Education is a Life

"We absolutely must disabuse our minds of the theory that the functions of education are, in the main, gymnastic.  In the early years of the child's life it makes, perhaps, little apparent difference whether his parents start with the notion that to educate is to fill a receptacle, inscribe a tablet, mould plastic matter or nourish a life; but in the end we shall find that only those ideas which have fed his life are taken into the being of the child; all else is thrown away, or worse, is an impediment and an injury to the vital processes."

-Charlotte Mason, "The Draft Proof"

Knowledge for its own sake: Part 2

"It seems to me that education which appeals to the desire for wealth (marks, prizes, scholarships or the like), or to the desire of excelling (as in the taking of places, etc.), or to any other of the natural desires, except that for knowledge, destroys the balance of character, and, what is even more fatal, destroys by inanition that desire for and delight in knowledge which is meant for our joy and enrichment through the whole of life."

--Charlotte Mason, "Books and Things"

From the book Home and School Education