Up first is a volume written by Elaine Cooper entitled The Power and Neglected Voice of Charlotte Mason: A Coherent, Holistic Approach to Education for Our Times. Her thesis is many ways is captured by the two adjectives in the subtitle: coherent and holistic. I could see this book being a centerpiece for introducing parents and teachers to Charlotte Mason who may have only a passing acquaintance with her life and work due to the far-reaching scope of such a succinct volume.

Cooper has been at the heart of the Charlotte Mason revival since the 1970s, working alongside Susan Schaeffer Macaulay to establish the Child Light Trust to promote Charlotte Mason education in England. In 2004, Cooper edited the book When Children Love to Learn (Crossway), bringing together leading voices in the US and England to provide practical applications for Mason’s philosophy. Cooper was also involved in the start of Heritage School in Cambridge, England, which opened its doors in 2007.

Biography

Cooper begins her work with a succinct biography of Charlotte Mason. The contours of this biographical sketch of Mason follows the work of Margaret Coombs, who published Charlotte Mason: Hidden Heritage and Educational Influence in 2015. I appreciate how Cooper retraces the hidden childhood of Mason without dwelling on her birth out of wedlock or the potential influence either parent or their families might have had on her subsequent achievements. Mason rarely mentioned her upbringing, which could be due to her embarrassment of that upbringing. But equally, she could have just as easily viewed those years as irrelevant to the person she became as an educational thinker. To that end, Cooper’s sketch devotes the bulk of the section to her experiences in teacher training schools and posts at Birkenhead, London, Worthing and Chichester.

One of the important points Cooper brings out pertains to the collapse of the positivism of late Victorians progressivism. World War 1 had swept away much of this positivism, and with it many turned to modernist views of education. Cooper writes:

“But the horrors of the First World War and the disillusionment with western civilisation sent shock waves through society. Many educators and leaders at the time felt that old ways of thinking and doing needed to be swept away, and the new be emphatically implemented for the 20^th century. Mason’s educational vision and model for a full and abundant life binding knowledge and virtue and shaping Britain as a righteous nation no longer fitted in.” (19)

From this we may derive two insights. First, this factor demonstrates how in the height of Mason’s reach within British culture—she had established the House of Education in Ambleside, she was a respected author, moved in important circles in society, and a growing number of state schools were adopting her methods—she became almost anonymous and forgotten in history. It wasn’t due to a deficiency in her educational philosophy or pedagogical methods, but rather to a radical turning away from traditional values. A turn, one might add, that demonstrably was for the worse not only in Britain but throughout the world, as a Second World War so soon after the First would confirm.

Second, Cooper hints at the fact that Mason is well grounded in the liberal arts tradition. This is something that Cooper identifies at various points in the book. Many advocates for educational renewal, particularly in the classical educational landscape, doubt Mason’s compatibility with classical education. Cooper spells out that at a fundamental level, Mason shares convictions with proponents of a renewal of the liberal arts tradition.

Philosophy of Education

Cooper next develops Mason’s philosophy of education by highlighting the core tenets of her work as well as spelling out interactions she has with numerous other philosophers of education. She grounds Mason’s philosophy within a Christian perspective, meaning that Mason’s “understanding of the world and the person” fit squarely “within a Christian metaphysical framework” (22). I think this points to an aspect of the coherent and holistic approach Mason provides in her approach to education. In a modern world driven by technology and economic outcomes, grounding education in scripture and a vital connection to God is essential.

The singular foundation to Mason’s philosophy of education, according to Cooper, is the personhood of the child. After quoting Mason, who views the child’s mind as complete—“his mind is the instrument of his education and his education does not produce his mind” (Mason, Philosophy of Education, 36)—Cooper expands upon this view of the personhood of the child:

“In her view—Mason’s understanding of identity and personhood—someone, rather than something is located in the imago dei, bearing the image of a personal, creator God. Children are separate and complete beings even in their dependency, capable of reflecting some of God’s attributes. They have language and reason and imagination. Each one exists as a real physical and metaphysical entity—an embodied self, a spiritual being with a soul and the powers necessary to appropriate knowledge, beauty and goodness.” (Cooper 24)

Grounded in the biblical concept of the image of God, the personhood of the child means that we are not educating blank slates and manipulating them to become something of significance at a later stage in their lives. They are born with capacities to learn and grow, and thus our job is to provide suitable means for them to acquire knowledge and wisdom. The respect due to the child as a learner with a powerful mind well equipped to assimilate what is to be learned is not only a foundational aspect to Mason’s work, but sets her apart from other modern educational theorists. After quoting Martin Marty, University of Chicago professor, regarding the shortcomings of modern approaches to childhood education, Cooper concludes regarding the personhood of the child that there is a “need for thoughtful and critical evaluations of popular developmental and educational theories, suggesting there is much more to understanding the child and person than hitherto assumed.” (27)

To this end, Cooper segues into a series of educational theorists with whom Mason grappled in the development of her own educational philosophy. The list of interlocutors is substantial—John Locke, Johann Friedrick Herbart, Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi, Friedrich Fröbel, Maria Montessori, Herbert Spencer, and William James—and indicates a wide range of thought and power of mind on the part of Mason. Cooper’s development of each interaction is succinct yet helps develop in compelling ways Mason’s concern with “the increasing influence of intellectual rationalism and scientific reductionism flowing out from the Enlightenment.” (27) Seeing Mason in light of this series of educational theorists makes it difficult to simply categorize her as an educational reformer in the progressive mold of Rousseau or Dewey, and yet she is not merely a traditionalist unwilling to take on board, for instance, Pestalozzi and Fröbel’s insistence on the natural capacities of the child. In fact, Mason proved herself quite capable of incorporating modern research into psychology and neurology while also breaking the mold of traditionalist conceptions of class, making a liberal arts educational available to all.

A thorough educational philosophy relies not only on a the quality of the anthropology—a high view of the child in Mason’s case—but also on a sound epistemology. For Mason, the mind does not emerge as a property due to education, the mind is what acts upon knowledge to produce the education person. There is a “spiritual nature of mind” that “requires the food of ideas for its daily bread” (45). The mind is active and seeks out knowledge, according to Mason. This differs from the empirical views of philosophers such as Locke and Herbart who view children as empty slates or sacs to be filled with knowledge. Mason abhorred predigested information and desired children to read books full of living ideas that would feed not only the minds of children, but also form their character. The goal of education, therefore, is to give every opportunity for the child to experience the wide array of insights available in a rich and generous curriculum.

To that end, the qualities of the materials Mason sought to present to children are in keeping with the best cultural artifacts produced across generations. Cooper connects this with the classical liberal arts:

“Mason ([Philosophy of Education] 1925) was passionately concerned to education all pupils broadly in the classic, liberal arts tradition—‘the joy of the Renaissance without its lawlessness’ (p. 9)—a holistic tradition which could cultivate imagination and good habits, train judgement and engender wide interests, after which anyone would be able to master the intricacies of any profession. (Cooper 50)

Methodology

Having established the main contours of Mason’s educational philosophy, Cooper then develops the key elements of Mason’s educational methods. The two keystones here are narration and habit training. What I like about Cooper’s work here is that she connects the dots, so to speak, between philosophy and method.

For instance, with regard to narration—the ability “to individually narrate back, in their own words, what they had heard” after a single reading—Cooper connects narration to the power of the mind, or the high view of the child explored in Mason’s philosophy:

“Narration was founded on her belief in the intrinsic and natural power of mind, through attentive listening, to recall knowledge gained from a single reading or seeing or doing, and the fact that such direct recollection makes so deep an impression on the mind that it remains for a long time and is never entirely lost.” (60)

Thus, narration is an active outworking of the high view of the child. Not only do we view the child as capable of assimilating knowledge, we place those capabilities in the driver’s seat of the child’s learning. Cooper shares a delightful quote from Comenius, the Czech reformer and educational philosopher, “teachers shall teach less and scholars should learn more.” (61 quoting The Great Didactic (1907), 4). In other words, the energy of learning is rightly placed within the sphere of the child, rather than energies being wasted by a teacher who overprepares and overdelivers materials that the learner can access directly through living books.

Regarding habits, Cooper again connects method to the high view of the child. Each child is naturally equipped to follow certain pathways when the parent or teacher rightly guides them along those pathways. There are physical habits (cleanliness, tidiness), moral habits (obedience, kindness), and intellectual habits (attention, accuracy), which must actually make life easier for the child. The temptation exists for parents and teachers to consider these habits as burdensome and therefore neglect to properly instill them, yet worse habits will be fixed within the child, making life ultimately harder for the child.

The rich curriculum of living books gives feet to Mason’s epistemology since the mind craves living ideas. Cooper notes how these living books are “written in literary language” or in a “narrative style.” (63) Some of the hallmarks of a Charlotte Mason education are the inclusion of nature study, picture study, composer study, and architecture, all of which Cooper situates within the methods of Mason.

Conclusion

Cooper wraps up her volume by evaluating the legacy of Mason. As someone who has been part of the Mason revival, she suggests an exciting potential outcome in the flourishing of homeschools and schools that adopt her philosophy and methods:

“It is possible that widespread interest could spearhead both a faithful and contemporary understanding of her applied Christian philosophy of education, backed up by the practical evidence of thousands of children educated in over 300 of her schools and many home schools in early 20^th-century Britain and beyond.” (69)

I for one agree that this revival of interest in Mason is having profound effects in North America. I am grateful that Elaine Cooper has put this very readable book together. For anyone wanting a clear and concise overview of Mason, this book is essential reading. If you provide leadership at a school using Charlotte Mason’s philosophy and methods, this is a great book to give to new faculty as part of their onboarding.

The post A Coherent and Holistic Education: Book Review of Elaine Cooper’s The Powerful and Neglected Voice of Charlotte Mason appeared first on .

There’s a lovely edition of Saint George and the Dragon written by Margaret Hodges and illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman that is an excellent book for young readers or reading aloud as a family. It is a retelling of the famous rendition of the story in Edmund Spenser’s Faerie Queene. A story that connected Saint George to English royalty. With the coronation of King Charles III this weekend, we will see many symbolic representations of Saint George as he has been venerated as the patron saint of England since the Middle Ages. From the England’s Saint George flag (red cross on white background) to the stained glass window in the nave of Westminster Abbey depicting George fighting the dragon, there are emblems that keep alive the memory and significance of Saint George today.

We see the story of Saint George appear frequently under different names. Take, for instance, the story of Harry Potter saving Ginny Weasley from the Basilisk in the second novel in the Harry Potter series. Here Potter plays the heroic Saint George role. This interpretation has been posited by Jordan Peterson. He writes:

“She [Ginny] is the maiden—or the anima, the soul—forever incarcerated by the dragon, as in the tale of St. George. It is up to Harry, orphaned hero, to wake and rescue her.”

Jordan Peterson, Beyond Order: 12 More Rules for Life (Random House, 2021), 79.

Peterson has been an important intellectual voice raising our attention of Carl Jung, an individual who provides a wealth of insight into the heroic individual. Viewing the heroic stories of figures such as Harry Potter, Bilbo Baggins and Saint George, Peterson sees how the heroic archetype emanates from the ultimate heroic figure: Jesus Christ. Peterson writes:

“In the desert, Christ encounters Satan (see Luke 4:1-13 and Matthew 4:1-11). This story has a clear psychological meaning—a metaphorical meaning—in addition to whatever else materials and metaphysical alike it might signify. It means that Christ is forever He who determines to take personal responsibility for the full depth of human depravity. It means that Christ is eternally He who is willing to confront and deeply consider and risk the temptations posed by the most malevolent elements of human nature. It means that Christ is always he who is willing to confront evil.”

Jordan Peterson, 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos (Random House, 2018), 180.

It is important to note that Peterson, a clinical psychologist and professor of psychology, has interpreted this passage from a psychological standpoint. He leaves open a more theological understanding of these passages and the nature of Christ. For this reason, we can see how Peterson’s psychological read of Christ is not in conflict with the theological conviction that Christ dies for sins as an atonement.

Having brought up Saint George, the dragon and Jordan Peterson, we are well situated to understand the relevance of Carl Jung to literature, history, mythology, psychology and philosophy. In this article we will explore Jung’s concept of the collective unconscious and how it plays out in archetypes we see in narratives, myths and dreams. Once we have a good grasp of Jung’s framework, we can then consider what role Charlotte Mason’s method of narration might play relative to this framework.

Jung and the Collective Unconscious

Carl Jung (1875-1961) was a Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst who founded analytical psychology. He is best known for his theories of the collective unconscious, archetypes, and the psychological complex. His work has had a profound influence on modern psychology and psychiatry, as well as on philosophy, anthropology, literature, and religious studies. A protégé of Freud, he later broke away from his

Jung first presented his theory of the collective unconscious to the public through his essay “The Concept of the Collective Unconscious,” published in 1936. He begins his definition by differentiating the collective from the personal unconscious. He writes:

“While the personal unconscious is made up essentially of contents which have at one time been conscious but which have disappeared from consciousness through having been forgotten or repressed, the contents of the collective unconscious have never been in consciousness, and therefore have never been individually acquired, but owe their existence exclusively to heredity.”

The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 9.1 (Princeton University Press, 1969), par. 88.

So, the personal unconscious can be understood as a storehouse of material that was once conscious for the individual. But the collective unconscious was never any individual’s personal consciousness. Jung goes on to state:

“In addition to our immediate consciousness, which is of a thoroughly personal nature . . . there exists a second psychic system of a collective, universal, and impersonal nature which is identical in all individuals. This collective unconscious does not develop individually but is inherited. It consists of pre-existent forms, the archetypes.”

The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 9.1 (Princeton University Press, 1969), par. 90.

To be clear, individuals experience this collective unconsciousness but it does not reside in any individual, but is a shared set of forms that Jung calls “archetypes.” Jung first studied this concept by analyzing the dreams of patients, a practice his predecessor Freud had likewise analyzed. As such, one of the primary methods deployed by Jung to identify archetypes of the collective unconscious was to analyze dreams. And while this method can be both fascinating and productive, I want to quickly move on to other avenues of study pursued by Jung. By this I mean the archetypes found in mythology and fairy tales. Jung writes in his essay “Archetypes of the Collective Unconscious”:

“Another well-known expression of the archetypes is myth and fairytale. But here too we are dealing with forms that have received a specific stamp and have been handed down through long periods of time.”

The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 9.1 (Princeton University Press, 1969), par. 6.

What this means is that archetypes have a mythological character that appear over and over again in literature and artwork. This is exactly what we see in the story of Saint George and the Dragon, a mythological archetype that gets re-packaged over and over again in literature under new guises—such as Harry Potter and Luke Skywalker—but connect to something heroic in human potential. We see this spelled out in detail in a stunning passage from one of Jung’s last works Mysterium Conjunctionis:

“In myths the hero is the one who conquers the dragon, not the one who is devoured by it. And yet both have to deal with the same dragon. Also, he is no hero who never met the dragon, or who, if he once saw it, declared afterwards that he saw nothing. Equally, only one who has risked the fight with the dragon and is not overcome by it wins the hoard, the “treasure hard to attain.” He alone has a genuine claim to self-confidence, for he has faced the dark ground of his self and thereby has gained himself. This experience gives him faith and trust, the pistis in the ability of the self to sustain him, for everything that menaced him from inside he has made his own. He has acquired the right to believe that he will be able to overcome all future threats by the same means.”

The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 14 (Princeton University Press, 1970), par. 756.

For Jung, the dragon resides within and must be confronted in order for the individual to truly know oneself and valiantly face the trials of life. One might be tempted to hear in this a form of self-realization that runs counter to faith in Christ for salvation; for Jung plays up the “faith and trust” in self. And while we must recognize that Jung was not friendly to the Christian faith, he saw how many of his concepts were actually grounded in Christian ideas. For instance, he identifies how the concept of archetype relates to the Imago Dei. One the subject of archetypes, he marshals evidence from both Irenaeus and Augustine to show how God has placed these archetypes of his divine nature within us. (see The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 9.1 (Princeton University Press, 1969), par. 5.)

To express this all succinctly, what Jung posits is that our imaginative enterprises from ancient myths to modern literature express something deep within us that connects to a transcendent reality. The more we understand particularly the heroic archetype, the more capable we are as individuals to encounter the chaos of our world and the struggles we confront within. To put it another way, the ancient quest for happiness or eudaimonia is the hero’s journey for which we are best equipped by reading and assimilating this heroic pattern from the great works.

A Note on Jungian Interpretation of Literature

Reading literature in light of Jungian archetypes can be both enlightening and fun. I have introduced Jung to high school students in my Modern World Humanities class. It can be eye opening to see beloved characters from in a new light. Take, for instance, a few characters from the Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. We have a complex of characters that are archetypal. Victor Frankenstein is a tragic hero who we see leaving the home, pursuing new avenues of scientific discovery, and then needing to protect his one true love from the monster he created. Victor’s father is the wise old man, giving sage advice at various points to Victor. Elizabeth Lavenza is at various points the damsel in distress and the nurturing mother. And the monster is the villain that the hero must confront to protect the damsel in distress. Seeing these characters in this light adds meaning to our reading of the text and can bring insight into the message of the novel.

Furthermore, there can be productive discussion about Jung’s concept of the shadow self. Jung describes the shadow as a dark part of one’s inner self that must be confronted to become a whole person. He writes:

“But if we are able to see our own shadow and can bear knowing about it, then a small part of the problem has already been solved: we have at least brought up the personal unconscious. The shadow is a living part of the personality and therefore wants to live with it in some form. It cannot be argued out of existence or rationalized into harmlessness.”

The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 9.1 (Princeton University Press, 1969), par. 44.

In the case of Victor Frankenstein, the monster represents his shadow self. He must confront that shadow and attempt to reconcile himself with it. Returning to the narrative of Saint Peter, we could then say that the dragon is not only an external force that must be confronted, but the dragon resides within. There is something profoundly Christian about this insight that residing within all of us is the villain we must heroically confront. And yet we are incapable of defeating the dragon apart from the help which God provides in Christ. I hear echoes Luther’s famous dictum simil justus et peccator “at once justified and a sinner.”

For Jung, literary criticism only played a small part of his understanding of the collective unconscious and the interpretation of archetypes. Yet he produced a brilliant essay on the matter written in 1922 entitled “On the Relation of Analytical Psychology to Poetry.” In this he looks not only at poetry but at all forms of art as a means of expressing the collective unconscious for that era. He writes:

“The artist seizes on this image, and in raising it from deepest unconsciousness he brings it into relation with conscious values, thereby transforming it until it can be accepted by the minds of his contemporaries according to their powers.”

The Collected Works of C. G. Jung, Vol. 15 (Princeton University Press, 1971), par. 83.

By “this image” Jung means something primordial or ancient in nature that wells up within the artist from this collective unconscious into a specified consciousness through the artist. We might refer to this as the artist’s muse to capture the idea using more classical language. When we are analyzing artwork, we are really getting at the message of the piece and how it communicates not only to the specific context in which it arose, but if it has enduring value, then also the transcendent values that still speak to us today.

We must be careful not to collapse all readings of literature and art into a reduction of Jung’s archetypes, a tendency all too easy to follow when we first learn of the archetypes. Dawson comments on this tendency:

“Take a text. Read the surface narrative. Stamp an archetypal pattern on to it. Assume its significance. Indulge in some woolly generalization. Case closed.”

Terence Dawson, “Literary Criticism and Analytical Psychology” in The Cambridge Companion to Jung (Cambridge University Press, 2008), 286.

The temptation is to hear only one story repeated over and over instead of hearing how the great metanarrative becomes expressed in unique detail and complexity generating insights that cannot be generalized. So, while I highly recommend reading literature with Jungian archetypes in mind, do so with the caution that such a method helpfully unlocks the potential meaning of the text rather than making all texts say exactly the same thing.

The Assimilation of the Heroic

Thus far I have focused almost entirely on Jung and now I must introduce him to another character, Charlotte Mason (1842-1923). Or perhaps I should say I should introduce Mason to Jung, for she precedes him by a generation. It is clear that Mason was deeply interested in psychology as each of her six volumes on education refer to the subject in some manner. She shows an astonishing awareness of figures in America and Germany, with William James (1842-1910), Johann Herbart (1776-1841) and Friedrich Fröbel (1782-1852) featuring prominently. She shows know awareness of the Vienna School inasmuch as no references to Freud or Jung are to be found in her writings. (A piece with some references to Freud was commissioned for the The Parents’ Review written by Sir Maurice Chaig entitled “Some Aspects of Education and Training in Relation to Mental Disorder” and was published in 1924, one year after Mason’s death).

Mason shows herself to be competent if not groundbreaking as it relates to the field of psychology, especially as it relates to childhood development and learning theory. It should be noted that her forward thinking about neuroplasticity—a term she never used but referred to with phrases like “a mark upon the brain substance” (vol 6, 100)—was eventually validated almost 100 years later through neurological studies as recently as the 1990s. I mention all this to indicate that it does not seem to be a stretch to consider Mason’s writings on educational philosophy highly compatible with the roughly contemporaneous works emerging in the field of psychoanalysis on the continent during her lifetime.

Much could be made regarding the psychological significance of her philosophy of education, especially concepts such as viewing children as whole persons or training children in habits. What I want to dig into though from a psychological perspective is narration. While this might seem a wholly academic process, I contend that it has psychological significance in light of Jung’s insights about the collective unconscious. To that end, let’s explore some of Mason’s thoughts as it regards the impact narration has on children.

We begin by understanding how narration is fundamentally about assimilation and not memorization. Central to Mason’s method of narration is cultivating the child’s power of attention to be properly deployed on living texts. She writes:

“He will find that in the act of narrating every power of his mind comes into play, that points and bearings which he had not observed are brought out; that the whole is visualized and brought into relief in an extraordinary way; in fact, that scene or argument has become a part of his personal experience; he knows, he has assimilated what he has read.”

Charlotte Mason, A Philosophy of Education (Living Book Press, 2017), 16.

Narration, then, bring the full power of the mind into contact with the rich details of the text, enlivening the imagination to picture or visualize the scene at hand. Note how she recognizes that this power of attention assimilates something into the child’s personal experience. By reading something like Saint George and the Dragon, the child assimilates that narration into himself as though it was a personal experience. That child becomes well practices in the heroic encounter with the forces of evil. She differentiates this from memorization, which lack this power of assimilation.

“This is not memory work. In order to memorise, we repeat over and over a passage or a series of points or names with the aid of such clues as we can invent; we do memorise a string of facts or words, and the new possession serves its purpose for a time, but it is not assimilated; its purpose being served, we know it no more.”

Charlotte Mason, A Philosophy of Education (Living Book Press, 2017), 16.

There is a place for memory work, not doubt, but it cannot bring into the character and development of the child with the same force as narration. This helps us understand an intangible aspect of narration. When we narrate, the goal is not to somehow quickly memorize the text in order to tell it back. Instead, the goal is to powerfully visualize the text, to take it into oneself so that the telling back is actually to share something that is becoming very personal to the reader. This personalization process entails an emotional and aesthetic quality that we as educators must be mindful to cultivate as students grow in the art of narrating.

Mason advises us to be rather choosy about the books we place before our young readers. we are to guide them away from “twaddle” (Vol 1, 176) and bring them into contact with “living books” (Vol 6, 154). She views what we read as the food of the mind. It feasts on ideas. And so our reading should be full of living ideas. As we grow healthiest with nutrient dense foods, so our reading should be dense with these living ideas. We are not merely interested in giving them intellectual power, we must also present to our children living books that cultivate their character, their duty, and their industriousness. She writes, “The great tales of the heroic age find their way to children’s hearts.” (Vol 6, 181) So, the prerequisite to narration having the outcome of plugging into the collective unconscious that Jung elaborates is to curate a wide array of living books from “a liberal range of subjects.” (Vol 6, 156)

This process of narration cultivates the wellbeing of children with the goal that children grow to have what Mason describes as “unity” and a healthy relationship of “oneself with oneself.” This links up nicely with the Jungian sense that the heroic encounter with dragons is an internal process of encountering the darkest parts of ourselves. Mason recognizes that her method has a psychological effect for children. She writes:

“They are curiously vitalised; not bored, not all alive in the playing-field and dull and inert in the schoolroom. . . . There is unity in their lives; they are not two persons, one with their play-fellows and quite other with their teachers and elders; but frank, fresh, showing keen interest in whatever comes in their way.”

Charlotte Mason, School Education (Living Books Press, 2017), 62-63.

How often have we seen students taking on different personality traits in different contexts? Mason contends that schooling that enables children to have an encounter with living ideas promotes the kind of unity of character that enables them to be the same person wherever they find themselves.

Ultimately, it is the internal battle we must enable our students to fight with valor. Mason in her volume The Formation of Character envisions this internal struggle. She writes:

“Modern scientists have added a great deal to the sum of available knowledge which should bear on the conduct of those relations of oneself with oneself which are implied in the terms, self-management, self-control, self-respect, self-love, self-help, self-abnegation, and so on. This knowledge is the more important because our power to conduct our relations with other people depends upon our power of conducting our relations with ourselves. Every man carries in his own person the key to human nature, and, in proportion as we are able to use this key, we shall be tolerant, gentle, helpful, wise and reverent.”

Charlotte Mason, The Formation of Character (Living Books Press, 2017), 86.

This encounter with the self is fundamental to individual wellbeing. And, as she notes, only when we have truly reconciled accounts internally can we conduct ourselves masterfully with the external world.

Hopefully this walk through Jung’s theory of the collective unconscious and Mason’s method of narration has stimulated your thoughts on educational philosophy. One of the reasons I have elaborated this particular connection is to prepare myself to speak on this topic at the Charlotte Mason Centenary Conference in Ambleside, England this summer. I am honored to present at one of the expert panels on day 3 of the conference. There is a profound sense of privilege to walk the town where she spent a significant portion of her life a century after her passing.

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The second event came later that year on September 18^th. Booker T. Washington gave a speech at the Atlanta Exposition. In this speech, presented before a predominantly white audience, laid out an educational plan that would aim at the advancement of blacks in vocational or industrial trades. Washington first advised “the friends of my race” to make “friends in every manly way of the people of all races by whom we are surrounded.” (Washington, “Address” 18 Sept. 1895) His was a message of reconciliation, spoken deep in the South, sounded the right note for those in attendance. The worry was that racial tensions would erupt in Atlanta, since Georgia had been adopting Jim Crow laws during the 1890s. It was only the following May that the Plessy v. Ferguson decision was made in the Supreme Court, upholding “separate but equal” segregation in the South.

What Washington meant by “making friends in every manly way” he immediately spells out in his speech:

“Our greatest danger is that in the great leap from slavery to freedom we may overlook the fact that the masses of us are to live by the productions of our hands, and fail to keep in mind that we shall prosper in proportion as we learn to dignify and glorify common labour, and put brains and skill into the common occupations of life; shall prosper in proportion as we learn to draw the line between the superficial and the substantial, the ornamental gewgaws of life and the useful. No race can prosper till it learns that there is as much dignity in tilling a field as in writing a poem. It is at the bottom of life we must begin, and not at the top. Nor should we permit our grievances to overshadow our opportunities.”

Booker T. Washington, “Address by Booker T. Washington“

(For teachers interested in investigating primary sources, you can access the manuscript of the speech at this Georgia Historical Society webpage and listen to an audio recording Washington made in 1908 of excerpts from his speech available at this Library of Congress webpage.)

The Atlanta Compromise

For Washington, the strategy to make black lives better is to forgo such things as campaigning for government positions or contending for positions in the ivory tower of colleges and universities. It is a strategy that makes sense. Catch the wave of the booming industrial economy in the South and ride that wave to a better future. Washington’s speech became known as the “Atlanta Compromise” in part due to the cooperative program he laid out, but also because it caught the industrial wave, but also the wave of Jim Crow laws and segregationism.

Despite the rivalry that soon emerged between Washington and W. E. B. DuBois, the Atlanta speech was at first celebrated by DuBois. In a brief letter dated 24^th September of 1895, DuBois writes:

“Let me heartily congratulate you upon your phenomenal success at Atlanta—it was a word fitly spoken.”

It is not altogether clear exactly what DuBois is congratulating here. Was he particularly impressed by the content of the speech or did he recognize the emergence of a new leader to take up the mantle of Douglass? DuBois was himself an emerging leader although he was over a decade younger than Washington. Perhaps the heart of DuBois’ message to Washington centers less on the content of what was spoken and more on DuBois’s recognition of the role Washington could play as the heir to Douglass. No matter how we read the praise DuBois sends to Washington, it did not take long for DuBois to reconsider his position on black education and to challenge the very message of the “Atlanta Compromise.”

A Study in Contrasts

Washington and DuBois could not have been more different, and perhaps that accounts for the difference in their perspectives on education. Booker T. Washington was born into slavery on a plantation in Virginia. He was nearly ten when the Emancipation Proclamation was issued, about which he writes that “some man who seemed to be a stranger (a United States officer, I presume) made a little speech and then read a rather long paper—the Emancipation Proclamation, I think. After the reading we were told that we were all free, and could go when and where we pleased.” (Up from Slavery 20-21) As a freedman, Washington worked in the coals mines while attending Hampton Institute. At the age of 25, Washington was appointed as principal to what is now called Tuskegee University in Alabama. Tuskagee was a place where Washington could put into practice his “head, hearts, and hands” approach so that students were trained “to return to the plantation districts and show the people there how to put new energy and new ideas into farming as well as into the intellectual and moral and religious life of the people.” (Up from Slavery 160).

DuBois, on the other hand, was born into a free black family in Massachusetts, attending integrated schools during his childhood. He went to Fisk University where he encountered racism and segregation for the first time. After Fisk he went on to earn another bachelor’s degree from Harvard and then completed graduate work at the University of Berlin. He returned to the States and became the first black to earn a PhD from Harvard. DuBois was offered a position at Tuskagee, which would have seen him working alongside Washington, but instead took a position at Wilberforce University in Ohio. Later he taught at Atlanta University and developed a prominent voice domestically and internationally in scientific sociology. It is no surprise, then, that, as an academic tour de force himself, DuBois would champion a very different educational vision than Washington. He focused on the liberal arts with a view to raising up leaders within the black community who would be able to take up prominent positions in politics and business to enact real change in society.

The Talented Tenth

The thesis DuBois developed took on different nuances over time. In an essay entitled “The Talented Tenth,” DuBois lays out his philosophical conviction that the object of education must be the formation of the person rather than money-making or technical skill.

“Men we shall have only as we make manhood the object of the work of schools—intelligence, broad sympathy, knowledge of the world that was and is, and of the relation of men to it—this is the curriculum of that Higher Education which must underlie true life.”

W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Talented Tenth,” 33-34.

He goes on to demonstrate that through the generations leaders rose up even during slavery to provide leadership that ultimately led to emancipation. These were exceptional people, which proves his point that the training of exceptional leaders is what will continue to lead equality of the races. DuBois lays out the program of study for students at his Atlanta University.

“Here students from the grammar grades, after a three years’ high school course, take a college course of 136 weeks. One-fourth of this time is given to Latin and Greek; one-fifth, to English and modern languages; one-sixth, to history and social science; one-seventh, to natural science; one-eighth to mathematics, and one-eighth to philosophy and pedagogy.”

W. E. B. Du Bois, “The Talented Tenth,” 49.

This sounds very much like the liberal arts education we have promoted in the classical Christian educational renewal movement. From DuBois’ perspective, it is the liberal arts that will train up the next generation of black leaders who will transform society.

Not So Different

Now the delineation of these two educational programs has thus far been expressed in stark terms. Washington’s “Atlanta Compromise” emphasizes industrial training while DuBois insists on a liberal arts education for the “Talented Tenth.” It is all too easy to draw lines between these pedagogical models in hindsight. Yet there are many ways in which we may see overlap between these two. Yes, the divide between DuBois and Washington was exacerbated by the essay DuBois wrote in The Souls of Black Folk entitled “Of Mr. Booker T. Washington and Others” in which he was critical of Washington’s autobiography Up from Slavery. However, DuBois later gave perspective to exactly what was at the heart of their disagreement. It was not the educational program, per se, but the trust that dutiful, diligent work would lead to acceptance of a black work ethic among whites in the South. He writes:

“I realized the need for what Washington was doing. Yet it seemed to me he was giving up essential ground that would be hard to win back. I don’t think Washington saw this until the last years of his life. He kept hoping. But before he died he must have known that he and his hopes had been rejected and that he had, without so intending, helped make stronger — and more fiercely defended — a separation and rejection that made a mockery of all he had hoped and dreamed.”

“W.E.B. DuBois,” The Atlantic Monthly, Nov. 1965

The hopes and dreams of Washington were dashed not because of a blind faith in his educational program, but in his faith that respectable work would be universally praised by a watching world. If we were solely to look at the educational results in the lives of the individual students, a different perspective emerges. Creating educational programs with the aim of making radical changes in society misplace the actual educational aim. Developing human beings as whole persons is a more fundamental aim, and we are probably safe in saying the programs developed by both Washington and DuBois met this aim.

Moral Formation

My claim that Washington and DuBois are not so different rests not in the details of their program of study, but in the importance both men placed in the moral formation of students. Washington’s technical education placed emphasis on the moral and religious aspects of educations.

“We wanted to give them such an education as would fit a large proportion of them to be teachers, and at the same time cause them to return to the plantation districts and show the people there how to put new energy and new ideas into farming, as well as into the intellectual and moral and religious life of the people.”

Up from Slavery 160

We get a similar hint at moral and spiritual development in The Souls of Black Folk. For instance, DuBois writes, “sometime, somewhere, men will judge men by their souls and not by their skin.” (The Souls of Black Folk 261) In his essay “The Talented Tenth,” he delineates two main objectives for education in a post-emancipation society:

“If then we start out to train an ignorant and unskilled people with a heritage of bad habits, our system of training must set before itself two great aims the one dealing with knowledge and character, the other part seeking to give the child the technical knowledge necessary for him to earn a living under the present circumstances.”

“Talented Tenth” 58

Although DuBois was critical of Washington’s compromise, we see here a recognition that educated people must make a living. Yet, the first of the two great aims is knowledge and character. On even a cursory reading of DuBois, one is struck by his thorough knowledge of the Western canon, or what we might call the traditional liberal arts. So by “knowledge” we are not talking about a mastery of facts and figures prominent in an industrial age, but of the long tradition of great authors and ideas. This is knowledge that DuBois sees as transcending racial divide, even though it has come to be thought of as a collection of dead white men’s thoughts. Indeed, DuBois sees this long tradition as the foundation for character and creating a moral society.

So, where we find overlap in the Washington-DuBois debate is on this concept of morality. And it is on this concept we should give serious consideration to the ideas both men propound. These two men were seeking a Renaissance in their time, and in many ways they were the architects of a flowering of black culture. I am quick to add that their reflections on education are instructive not only for a minority culture, but promote global considerations that are crucial for us to get right in our current educational renewal movement.

Ideas not Ideology

Washington and DuBois both seek to promote the great society; one in which racial lines are erased and mutual respect leads to intellectual, moral and technological advance. Both men sought to utilize great ideas as a means of train young men and women. Great ideas are not the domain of one class, sect, race or people. They challenge us and through that challenge transform us through what we might call the dialectical process. We weight different ideas, discerning and discriminating, in order to arrive at a synthesis. Great ideas generate new ideas, transforming not only our minds but also our characters.

Contrast this with ideology. An ideology is a system of ideals often accepted uncritically and unquestioningly. Our current political and social landscape is rife with conflicting ideologies. The impact of the conflict of ideologies is that camps – whether to the right or to the left – attempt to commandeer institutions, whether that be media, government or schools. No longer is our society marked by discourse, dialogue and debate. Instead, ideology forces compliance with a set of preformed beliefs. Education becomes a method of indoctrination. Now one must be careful here, because there are sets of true propositions enfolded in these ideologies. The problem is that nothing is up for debate. Questioning the ideology is the same as denial of the ideology, and one becomes excommunicated from the “group think.”

As an educational renewal movement, there is a temptation to offer a counter set of agendas. “Okay, fine,” we might say, “the public schools are promoting the agenda of gender fluidity, then we’ll promote the alternative agenda.” I’m struck, however, that this was not the strategy of DuBois or Washington. Despite racism and segregation, they sought to train students in intellectual and moral skills that would enable them to enter into the discourse of the greater society. Classical Christian schools must avoid the allure of ideological agenda and remain true to training students in the logic and rhetoric that will prepare our graduates to take up nuances positions and speak persuasively from a place of well-developed convictions.

Hand, Head, and Heart

The classical Christian school movement might be more inclined towards the DuBois educational program. He, after all, promotes the very same liberal arts tradition we call home. However, DuBois himself saw the liability of creating an elite class that becomes self-perpetuating; enamored of its own self-importance rather than utilizing its position to raise all of society. Thus, a Washington-DuBois synthesis is well worthy of consideration.

The phrase “hand, head, and heart” comes from Washington. (Up from Slavery 85) This is a valuable triad to frame a fully embodied philosophy of education. I really like this phrasing pulled from the website of the Ecclesial Schools Initiative, “A classical education beckons learners toward goodness, truth, and beauty, wherever it may be found, integrating faith into all areas of learning, and helping students acquire the habits of heart, body, and mind that are essential for living a flourishing human life.” Kevin Clark, founder of the Ecclesial Schools Initiative, is one of the authors—along with Ravi Jain—of The Liberal Arts Tradition (reviewed here). Technical skill is recognized in this book as a “wholly legitimate pursuit.” In other words, we cannot be so singularly focused on the intellectual and moral development of our students that we leave no room for skills development. Clark and Jain write:

“The liberal arts are only intended to be the tools of learning to be used in all other studies. The three branches of philosophy and, in addition, theology, then contain the integrated tapestry of all other knowledge as represented by the innumerable particular sciences, such as biology, ethics, economics, and chemistry. Moreover, professional degrees, to be acquired later, recognize that other skills (arts) are needed for one’s vocation.”

Clark and Jain, The Liberal Arts Tradition, 7

To this might be added apprenticeship in a trade as opposed to professional degrees. More and more the collegiate landscape has become overly expensive relative to its waning value due to the ideological agendas present in higher education. Graduates from classical Christian schools might be better placed in trade apprenticeships or military service. All of this to say that the liberal arts are a necessary element in learning the knowledge and character required to live a flourishing life. That life, though, needs to be embodied in vocations that support and promote flourishing. I highly recommend reading through Jason’s article “Apprenticeship in the Arts” where he explores professions and trades in light of Chris Hall’s Common Arts Education.

Educational Renewal in Light of 1895

The momentous occasion of Washington’s “Atlanta Speech” in 1895 marks a period of reflection and debate over education, particularly between Washington and DuBois. It is striking to note that 1895 was also the year when the first professional American football match was played (Sept. 3), the first automobile race occurred (Nov. 28), and the first moving picture film was shown (Dec. 28). When we consider how much society has been transformed by the onset of these modern artifacts, we can see that a significant aspect of what Washington and DuBois were wrestling with was not just racial in nature, but also pertained to how modernism eroded conceptions of individual character and community cohesion.

The impact of modernism has left us with a society that is fractured and hurting. Hopefully by tracing the debate between Washington and DuBois, we can see lines of constructive thought that invigorate our own educational renewal movement. We have in both Washington and DuBois compatriots who are deeply concerned to cultivate virtue in students for the betterment of society. If Up from Slavery, The Souls of Black Folk or “The Talented Tenth” are not yet in your curriculum, I highly recommend their adoption. Perhaps this review of their work has inspired you to consider ways to broaden your understanding of the outcomes for classical Christian education. Perhaps our students, trained in the liberal arts, are exactly what our society needs to lead us out of our current political catastrophe. Perhaps our students, educated holistically in hand, heart and head, will embody the lives of flourishing that is the true outcome of a good education.

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