Why I Love Miss Mason...

Never be within doors when you can rightly be without.

In this time of extraordinary pressure, educational and social, perhaps a mother's first duty to her children is to secure , for them a quiet growing time, a full six years of passive receptive life, the waking part of it spent for the most part out in the fresh air.

Children should be encouraged to watch, patiently and quietly, until they learn something of the habits and history of bee, ant, wasp, spider, hairy caterpillar, dragonfly and whatever of larger growth comes their way.

It is infinitely well worth the mother's while to take some pains every day to secure, in the first place, that her children spend hours daily amongst rural and natural objects; and, in the second place, to infuse into them, or rather, to cherish in them, the love of investigation.

...a love of nature implanted so early that it will seem to them hereafter to have been born in them, will enrich their lives with pure interests, absorbing pursuits, health and good humour.

...she will point to some lovely flower or gracious tree, not only as a beautiful work, but a beautiful thought of God, in which we may believe He finds continual pleasure, and which He is  pleased to see his human children rejoice in.

...there is no part of a child's education more important than that he should lay, by his own observation, a wide basis of facts toward scientific knowledge in the future.  He must live hours daily in the open air, and as far as possible in the country; must look and touch and listen; must be quick to note, consciously, every peculiarity of habit or structure, in beast, bird, or insect; the manner of growth and fructification of every plant.  He must be accustomed to ask Why?...Why does the wind blow?  Why does the river flow?  Why is a leaf-bud sticky?

Excerpts from Home Education, by Charlotte Mason