A Charlotte Mason Living Education: The Harmony of Books and Things
Charlotte Mason’s vision for education was broad and generous, a feast set before the child for the nourishment of both mind and soul. At the center of her method stands the living book, a well–written and thoughtful text that stirs the imagination and inspires deep thinking. Yet Mason never intended reading and narration to be the whole of a child’s education. She spoke of “books and things,” a reminder that while words shape the intellect, the world of things awakens the senses, the hands, and the heart.
Reading and narration form a vital core in the Mason approach. Through them, a child learns to attend, to process ideas, and to express them clearly. Narration is a practice in both comprehension and communication, requiring a child to put into their own words what they have heard or read. However, Mason’s own programmes reveal that she never stopped here. Her timetables brimmed with the “things” of life, nature walks, handicrafts, music, drawing, physical exercise, practical skills, and encounters with art and beauty.
The inclusion of these “things” is not an optional extra. Mason believed that children are whole persons, born with an appetite for all that is true, good, and beautiful. Books can teach a child about the colors of a meadow, but only the open air and a keen eye can train them to notice the glint of dew on grass or the slow unfolding of a blossom. A biography can introduce the life of a composer, but hearing the music performed, lingering over its notes, and making it part of the home atmosphere gives the child a living relationship with that composer.
Education, in Mason’s view, is not the delivery of information but the forming of relationships. Relationships are not forged solely through reading. A child must handle clay to learn its texture, sketch a tree to truly see its structure, or knead bread to understand the patience of the baker’s art. These things are not distractions from intellectual work; they are the means by which the intellect, the senses, and the will are trained together.
Incorporating “things” also protects the child from a narrowed understanding of knowledge. Without the balance of hands-on experiences, practical skills, and artistic encounters, education can become abstract and disconnected from daily life. Mason sought to prepare children not only to think well but also to live well, capable of working skillfully, appreciating beauty, and engaging with the world’s complexities.
In our time, we have new tools that can serve the same principles Mason upheld. We might create character cards that highlight a virtue and its opposite, offering a visual and tangible way for a child to reflect on moral development. We might use printed nature field guides, digital microscopes, or thoughtfully chosen documentaries to deepen a relationship with the natural world. Modern mapping tools and interactive history timelines can make geography and history vivid. A carefully curated online art gallery visit can open the doors of the Louvre or the Uffizi to a child at home. These are not replacements for real encounters, but they can extend the reach of the feast and meet children where they are. Used with intention, they can carry the spirit of “things” into a modern setting, preserving the tactile, personal, and relational elements that make learning living.
The harmony of books and things invites children into a life where thought and action meet. A child who reads about botany in a living book will gain much, but the learning deepens when that knowledge is paired with hours in the garden, tools in hand, watching the cycle of growth with their own eyes. A reading of Plutarch’s Lives may stir the mind with examples of virtue and leadership, but the habits formed in the small duties of home life give those lessons a living application.
To give a child both books and things is to acknowledge their whole humanity. It is to honor the mind’s hunger for ideas and the body’s need for movement, skill, and beauty. It is to trust that truth can be found in a page and in a sunrise, that wisdom grows in the library and in the workshop, and that a rich education is woven from both.
In following Charlotte Mason’s lead, we do not reduce education to reading and narration alone. We spread a table where books and things are offered together, each nourishing the child in its own way, each necessary to the growth of the whole person.
