mind-food.  A child may take a list of places into his "verbal memory" so that he can replicate that information on an exam...but that does not mean he knows it.  Does it matter to him?  Does it inspire him?  Does it furnish his mind with pictures and ideas?  If not, what is the point?  It is not that "facts" aren't important--they are.  But the mind must be prepared to receive this information before it can remember it.  If we succeed at that, then "the geography lesson becomes the most charming occupation of the child's day" (273).  And don't we wish that were so?

So how do we go about doing this?  Over the next few pages, she goes through the stages of learning for this age group (ages 6-9).  Her suggestions here are gentler than her geography program for older children, discussed in Volume 6, but they lay the foundation for that kind of learning, which comes easily to a child already excited about the topic.

First, geography for the young child starts with experiences out-of-doors: "A pool fed by a mere cutting in the fields will explain the nature of a lake, will carry the child to the lovely lakes of the Alps, to Livingston's great African lake" (273-4).  I'm sure this comes as no surprise--all the sciences find their start in the child's relationship with the natural world.  Now obviously, not all geographical phenomena are going to be available to us locally!  But the child just needs enough varied time outdoors to have a basis for further knowledge.  To provide a child with the definition of a river without his having ever seen water flowing in a local creek is a wasted educational moment.  But even that simple relationship with a local creek prepares him to understand the Amazon and the Nile.  The idea is there; the relationship has been formed; the mind has something to build upon.  We let him experience the beauty of a nearby mountainside so that when we give him the idea of the grandeur of the Pyrenees, his imagination is ready to supply the rest.  He can grasp the truth of such things; he can see them in his mind's eye.  And perhaps most importantly, his interest in them is piqued and he desires to know more.

But as educative as simply spending time outdoors is for the child, Miss Mason discusses how to use this time quite casually to prepare a child for the geography studies---and for this, we should revisit her earlier section from this volume on "Out-of-Doors Geography."  These opportunities arise naturally because as the child observes, he wants to know why things are as they are.  (And mother knows this to be true!)  Answers for these questions start with simple activities with the mother outdoors, described wonderfully in that chapter.  Through such activities, the child begins to understand the position of the sun, weather, distance, direction, boundaries, and maps.  More thorough study of such topics will come later, but they have their beginning here.

So the child is ready and interested, and his mind is prepared--how do we build upon these experiences?  The next element of geography lessons is pictorial geography, which she describes simply as "pleasant talk about places."  Sounds doable, no?  It basically consists of furnishing the child's mind with beautiful images and feeding his imagination through stories of places with which the mother/teacher is familiar:

"Especially, let these talks cover all the home scenery and interests you are acquainted with, so that, by-and-by, when he looks at the map of England, he finds a score of familiar names which suggest landscapes to him––places where 'mother has been,'––the woody, flowery islets of the Thames; the smooth Sussex downs, delightful to run and roll upon, with soft carpet of turf and nodding harebells; the York or Devon moors, with bilberries and heather:––and always give him a rough sketch-map of the route you took in a given journey." (274)

For example, mother tells the child about a road trip we took through the middle half of America, roughly sketching a map of the area as she goes; the child sees in his mind not a list of the state capitals from east to west, but mental vistas of the cities themselves.  Besides being engaging and educative for the student, this sounds like excellent narration work for the mother ;)

Eventually, these stories extend to include the words of others through reading and narrating "any interesting, well-written book of travel":

"But let him be at home in any single region; let him see, with the mind's eye, the people at their work and at their play, the flowers and fruits in their seasons, the beasts, each in its habitat; and let him see all sympathetically, that is, let him follow the adventures of a traveller; and he knows more, is better furnished with ideas, than if he had learnt all the names on all the maps." (275)

Alongside this reading, the student should do mapwork. The child sketches a map of the traveler's journey as he reads, looks up places that come up in his studies on a map of the world, and so on.  Again, this is consistent with her approach to other subjects.  This early mapwork acts as a visual scaffold for the information the child is receiving through his reading.  The importance of visual memory strikes me again and again in Miss Mason's writing in Volume 1--it seems like it cannot be overstated as an educational tool.  In geography, mental images and mapwork--both visual forms--serve as the basis for geographical memory. 

In the meantime, as he reads and makes sketch-maps, definitions come up and are discussed very naturally:

"In this way, too, he gets intelligent notions of physical geography; in the course of his readings he falls in with a description of a volcano, a glacier, a cañon, a hurricane; he hears all about, and asks and learns the how and the why, of such phenomena at the moment when his interest is excited." (275-6)

"The child observes a fact, as, for example, a wide stretch of flat ground; the teacher amplifies. He reads in his book about Pampas, the flat countries of the north-west of Europe, the Holland of our own eastern coast, and, by degrees, he is prepared to receive the idea of a plain, and to show it on his tray of sand." (277, emphasis mine)

Are you excited yet?  This kind of learning is inspiring even to me as an adult--and that's precisely the point.  And through this learning, the child eventually knows--with very little effort and no drudgery at all--the "name and nature of the great rivers and mountains, deserts and plains, the cities and countries of the world" (274).

Now, here she makes the distinction between these pleasant talks and living books, which might be done "in the Children's Hour" (276), and the more traditional lessons that should accompany them, which is the next stage.  The former provides the inspiration and piques the interest, but the latter is not boring--not by any means!  And both are crucial to a well-rounded education.  Underlining again the importance of visual memory, Miss Mason advises that geography lessons for the early-elementary student should have mapping as their focus.  She lists out some potential activities covered in such lessons:

:: drawing a plan of the schoolroom, the yard, the town, the region by scale

:: moving on from a plan to a map, with the understanding that a map is the creation of an explorer

:: finding directions as they relate the sun and stars

:: understanding latitude and longitude

:: recognizing how seas, land, rivers, mountains, and so on are represented on a map

:: using a compass

:: reading a map using the knowledge he has gained

:: making landforms in a tray of sand or drawing them on the chalkboard

These lessons are the companion to the Out-of-Doors geography activities done with the teacher earlier on.

  

Now, although Miss Mason endorses these kinds of lessons--and even wrote a whole series of geography texts for use in her schools--the Ambleside Online curriculum doesn't currently have any such books scheduled for the early grades.  It includes wonderful travel-narrative selections and suggests accompanying mapwork, but there aren't any formal geography lessons scheduled until Year 3.5, and then just a couple more for the duration of the child's schooling.  So if you're inclined, this might be something you would want to add to the reading list.  (ETA: AO now includes scheduled geography topics using Home Geography and Elementary Geography, which I have listed below.  We read through them lesson-by-lesson, but if you want to see how AO scheduled the topics over the course of Years 1-6, pop over to their site and take a look!)  

I want to mention two resources in particular that we have used personally and that I think cover these topics in just the way Miss Mason seems to have intended in this section:

:: C.C. Long's Home Geography for the Primary Grades.  We just finished this book, and I want to enthusiastically recommend it for the early years.  Not only is it conveniently divided into short, engaging lessons on a variety of geographical topics, but this little text also covers all of Miss Mason's suggestions here and more.  Even though it is scheduled for the optional Year 3.5, I found it perfectly suitable for even my kindergartener. (ETA: This is now one of AO's suggested resources for Years 1-6.)

:: The Kirbys' The World at Home.  This is the text Miss Mason herself recommends in this chapter "for lessons," and it's a delightful collection of little chapters providing "pictures and scenes from far-off lands," as its subtitle promises.  It is a bit dated in its discussion of various groups of people (as all of these are, to some degree), but with a bit of editing, I think it will make a charming and fun addition to early-elementary studies.  (ETA: We used this over two years, doing a couple chapters each week, and it is a favorite with all of my little students.  More here.)

And if you would like to add such lesson books to future years, there are plenty of other options:

:: Charlotte Mason's Elementary Geography. This is a bit more advanced that the two I already mentioned, so I'll be saving it for later on.

:: The Kirbys' The Sea and Its Wonders. The companion to The World at Home.  Again, suitable for young children.

:: Frank Owen Payne's Geographical Nature Studies.  This is very similar to Long's book but has less emphasis on mapping, which is why we haven't used it yet.  Chapters here and there would be useful additions, though.

:: The Kirbys' Aunt Martha's Corner Cupboard, Or Stories about Tea, Coffee, Sugar, Rice, etc.  How can you resist a title like that?  Semi-geographical stories centered around teatime staples--looks charming.

:: Sir Archibalnd Geikie's Physical Geography.  Mentioned in the PNEU writings for older children.

:: Perkins' Twins series.  Many families begin the easiest of these books in kindergarten, but some are written for an older audience and would be a fitting addition to geography reading.
:: Mater Amabilis includes many geography suggestions, including Barbara Taylor's books and region-specific fiction free reading.  I haven't used Taylor's books yet since there are so many good free options, but they sound wonderful.  (Thanks for the reminder, Amanda!)
:: Highroads of Geography is a short geography text told in letters from a traveling father to his family at home.  I used this last year, and my kids had such fun reading "Father's Letters" each week.  (Thanks for the tip, Eva!)

And as a side note: with all the discussion of visual memory and mapping in this chapter, I do want to touch briefly on the use of photos, illustrations, films, and other visual aids in geography lessons, particularly for younger children.  Some of the PNEU articles on this topic enthusiastically recommend using such aids to supplement study,

"A child is taught that a cape or headland is "land jutting out into the sea"; what idea does this bare fact convey? Little or none, unless we can show some pictures in illustration of the definition." (from A Lesson in Geography by Miss Stead)

while others see the need for them only in certain circumstances:

"To explain or illustrate what is so easily within comprehension of the children would be an educational error. Let them describe fully without the help of questions how Holland keeps out the sea, themselves drawing a diagrammatic map on the blackboard to show the sea-defences.  But here is a passage from the same volume, Reader IV, quoted from Ruskin ... This passage, on the contrary, will require much illustration by sketches on the blackboard with careful diagrams." (from The Uses of Books in Geography by Miss Heath)

The latter is more in line with Miss Mason's own words in Volume 6, where she states quite clearly that such additions may be counter-productive to the study of geography and, more than that, to the student as a learner in general:

"Great confidence is placed in diagrammatic and pictorial representation, and it is true that children enjoy diagrams and understand them as they enjoy and understand puzzles; but there is apt to be in their minds a great gulf between the diagram and the fact it illustrates. We trust much to pictures, lantern slides, cinematograph displays; but without labour there is no profit, and probably the pictures which remain with us are those which we have first conceived through the medium of words; pictures may help us to correct our notions, but the imagination does not work upon a visual presentation; we lay the phrases of a description on our palette and make our own pictures; (works of art belong to another category). We recollect how Dr. Arnold was uneasy until he got details enough to form a mental picture of a place new to him. So it is with children and all persons of original mind: a map to put the place in position, and then, all about it, is what we want." (340)

By presenting places to the child through visual aids, we may inadvertently hamper his imagination and dull his visual memory, two powers which are all-important in her vision of education.  So to follow her suggestions closely, we shouldn't rely too heavily on Google. ;)  Obviously, not all of the PNEU articles agree, so these is room for difference of opinion, but I think we can safely say that if there are visual images to be used, Miss Mason would prefer they be introduced only after a child has read an account and has a clear mental picture formed (has done the "labour," so to speak), and only if that picture needs correcting.  I'm very interested if any of you have more to say on this issue, so please feel free to chime in!

I want to finish here with Miss Mason's thoughts on the goal of geography studies, lest we get side-tracked too much in our discussion of methods and booklists: "Here, as elsewhere, the question is, not how many things does he know, but how much does he know about each thing" (275, emphasis mine).  And given how often she uses the idea of creating sympathy in the child through his geography studies, I think we might add here her famous words from Volume 3 as well: "The question is not,––how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education––but how much does he care?" (170, emphasis mine).  In Volume 6, she asks,"Do we wish every child in a class to say,––or, if he does not say, to feel,––"I was enlarged wonderfully" by a Geography lesson? Let him see the place with the eyes of those who have seen or conceived it; your barographs, thermographs, contour lines, relief models, sections, profiles and the like, will not do it" (Volume 6, pages 41-2).  It may seem far-fetched for a student to care about geography the way it is taught commonly, but if taught in the way Miss Mason recommends, I think it is very likely indeed.