Appropriating the Spoken Word within Charlotte Mason's Philosophy

Appropriating the Spoken Word in Charlotte Mason's Philosophy

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Most people are onboarded to Charlotte Mason’s method of education with her emphasis on books.  This emphasis will forever ring as a definitive response to the needs of personhood. The gift of the written word, the innovation of the printed word, the convenience of the bound word, the genius of preserved words were a heritage of western culture that modern education was beginning to relegate to the back burner.

“Education for the masses requires revision and modernization”, they said.

“Books are cumbersome, old fashioned, and expensive.”, they said.

During this shift the teacher stepped to the fore and voice became the predominant tool of the classroom. As Charlotte Mason came of age and began her teaching career the teaching tool of voice, was much used – and in her opinion ill-used. Her volumes are flecked with sharp observations and rebukes. In volume 3 we hear:

“Too much faith is commonly placed in oral lessons and lectures; “to be poured into like a bucket”. As says Carlyle, “is not exhilarating to any soul”, neither is it exhilarating to have every difficulty explained to weariness, or to have the explanation teased out of one by questions. “I will not be put to the question. Don’t you consider, sir, that these are not the manners of a gentleman? I will not be baited with, what and why; What is this? What is that? Why is a cow’s tail long? Why is a foxes’ tail bushy?” …This is what children think, though they say nothing.”

A thousand scenes of recognition flood our minds, and we know that this is true, but what is the cure? Charlotte Mason said that the vital element is to put students, as much as possible, into firsthand contact with ideas, mind-to-mind.

Carefully combing through the mass of print on page, she highlighted books that had certain distinguishing qualities; she called them Living Books. One reason for her advocation of real, “living”, books in the classroom was the clear-eyed understanding that every teacher couldn’t possibly be expected to be an authority on every subject, and that it is unjust to limit students to only the knowledge of their particular teacher.

The best ideas of the best minds have been collected in books, and yet quality books were, and often still are expensive for class use. Hints of this were picked up in various quarters and before long the textbook appeared as a form of compensation. However, with utility and expediency a priority, the textbook proved a lackluster way of passing knowledge dulling both idea and student.  

The monetary cost of real books, she argued, was worth it due to the number of doors they could open for children, for the quality of thought preserved, and for the wholeness of the ideas left intact. Her value of books was not in the traditional vein of a set list of “Great Books”, or of particular pieces of thought to be funneled down, but rather on finding the most vibrant thought going on as many topics as possible and offering these directly to students. The authors may be old or new; the key was vitality of thought and breadth of ideas. Living books break the limits of space and time and allow access to the thoughts of people not immediately available to us. No voice required. Fold in her use of narration, and questioning becomes superfluous as well. Her plan was genius in its simplicity and stunning in its scope.

When taken in reverse, it becomes clear that there could be people alive today who are authorities on certain subjects and that these people could equally speak as write. It is not that Charlotte Mason was against oral communication per se, but against its use as the primary conveyance of knowledge, its use as a motivator, and its use as a securer of knowledge.

In her writings she specifically mentions two ways of using voice in the classroom: The oral lesson and the lecture. Of the oral lesson she gives these parameters: that is should be limited to the giving of impulse for the acquirement of knowledge, and the ordering of knowledge… not the conveyance of knowledge. “Giving of impulse” and “ordering of knowledge” denote distinct techniques that happen around Living Books, pre-reading and post-reading. Today we often refer to this as the lesson arc. Miss Mason’s adjustment of the oral lesson makes it book centric rather than teacher centric; places the impetus on the student rather than on the teacher.

Less often discussed in Charlotte Mason circles is the lecture. Is this mode a taboo for Charlotte Mason schools? Are there ever times when voice can be used as a vehicle for ideas in a life-giving way? Apparently Charlotte Mason thought so as we know that she hosted lectures for her teachers in Ambleside and even lectured herself. In doing so she was not contradicting herself but rather modeling principles over system. The above quote goes on to say:

“Oral lessons have their occasional use, and when they are fitly given it is the children who ask the questions. Perhaps it is not wholesome or quite honest for a teacher to pose as the source of all knowledge and to give “lovely” lessons. Such lessons are titillating for the moment, but they give children the minimum of mental labor…”

It seems that Charlotte Mason was not so much against the spoken word in classes, but rather that there are principles to understand and with which to adhere, things like the posture of the teacher, the quality of thought, and the presentation of the thought.

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Historically, the voice of the teacher was leaned heavily upon due to the dismal lack of books. Teachers would cram themselves full of easy to pass-a-long tidbits in order to regurgitate them before the class. In this approach, which is not uncommon today, the teacher positions themself as a screen between the idea and the student. A middleman. The effect is deadening even when done with the best of motives.

In the tiny but mighty hammers of day-in and day-out lessons in which the real work of education is done, it is clear that oral conveyance must be limited and strictly clarified. Too much sway and power for the teacher is a looming risk, and the personality of the student is at stake. The vital need for students to get at and assimilate knowledge for themselves as the barbell of education cannot be overstated, that this is best done with Living Books is the lynchpin.

But within these lines of work, are there living people who could punctuate the term or year and contribute to a healthy rhythm and add broadness? What would this component look like while adhering to Charlotte Mason’s principles? In her specific uses we glimpse a key. In each scenario we see that the person speaking is an authority on, or holds special knowledge in, a specific topic, and assumes a particular posture.

Misuse of the Lecture

When attempting to meld the lecture to Charlotte Mason’s principles it will be tempting to try to incorporate a relational/ conversational element in order to help it out of its stilted personae. Be careful, this can quickly digress. Be sure you have a firm grip of the fundamentals of Narration… and the purpose of a lecture!

The purpose of a lecture is for the audience to gain ideas, and for the speaker to be the source. If the speaker begins by asking questions, the class feels frustrated; they have been given nothing for their mind to work upon.

Proper narration is the giving back of what has been taken in. 

Narration is only possible after something has been offered. It is true that in the Charlotte Mason model the teacher will begin a lesson with a time to recall the previous ideas, but when done properly it is the student that gives the effort to ask themselves the questions, what, and then, what-next. In actuality this is functioning as a form of delayed narration. Specific ideas had been clearly given and are now being recalled.

This recall portion of a lesson is designed to link thought to thought, like a chain. So that to pull up one link-of-an-idea is to pull up a whole chain of thought. This is crucial to using living books in a continuing way.

This approach could be used in a series of lectures, where students know that it will be expected, but the asking of direct questions as a starting point puts people on their guard and throws you off balance. Go ahead and jump straight to the “pique interest” part of a Charlotte Mason lesson; don’t require a response to your interest piquing proposition, it is a lecture after all, but do get them thinking, wanting.

Another mistake I have seen is the attempt to try to create narration-type engagements during a presentation while again, misunderstanding narration. Mid-lesson a speaker may ask, “What do you think?” or, “What does this make you think of?”, or in the worse cases, “This makes me think of something, can anyone guess what it is?”. Again, narration is the accurate telling back of something that has been taken in.

It is fair to ask what people think about it… after you, and they (narration!), have stated what it is. It is unfair to try to leverage this as a way of getting to what you as the speaker think about it. Some speakers try to use the audience as stepping-stones to get from point to point. It is frustrating for people to try to guess what you are thinking of; it is a gut punch when it becomes apparent that the speaker doesn’t actually care but was merely fishing for a particular idea. In a lecture it is ok to have a point, make it; to have an opinion, state it. It is dis-ingenuous to masquerade it as a conversation. It is a misunderstanding to think this is narration.

These misguided attempts to spice up lectures are blocks to genuine engagement with thought. A healthy way to use the lecture is to keep the thing the thing. There is a hesitancy in doing this in Charlotte Mason circles due to her emphasis on not “pointing the moral”, and her advice for the teacher to practice “masterly inactivity”. These admonitions protect the sacredness of putting the student into direct contact with the idea. With a book, the teacher does take a secondary role; the printed word is the vehicle of thought. But in a lecture, the speaker is the vehicle. Blundering attempts to mash two approaches together and awkward attempts at standing-aside when voice is in fact required, can cause the speaker to become a stumbling block to the passing of thought.

Proper Use of the Lecture

And so, granted permission to speak with clear parameters, how can Charlotte Mason educators allow contemporary voices to convey special knowledge well?

The person chosen to wield this tool should be passionate and knowledgeable about their topic. Examples of persons with special knowledge that Charlotte Mason hosted for her students include: naturalists, artists, doctors, and pastors. Examples of persons with specialized knowledge we have hosted for our students at Red-Brick Academy include: musicians, nutritionists, chefs, entrepreneurs, and military veterans.

The age of the audience should be considered and the time allotted adjusted accordingly. Short lessons still apply! The lecturer should present in a literary or narrative style whenever possible. Again, in this limited space it will be ok for the speaker to have an opinion. Proper narration, and the fact that that particular speaker will not be the sole source of ideas should protect against abuse. A single voice in a classroom or on a topic is the danger.

Assimilating the Lecture

One of the main reasons that Miss Mason did not prioritize lectures was due to the posture of passiveness it pushed the student in to. The trap is that no matter how knowledgeable the speaker, the listener is just that, the listener. This is where the Charlotte Mason lesson arc shows its dexterity. The pattern of Recall, Receive, Tell Back, and Use, may be applied to any number of interactions that provide living ideas.

The modern take on engagement with oral material is the taking of notes, copious notetaking. And while there is a place for this skill both in the Charlotte Mason classroom of upper forms and as preparation for the many “nonliving” contexts students may find themselves in in the future, there is an inherent element of distraction in notetaking. The eyes are down, the hands busy, the mind on the thing being written rather than the current words of the speaker, the content is pieced out - and pieced in. What would Miss Mason’s advice be on this subject? Again, we have a hint.

In her book “The Story of Charlotte Mason” Miss Mason’s close friend Essex Cholmondeley tells us that during lectures at The House of Education, students were not allowed to take notes. Rather they would listen with full attention: ears, eyes, bodies. Not scribbling down tidbits and highlights but listening for the full arc of thought flecked with details. Always, at the end of a session they would be allowed 15 minutes to write down their narrations and capture the whole. The habit of this practice doesn’t allow for passive listeners, but active participants in the effort of the passing of ideas.

Again, the particular danger of the oral lesson and lecture is the posture of passivity for the student, and the posture of superiority for the speaker. The habit of true narration protects against the former; the primary use of books protects against the latter.

Finally, it is from one of Miss Mason’s most emphatic statements that we get a final clarification on the use of voice in the classroom:

“… no education seems to be worth its name which has not made children at home in the world of books, and so related them, mind to mind, with thinkers who have dealt with knowledge. We reject epitomes, compilations, and their like, and put into children’s hands books, long or short, are living. Thus it becomes a large part of the teacher’s work to help children to deal with their books; so that the oral lesson and the lecture are but small matters in education, and are used chiefly to summarise, or to expand or illustrate.”

The use of voice, be it in what she called the oral Lesson or the lecture is always secondary, subservient to, and predicated upon the use of living books. Only then may the spoken word summarize, expand, or illustrate – and then carefully. This is quite a different thing from the typical teacher chatter that fills so many classrooms.   

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Charlotte Mason’s method of education, while prioritizing living books as the primary vehicles of thought also marks off space for the great minds and hearts who are sharing our little cubicle of space and time. It is possible to be looking back so much that we miss the jewels before us. Miss Mason was aware of this in her time, and we should strive to maintain her attitude. Knowledge is first of all progressive, always moving forward, advancing and growing. Charlotte Mason believed that the Holy Spirit is continually working in His ministry of revelation, lacing the bits we have, together with the bits being “discovered”. This is what Miss Mason believed about her own contributions to the field of education, and she felt certain that advances would continue in all fields. You can bet she would have been a part of them and would want us to be as well.

The education we offer our children must not be a stilted, rear-facing, museum of artifacts being dusted and re-dusted. Those foundational things are vital, but their vitality is only evidenced in the fact that they beget new thought, new life. When used properly, the lecture can be a place to capture those fresh sprigs of growth. In perfect step with all of her other purposeful applications of philosophy, Charlotte Mason gave us a model.

Sara Timothy 2025

*All quotes in the piece are taken from vol. 3