 "View from Mount Holyoke, Northampton, Massachusetts, after a Thunderstorm—The Oxbow," Thomas Cole “The first ideas of geography, the lessons on place, which should make a child observant of local geography, of the features of his own neighbourhood, its heights and hollows, and level lands, its streams and ponds, should be gained, as we have seen, out of doors, and should prepare him for a certain amount of generalisation––that is, he should be able to discover definitions of river, island, lake, and so on, and should make these for himself in a tray of sand, or draw them on the blackboard. Definitions. –– But definitions should come in the way of recording his experiences. Before he is taught what a river is, he must have watched a stream and observed that it flows; and so on with the rest.” * “The initial idea begets subsequent ideas; therefore, take care that children get right primary ideas on the great relations and duties of life.” * “It would seem as if a new human being came into the world with unlimited capacity for manifold relations, with a tendency to certain relations in preference to certain others, but with no degree of adaptation to these relations. To secure that adaptation and the expansion and activity of the person, along the lines of the relations most proper to him, is the work of education; to be accomplished by the two factors of ideas and habits. Every relation must be initiated by its own 'captain' (Cf. Coleridge's Method) idea, sustained upon fitting ideas; and wrought into the material substance of the person by its proper habits. This is the field before us.” * “Here we have an application of Coleridge's 'captain-idea' of every train of thought; that is, not a naked generalisation, (neither children nor grown persons find aliment in these), but an idea clothed upon with fact, and story, so that the mind may perform the acts of selection and inception from a mass of illustrative details.” * “Mathematics depend upon the teacher rather than upon the text-book and few subjects are worse taught; chiefly because teachers have seldom time to give the inspiring ideas, what Coleridge calls, the 'Captain' ideas, which should quicken imagination.” Examen: “Show the importance of the initial idea in both moral and intellectual education.” What can I gather about my part in this “field before us” from just these passages? Am I aware of my initial ideas? ~~~~~~~ The first ideas: Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education, 1:276–77. The initial idea: Charlotte M. Mason, Parents and Children, 2:38. It would seem: Charlotte M. Mason, School Education, 3:71. Here we have: Charlotte M. Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, 6:110. Mathematics depend upon: 6:233. Show the importance: “AO Parents’ Review Archives AmblesideOnline.Org” Syllabus I.--Examination 1. Day 90 First/Captain Idea meditation/100 days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025
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