"Education is an atmosphere, a discipline and a life."
BY REBECCA SANDBERG
“Character is higher than intellect. Thinking is the function. Living is the functionary," said Ralph Waldo Emerson in his indelible 1837 Harvard commencement speech entitled, “An American Scholar”, which ends with the pithy affirmation: "A great soul will be strong to live as well as think."
Just five years later, across the ocean in Bangor, UK, British educator and reformer, Charlotte Mason, (January 1, 1842 – January 16, 1932) was born – a woman who would epitomize a philosophy of education that railed against an industrialized educational system and echoed Emerson’s salient sentiments of respect for children in her miraculous exposition, Philosophy of Education.
Mason stood in defense of education as fundamentally about the relationship of persons, and thus, and only then the relationship to knowledge. Mason’s starting point, like Emerson’s, was to respect the child, which at the time was a highly unpopular assertion. She writes:
Children are born persons…with possibilities for good and evil. The principles of authority on the one hand, and obedience on the other, are natural, necessary and fundamental; but – these principles are limited by the respect due to the personality of children, which must not be encroached upon. Therefore, we are limited to three educational instruments – the atmosphere of environment, the discipline of habit, and the presentation of living ideas. Children are not ignorant and empty, but rather respectable, and highly capable creatures.
In her ninety-year lifespan, Mason cultivated an unparalleled philosophy of education in which she stated that "education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life". She articulates:
Education is an atmosphere
In a counter-cultural nod of respect to all children, Mason's hierarchy of atmosphere as living space gave way to what educators like Parker Palmer would later assert, "to teach is to create space". Mason adds:
When we say that education is an atmosphere, we do not mean that a child should be isolated in what may be called a ‘child-environment’ especially adapted and prepared, but that we should take into account the educational value of his natural home atmosphere, both as regards persons and things, and should let him live freely among his proper conditions. It stultifies a child to bring down his world to the child’s level.
Education is a discipline
To be sure, an "atmosphere" that includes people requires habits and discipline of oneself in order for that community to thrive. Such language is found just decades later in Sister Mary Mercedes's remarkable reminders about the ethics of etiquette in her witty little book, The Book of Courtesy. Mason remarks:
By education as discipline, we mean the discipline of habits, formed definitely and thoughtfully, whether habits of mind or body. Physiologists tell us of the adaptation of brain structures to habitual lines of thought ie., to our habits.
Education is a life
In saying that education is a life, the need for intellectual and moral as well as of physical sustenance is implied. The mind feeds on ideas, and therefore children should have a generous curriculum.
The catalyst to the learning process was Mason's posture toward her students - that without respect there could be no learning.