Why did I pursue Mrs. Curwen’s Pianoforte Method?

When my oldest son Case was two or three, my husband and I started having the conversations about school. Where was he going to go to school? Or were we going to homeschool him?

While the decision itself was easy for us, we knew that the decision to homeschool would immensely impact our life. The choice we made to school our children from home would come with many consequences.

Many blessings? Yes! Those too.

After deciding to homeschool, we sat down with four or five families. We sat with a family who decided to put their children in public schools. We sat with a family who pursued the Classical Conversations curriculum. We sat with a family who pursued a classical style of learning. We asked questions. We weren’t on a pursuit to challenge them, but we wanted to learn from them.

I also attended an informal round table discussion a couple years ago. We talked about the Charlotte Mason philosophy of homeschooling. Then, through a completely different route in life, we also coincidentally met another family who homeschooled with the Charlotte Mason philosophy.

There was something appealing about this philosophy rooted in the Biblical truth that every child has been created in the image of God.

They deserve a well rounded, appetizing, and bread feast in life. They are people with personalities and relationship and hopes and desires.

(Anyone who has every pursued Charlotte Mason knows full well that it’s absolutely impossible to summarize her philosophy in a paragraph. Please excuse my attempts.)

My husband and I started reading her volumes, and I started attending a book club / discussion group. We watched families along the way. We observed children, and we observed moms. We observed atmospheres within the homes we sat in. We saw ways of living and habits that provoked peace in homes.

We also saw families that fostered conversations about God.

We continued reading, and I told my husband we couldn’t go back. Sometimes I wished I had never read Miss Mason’s philosophies. They’re so different than so many things in life. She turned our parenting styles up side down. Instead of trying to change our children, we changed.

We tested her philosophy against Scripture. We tested her philosophy in our home.

We kept moving forward.

Miss Mason penned six volumes of works amount countless articles and poems. We started reading and re-reading her volumes.

Her volumes are packed with wisdom. We started trusting her words. Like I mentioned, we put her words into practice. It sometimes seemed silly to trust an educational philosophy written in the early 1900s, but her wisdom has changed how our family lives life. She’s changed it for the better.

Miss Mason is the reason I pursued Mrs. Curwen.

If you want to read where she mentions Mrs. Curwen and when to use her philosophy, feel free to read on. The quotes get a bit lengthy.

She recommends Mrs. Curwen’s philosophy in her volumes. Here are a few quotes from her works:

In Volume 1 on page 315, she says:

“If possible, let the children learn from the first under artists, lovers of their work: it is a serious mistake to let the child lay the foundation of whatever he may do in the future under ill-qualified mechanical teachers, who kindle in him none of the enthusiasm which is the life of art. I should like, in connection with singing, to mention the admirable educational effects of the Tonic Sol-fa method. [See Appendix A]

Children learn by it in a magical way to produce sign for sound and sound for sign, that is, they can not only read music, but can write the notes for, or make the proper hand signs for, the notes of a passage sung to them. Ear and Voice are simultaneously and equally cultivated.

Mrs. Curwen’s Child Pianist [See Appendix A] method is worked out, with minute care, upon the same lines; that is, the child’s knowledge of the theory of music and his ear training keep pace with his power of execution, and seem to do away with the deadly dreariness of ‘practising.'”

In Volume 2 on page 186, she says,

“A quick and true ear is another possession that does not come by Nature, or anyway, if it does, it is too often lost. How many sounds can you distinguish in a sudden silence out of doors? Let these be named in order from the less to the more acute. Let the notes of the birds be distinguished, both call-notes and song-notes; the four or five distinct sounds to be heard in the flow of a brook. Cultivate accuracy in distinguishing footfalls and voices; in discerning, with their eyes shut, the direction from which a sound proceeds, in which footsteps are moving. Distinguish passing vehicles by the sounds; as lorry, brougham, dog-cart. Music is, no doubt, the means par excellence for this kind of ear culture. Mrs.Curwen’s ‘Child Pianist’ puts carefully graduated work of this kind into the hands of parents; and, if a child never become a performer, to have acquired a cultivated and correct ear is no small part of a musical education.”

She mentions Mrs. Curwen again. In Volume 3 on page 272, she says,

“The child of six goes into Class Ia.; he works for 2 1/2 hours a day, but half an hour of this time is spent in drill and games. Including drill, he has thirteen ‘subjects’ of study, for which about sixteen books are used.

He recites hymns, poems, and Bible verses; works from Messrs Sonnenschein and Nesbitt’s ABC Arithmetic; sings French and English songs; begins Mrs Curwen’s Child Pianist, learns to write and to print, learns to read, learns French orally, does brush-drawing and various handicrafts.
All these things are done with joy, but cannot be illustrated here. Bible lessons, read from the Bible; tales, natural history, and geography are taught from appointed books, helped by the child’s own observation.”

Again in Volume 3 on page 280, she says,

“In Class II. the children are between nine and twelve, occasionally over twelve. They have twentyone ‘subjects,’ and about twenty-five books are used. They work from 9 to 12 each day, with half an hour’s interval for games and drill. Some Latin and German (optional) are added to the curriculum. In music we continue Mrs Curwen’s (Child Pianist) method and Tonic Sol-fa, and learn French, German (optional), and English songs.”

For those of you considering learning more about Charlotte Mason, please know that its takes time, reading, and community to begin to grasp her method. Here are a few of my favorite resources if you want to learn more about her philosophy:

Charlotte Mason Poetry
Charlotte Mason Institute
Miss Mason’s Music
A Delectable Education
Riverbend Press Bookshop

If you run a Charlotte Mason inspired blog, please let me know!