The Bible in a Charlotte Mason Homeschool

In the CM method, we aim to educate not just our children’s minds and bodies, but also their heart. Miss Mason describes it as appealing to their ‘feelings,’ defining ‘mind’ or ‘feelings’ as “manifestations of that spiritual entity which is each one of us.” It can also refer to our looking after the well-being of our children’s souls. In Volume 6, page 64, Miss Mason quotes from Volume 4 “Ourselves,” 

How is the soul of a man to be satisfied? Crowned kings have thrown up dominion because they want that which is greater than kingdoms; profound scholars fret under limitations which keep them playing upon the margin of the unsounded ocean of knowledge; no great love can satisfy itself with loving; there is no satisfaction save one for the soul of man, because the things about him are finite, measurable, incomplete and his reach is beyond his grasp. He has an urgent, incessant, irrepressible need of the infinite. 

Then she goes on to say:

“I want, am made for, and must have a God”—not a mere serviceable religion,—because we have in us an infinite capacity for love, loyalty and service which we cannot expend upon any other. 

But what sort of approaches do we prepare for children towards the God whom they need, the Saviour in Whom is all help, the King who affords all delight, commands all adoration and loyalty? Any words or thoughts of ours are poor and insufficient, but we have a treasury of divine words which they read and know with satisfying pleasure and tell with singular beauty and fitness. 

You might say, “But children can’t understand the Bible!” On the contrary, because they are actually designed to come alive with well-written literature, they can understand more than we give them credit for. If we, at our age, struggle to understand the words of the Bible, they can be trained to grapple with it when they are exposed to excellent literature from a young age. Take a look at an example that Miss Mason includes in Volume 6: 

“The Bible is the most interesting book I know,” said a young person of ten who had read a good many books and knew her Bible. By degrees children get their knowledge of God which is the object of the final daily prayer in our beautiful liturgy—the prayer of St. Chrysostom—“Grant us in this world knoweldge of Thy truth,” and all other knowledge which they obtain gathers round and illuminates this.

What do you think? How many days a week do you schedule Bible readings for your CM homeschool? Share them in the comments below!