Principle #2 Good and evil nature of children
Education is character formation.
Principle #2 Children are not born good or bad but with possibilities for good and evil
Antithesis: Children are born useful to the economy. There is no good and evil since everything is relative.
Paraphrase: Children can be naughty and nice, but it is not only the child’s actions we are concerned with but his heart. Education is character formation.
Theological truth:
For the Lord gives wisdom;
from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;
he stores up sound wisdom for the upright;
he is a shield to those who walk in integrity,
guarding the paths of justice
and watching over the way of his saints.
Then you will understand righteousness and justice
and equity, every good path;
for wisdom will come into your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
discretion will watch over you,
understanding will guard you,
delivering you from the way of evil,
from men of perverted speech,
who forsake the paths of uprightness
to walk in the ways of darkness (Proverbs 2:6-13)
Principal #2 is the most controversial of Mason’s principles and the most profound. I won’t be digging into the culture Mason was speaking into or try to excuse her clunky wording. Instead, we will look at what this principle is telling us about the natural laws of education, namely that there is good and evil in the world and what that means for moms and teachers of children being raised in the 21st Century. Mason wants mothers to understand the natural laws that affect our children and hinder or help our work as mothers so that we will joyfully fulfill our God-given role to guide and direct our them.
Mason explains, “My attempt… is to suggest to parents and teachers a method of education resting upon a basis of natural law; and to touch, in this connection, upon a mother's duties to her children. In venturing to speak on this latter subject, I do so with the sincerest deference to mothers, believing that, in the words of a wise teacher of men, "the woman receives from the Spirit of God Himself the intuitions into the child's character, the capacity of appreciating its strength and its weakness, the faculty of calling forth the one and sustaining the other, in which lies the mystery of education, apart from which all its rules and measures are utterly vain and ineffectual."
The main objection I hear to this principle is that children are sinners so there is no way they can be good. And this is true in the sense that they (and we can’t be Truly Good.) Well, I ask, what is the point in parenting them at all then? Just let them have their own way! Let them talk back to you. Don’t make them clean their rooms, take care of their things, or otherwise act in a respectable manner. Just let them do whatever they want to do. Child-led everything, candy all day, movies, video games! Have at it kids, you are a bunch of sinners and there is no hope for you!
Right.
That’s absurd.
Because we love our children we don’t leave them to themselves. We teach them the way they should go to give them healthy soil to grow in. We show them how to speak politely and remind them when they forget. We coach them on how to care for their possessions explaining that it shows we are grateful. (And a grateful heart is good medicine.) And why do we do this? Because we have a duty toward our children and our God and they have a duty toward God and us, their parents.
I had a difficult time grasping what Mason means by our “duties toward our children.” She says that parents and children “ought” to do, say, act in certain ways and seeing this I saw it as a Victorian idealist imposing her ideals onto me. It felt like a heavy burden. Why ought I keep an orderly home, require my children to obey or cultivate good habits in myself and my children simply because this educator said I should? But then I realized Mason is not talking about her own preferences. Unlike our generation, she was more concerned with discovering the Truth and understanding how God ordered the world so that she could help more children from every background not only receive a good education but learn to govern their lives and live well.
When Mason talks about duty, she means that each person has dignity and that means we each have rights available to us and duty towards our fellow man. When I require my child complete his piano practice, it is not because I want to control him, force him to be some piano star, or to otherwise fulfill my preferences for his life, I require him to practice because we pay for lessons and that financial commitment from my husband and me requires the time commitment from him. It is RIGHT that he practices to honor the teacher and to honor his parents who are investing in him. It is WRONG to waste his parents money and his teacher’s time. And so I can have more peace when I require the practice because I am pointing him to goodness and virtue (practicing) and away from vice (not practicing or practicing without diligence.)
I love the freedom this principle offers me. Instead of feeling like I have to correct and control my children so that they will behave rightly, I can see clearly the good that I want to point my children toward so that they will know what is right. Instead of a correction or a calling to a higher way of living being dependent on me, I am dependent on God and the natural laws He set up in the universe. It’s that simple.
Mason is quite philosophical in this principle and draws ideas for it from the Bible and also ancient philosophy where the pursuit of virtue is one of the life-long endeavors of thoughtful, educated persons. Virtue is that bending of the will towards goodness as a tree bends toward the sun. And goodness is only found in and radiating from God Himself who is our light source. So character formation and the pursuit of virtue are both intentional ways to learn to love what God loves and to cast our eyes toward heaven and bend our minds, bodies, and souls to be nourished by God’s goodness. But we are still not talking about salvation, but a knowable grace common to us all. Thus we cultivate good soil for our children to grow in by instructing their character.
Vice, on the other hand is indulging in appetites and desires which in themselves may be innocent but their excessive habit becomes harmful to oneself and others who follow. In a home this could look like a child enjoying a certain toy or game and then becoming obsessed with it to such an extent that he can’t sleep well at night or obey when it is time to put it away for being so overpowered by the pull of the toy. He becomes like Gollum, thinking only if his “precious” that it eats away at him and he finds himself willing to do horrible things for the sake of the object of his affections. Vice is noticeable because virtue is absent.
With both virtue and vice we are not victims of chance. We can study virtue and learn what it is to cultivate it as a gardener strengthens a tree to bear more fruit. Cicero, the ancient orator, reminds us “It should not be claimed that there is no art or science of training up to virtue. Remember how absurd it would be to believe that even the most trifling employment has its rules and methods, and at the same time, that the highest of all departments of human effort—virtue—can be mastered without instruction and practice!” The study of virtue, which is the goodness of God Himself takes a lifetime (and more) to learn. As mothers, we see the challenge before us! I must change and grow toward God’s goodness if I am to teach it to my children about it.
Let’s take a peak into one home from Mason’s time to see this principle at work in the trenches of family life before we move into the various aspects of the effects on education. In the Parent’s Review, the newsletter edited by Charlotte Mason and sent out to parents and teachers, we find an article titled Family Bickerings.
We are dropped in on a familiar family scene with two children arguing over a book. The squabble ends, of course, with a door slamming and unkind words spoken on both sides. The mother steps in and applies her creativity to serve her children and to offer them tools to battle the voice of folly calling them to fight for selfish gain. She begins by telling them the story of Jack the Giant Killer and goes on to share with them the many giants that can come to attack a child and morally devour them. She tells of “Self-love, Vanity, Obstinacy, Falsehood, &c., and excites their interest by telling them that these giants are so curiously leagued together that if one is conquered the others would probably flee.”
Keep in mind that she was genuine and not manipulative as she drew upon the moral imagination of her children. Out of love, she then sat with each one in turn and asked them to relay which giant they would like to fight. Since the Lenten season was at hand, she proposed they give up their “pet faults” and equipped each child with a scripture verse each day that matched their particular struggle. The child who struggled to be unkind and backbiting might receive: “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you.” And these love offerings of scripture given to her children to draw upon the Lord in their struggles though didn’t “cure” them of all their giants, she saw that they were at least weakened. This story shows us the “possibilities for evil” as well as the “possibilities for good.” Evil can be “weakened” or “restrained" with proper care and discipleship by a thoughtful mother!
Children are sinners, yes, but just as God didn’t leave us to despair, we don’t leave our children to themselves. We show them how to act rightly in thought, word, and deed and this training and coaching affects their character.
A study was conducted by Stanford University a few years ago on a middle class suburban town that was composed of well-to-do college educated doctors, lawyers, and other high-paying professionals. The trouble this community faced was that their schools were performing poorly. They couldn’t understand what was going on because usually high-paying jobs equals high-performing schools. The town decided to hire a research firm, through Stanford, to investigate. For two years researchers lived in the town, did home visits to observe the families, then visited the schools. What they found was surprising. The parents weren’t requiring their children to do their homework, work hard or be obedient. The children ran the show and that meant that they wouldn’t willingly do the work required to learn, grow and develop into mature young people. Children naturally do whatever they want to do and must be required to perform at a higher level than they will require of themselves. Unfortunately, the parents from the town didn’t agree with the results of the study. Perhaps they didn’t see how to move forward or have a vision for helping their children do what is right. I know it’s difficult to see past a culture that loves children by simply enjoying them without instructing them in virtue. For the parents to implement the results of the study they would need to relearn how to think about their children and how to parent them.
And that is where many of us land with our parenting. We are relearning how to think about ourselves and our children’s dignity as persons and their need to be instructed in and our need to teach them to do what is right as defined in scripture.
Throughout the book of Proverbs this same principle is shown in that parents can instruct children toward wisdom (goodness) and away from foolishness (evil). We see goodness and evil personified in Lady Wisdom (goodness) and Lady Folly (evil). Lady Wisdom is the youth’s friendly guide, holding her hand out to the path that leads to a good life. While Lady Folly is beckoning the youth toward the path that leads to death and destruction.
“for wisdom will come into your heart,
and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
discretion will watch over you,
understanding will guard you,
delivering you from the way of evil,
from men of perverted speech,
who forsake the paths of uprightness
to walk in the ways of darkness,
who rejoice in doing evil
and delight in the perverseness of evil,
men whose paths are crooked,
and who are devious in their ways.”
Proverbs offers instruction to a young man on how to live well. The role of education in the life of a child is to nurture and instruct his character so that he will have the tools he needs because “understanding will guard” him and “knowledge will be pleasant to his soul.” This is important to point out here because our culture tells us that there is no good and evil. We can all “make our own truth.” And if that is true, then we have no reason to correct our children because we don’t want to hurt their self-esteem or impose on their personhood. But this relativism dishonors the child. Scripture tells us that our children have dignity as persons and with that comes an inheritance and as Christian parents we want to pass on the wisdom of God to our children and that includes how to walk toward God’s goodness and away from evil. This is not to save their souls because Christ did that on the cross, it is instead to show them how to live well and live within the laws of nature and we do that by instructing their character toward goodness.
Mason seems to follow the same reasoning for the natural laws laid out in the book of Genesis. God created a marvelous world and placed people in it to rule and reign. He called it good! Then what happens? That snake and the deception of Adam and Eve introduce evil into the good world. We see this in Mason’s principles in that she is laying out the order of things- Children are born with dignity as image bearers but! They are born into a fallen world in which they will be caught in the cosmic battle between good and evil! And what does Mason say about the role of education in this spiritual war?
“There are good and evil tendencies in body and mind, heart and soul; and the hope set before us is that we can foster the good so as to attenuate the evil; that is, on condition that we put Education in her true place as the handmaid of Religion.”
Mason does not claim that education will save our children from hell nor take the place of the work of Christ on the cross.
“Here is a thought to be brought tenderly before the child in the moments of misery that follow wrong-doing. 'My poor little boy, you have been very naughty to-day! Could you not help it?' 'No, mother,' with sobs. 'No, I suppose not; but there is a way of help.' And then the mother tells her child how the Lord Jesus is our Saviour, because He saves us from our sins.”
What Mason is helping us see (and it is vitally important to understand in our times) is the importance of deliberately instructing children in the ways of God’s goodness. This is not to save their souls but because it is our duty before God to understand the reality of the world we live in that goodness and evil are present in the world and we want to cut off any wickedness from the hearts of our children, instruct them in the ways of righteousness so that they can walk in the ways of uprightness.
We live in a world where the presence of goodness and evil are largely ignored even by Christians. We are starting to see the true manifestation of evil in the laws that are being passed and the exploitation of the weakest among us. The question we must ask is can we teach our children in this generation to love God’s laws, pursue His goodness and to acknowledge the glory of Truth that is outside of ourselves? Or are we doomed to the relativism of the day? You do you. Have your truth and I’ll have mine and I won’t impose my values on my children. These ideas are wrong because they are rooted in self. We want to be rooted in the Wisdom of God which begins with the Fear of the Lord. Why? So that we can grow to our full stature and not remain immature. As Christians we have a duty to God to raise our children in the fear and admonition of the Lord.
“Admonition” means instruction. We are to instruct our children and not leave them to themselves. For this is right.
Another form of instruction in virtue, which points our children to the good, is ordering their affections to love good things in a good way. This is another area where our cultural alarm bells go off and we think, “but you can’t teach a child to love something!” Can you not? Who has seen a child, brought up in a home of outdoorsmen, who learns to hunt, fish, and generally be comfortable with nature grow up to love and embrace those things from his childhood? Or the child who would wander over to watch the car-crazed neighbor working on his car, grow up to love cars? We can certainly be repulsed by what someone loves, and this too is an ordering of the affections. And the point is to be conscious of what our children are drawn to and love and consider if it is worthy of them. A thing may not be evil in itself, but it may draw out a vice in my child. This is where that Thinking Love that Mason talks about in Home Education can come into play. A mother can help cultivate affections toward the good and pluck out those things a child loves that lead to evil. It is our duty and our right as mothers to remove stumbling blocks or make the path ahead smooth.
Mason wants us to see that the faults of our children are serious and that it is important not to ignore them, but to set them on the right path. She says,
“Children's Faults are Serious.––
One of many ways in which parents are apt to have too low an opinion of their children is in the matter of their faults. A little child shows some ugly trait––he is greedy, and gobbles up his sister's share of the goodies as well as his own; he is vindictive, ready to bite or fight the hand that offends him; he tells a lie;––no, he did not touch the sugar-bowl or the jam-pot. The mother puts off the evil day: she knows she must sometime reckon with the child for those offences, but in the meantime she says, "Oh, it does not matter this time; he is very little, and will know better by-and-by." To put the thing on no higher grounds, what happy days for herself and her children would the mother secure if she would keep watch at the place of the letting out of waters! If the mother settle it in her own mind that the child never does wrong without being aware of his wrong-doing, she will see that is not too young to have his fault corrected or prevented. Deal with a child on his first offence, and a grieved look is enough to convict the little transgressor; but let him go on until a habit of wrong-doing is formed, and the cure is a slow one; then the mother has no chance until she has formed in him a contrary habit of well-doing. To laugh at ugly tempers and let them pass because the child is small, is to sow the wind.”
As I read this passage from Mason I can feel the tension within myself. I love the call to actionable parenting. I see that I can correct, instruct and help my child toward virtue. And at the same time it makes me tired. I miss opportunities daily to cut off their vices and point them towards virtue. Pregnancy, nursing a baby, helping with a toddler or coaching a teen stretch me thin. I feel my inability to parent all of them well. I struggle with having self-control, using kind words, being diligent with my work - in every way I see my shortcomings. Which one will get to be coached and toward the way of righteousness and selflessness when I’m outnumbered and they are all requiring correction at the same time(!), we ask Ms Mason from her grave. And the reality of it all hits us. We are too finite, too limited, too weak.
And yet, there is hope.
What we’ve laid out here feels hopeless because we know that we are prone to drop the balls we are juggling. Pointing our children toward goodness, when we are murky on the application of it ourselves. And thanks be to God that He has not left us to ourselves. We can call upon Him to help us in our weaknesses. There is power in the name of Christ in the midst of our math struggles, sibling squabbles and screaming toddlers. Prayer is the way through it all. And in our weakness we have hope. From a practical place, Mason shows us a path forward.
“But who is sufficient for an education so comprehensive, so incessant? A parent may be willing to undergo any definite labours for his child's sake; but to be always catering to his behoof, always contriving that circumstances shall play upon him for his good, is the part of a god and not of a man! A reasonable objection enough, if one looks upon education as an endless series of independent efforts, each to be thought out and acted out on the spur of the moment; but the fact is, that a few broad essential principles cover the whole field, and these once fully laid hold of, it is as easy and natural to act upon them as it is to act upon our knowledge of such facts as that fire burns and water flows.
Mason helps us to acknowledge the effects of the fall on our children. She also points us to the hope we have in that each child has great “possibilities” because they are made in God’s image. The role of education is to bend the child toward goodness and away from evil. Next time we will look more closely at the role of the parent and teacher in the life of the child now that we see what dignity they have and how this gift of personhood can be affected and draw towards goodness or towards evil because of the Fall. For now, I will leave you with some words from the book of Proverbs. What we hope is to remember education is a means to equip children with the tools they need to govern their own lives. Hear for yourself the call of Lady Wisdom who beckons to help us toward God’s goodness and tell Lady Folly to be quiet for she is a seductress and leads to death.
“Wisdom cries aloud in the street,
in the markets she raises her voice;
at the head of the noisy streets she cries out;
at the entrance of the city gates she speaks:
“How long, O simple ones, will you love being simple?
How long will scoffers delight in their scoffing and fools hate knowledge?
If you turn at my reproof, behold, I will pour out my spirit to you;
I will make my words known to you.
Because I have called and you refused to listen,
have stretched out my hand and no one has heeded,
because you have ignored all my counsel and would have none of my reproof,
I also will laugh at your calamity;
I will mock when terror strikes you,
when terror strikes you like a storm and your calamity comes like a whirlwind,
when distress and anguish come upon you.
Then they will call upon me, but I will not answer;
they will seek me diligently but will not find me.
Because they hated knowledge
and did not choose the fear of the Lord, would have none of my counsel
and despised all my reproof,
therefore they shall eat the fruit of their way, and have their fill of their own devices.
For the simple are killed by their turning away,
and the complacency of fools destroys them;
but whoever listens to me will dwell secure and will be at ease, without dread of disaster.”Proverbs 1:20-33 ESV
Reflection questions for the mother-teacher:
Where does goodness come from?
Where does evil come from?
In what ways does a child have possibilities for good? For evil?
What is character? Is it something a person is born with or something that can be learned?
What is the goal of education?
How does knowing character is something learned affect how you educate your children?
In what ways do you act as a guide to your child(ren)?
How does understanding human nature (philosophy) help you coach and support your child’s weaknesses and challenge their strengths?
Using the math lesson as a model, how can you be a friend to your child when it comes to their studies? Is there one subject you can apply this principle to helping your child move toward virtue and remove stumbling blocks from his or her path?
Spend time in prayer, asking God for wisdom in helping your children grow in character. We don’t need to lean on our own understanding, we see that there is much to learn.
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20 Principles of a Liberating Education:
#2 The Good and Evil Nature of Children