 Paul Cézanne, A Painter at Work, 1874–5 (Denver Art Museum) “A discontent, is it a divine discontent? is upon us; and assuredly we should hail a workable, effectual philosophy of education as a deliverance from much perplexity.” * “Depend upon it, there is something at work in the child––genius, humanity, poetry, ambition, pride of family; it is that he wants outlet and exercise for an inherited trait almost too big for his childish soul. Rosa Bonheur was observed to be a restless child whose little shoes of life were a misfit: lessons did not please her, and play did not please her; and her artist father hit on the notion of soothing the child's divine discontent by––apprenticing her to a needlewoman! Happily, she broke her bonds, and we have her pictures.” * “If educational work of the best kind had not been going on amongst us for the last two or three decades, we should not have arrived at this 'divine discontent.' All the same, it is pretty evident that the time has come when we must change our front.” * “Educational Unrest. ––We have been made familiar with the phrase 'educational unrest,' and we all feel its fitness. Never were there more able and devoted teachers, whether as the heads or on the staffs of schools of all classes. Money, labour, and research are freely spent on education, theory is widely studied, and pains are taken to learn what is done elsewhere; yet there is something amiss beyond that 'divine discontent' which leads to effort. We know that a change of front is necessary; and we are ready, provided that the change be something more than an experiment.” * “We want a new start: we are sick of ourselves and of knowing in advance how we shall believe and how we shall feel on all occasions; the change we half-unconsciously desire is to other aims, other ways of looking at things. We feel that we are more than there is room for; other conditions might give us room; we don't know; any way, we are uneasy. These are two or three of the secret matters that oppress us, and we are in need of a philosophy which shall deal with such things of the spirit. We believe we should be able to rise to its demands, however exigeant, for the failure is not in us or in human nature so much as in our limited knowledge of conditions.” * “ …the thirst comes on us again; for it is indeed that divine discontent to which the psalmist gives voice,- ‘My soul is athirst for God, the living God.’” Examen: Mason’s revolution begins with a divine discontent. In a quiet space, set a timer for 15 minutes. Keeping the pencil moving so as not to overthink, write an account (or a list) starting with “My divine discontent is…” Simply notice what comes up or share with a friend if that feels comfortable. You could also do a picture study on one of Rosa Bonheur’s paintings. ~~~~~~~ A discontent, is it: Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education, 1:Preface. Depend upon it:Charlotte M. Mason, Parents and Children, 2:80. If educational work: Charlotte M. Mason, School Education, 3:45. Educational Unrest.--We: 3:219–20. We want a new: Charlotte M. Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, 6:336. ...the thirst comes on: Mason, Scale How Meditations, 213. Day 70 Divine Discontent meditation/100 days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025
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 "Boy Reading Adventure Story," 1923 Norman Rockwell (see also Authority) “Ye Are not Your Own.––But if children are brought up from the first with this magnet––'Ye are not your own'; the divine Author of your being has given you life, and a body finely adapted for His service; He gives you the work of preserving this body in health, nourishing it in strength, and training it in fitness for whatever special work He may give you to do in His world,––why, young people themselves would readily embrace a more Spartan regimen; they would desire to be available, and physical transgressions and excesses, however innocent they seem, would be self-condemned by the person who felt that he was trifling with a trust. It would be good work to keep to the front this idea of living under authority, training under authority, serving under authority, a discipline of life readily self-embraced by children, in whom the heroic impulse is always strong.” Examen: What changes if I think of children as having the story of their lives written by a Divine Author? What changes for me? Have I noticed special work given me to do? ~~~~~~~ Ye are not: Charlotte M. Mason, School Education, 3:103 I Cor. 6:19-20 Day 69 Divine Author meditation/100 Days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025  Painting by Soosh (see also Countenance) “Diversion. ––Again, some slight affront has called up a flood of resentful feeling: So-and-so should not have done it, he had no right, it was mean, and so on, through all the hard things we are ready enough to say in our hearts of an offender against our amour propre. But the man under the control of his own will does not allow this to go on: he does not fight it out with himself, and say, 'This is very wrong in me. So-and-so is not so much to blame, after all.' He is not ready for that yet; but he just compels himself to think of something else––the last book he has read, the next letter he must write, anything interesting enough to divert his thoughts. When he allows himself to go back to the cause of offence, behold, all rancour is gone, and he is able to look at the matter with the coolness of a third person. And this is true, not only of the risings of resentment, but of every temptation that besets the flesh and spirit. Change of Thought.––Again, the sameness of his duties, the weariness of doing the same thing over and over, fills him with disgust and despondency, and he relaxes his efforts;––but not if he be a man under the power of his own will, because he simply does not allow himself in idle discontent; it is always within his power to give himself something pleasant, something outside of himself, to think of, and he does so; and, given what we call a 'happy frame of mind,' no work is laborious.” * “We have seen, too, that the obstructions to the rule of Will, arising from strong impulses and powerful suggestions, may be met in a simple way. The Will asserts itself, not by struggle and insistence, but by a diversion of thought, to be repeated as often as the impulse or suggestion recurs; and each recurrence is fainter than the last: whilst the Will employs the pause secured by such diversion to gather force.” * “The way of the will: Children should be taught, (a) to distinguish between 'I want' and 'I will.' (b) That the way to will effectively is to turn our thoughts from that which we desire but do not will. (c) That the best way to turn our thoughts is to think of or do some quite different thing, entertaining or interesting. (d) That after a little rest in this way, the will returns to its work with new vigour. (This adjunct of the will is familiar to us as diversion, whose office it is to ease us for a time from will effort, that we may 'will' again with added power.) ” * “When the overstrained will asks for repose, it may not relax to yielding point but may and must seek recreation, diversion, ––Latin thought has afforded us beautiful and appropriate names for that which we require. A change of physical or mental occupation is very good, but if no other change is convenient, let us think of something else, no matter how trifling. A new tie, or our next new hat, a story book we are reading, a friend we hope to see, anything does so long as we do not suggest to ourselves the thoughts we ought to think on the subject in question. The will does not want the support of arguments but the recreation of rest, change, diversion. In a surprisingly short time, it is able to return to the charge and to choose this day the path of duty, however dull or tiresome, difficult or dangerous. This 'way of the will' is a secret of power, the secret of self-government, with which people should be furnished, not only for ease in practical right doing, or for advance in the religious life, but also for their intellectual well-being.” Examen: Am I aware of myself desiring something I do not will?When lately have I used diversion to good effect in my own life? How shall I let the children under my care in on their human super-power? ~~~~~~~ Diversion.--Again, some: Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education, 1:324–25. We have seen, too: Charlotte M. Mason, Ourselves, 4:171 Bk.II. The way of the will: Charlotte M. Mason, Philosophy, 6:XXXI. When the overstrained will: 6:136. Day 68 Diversion meditation/100 days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025  Pieter Bruegel the Elder, Children’s Games, 1560, Kunsthistorisches Museum, Vienna, Austria. “…because wholesome mental effort, like moral, must be carried on under the discipline of rules. A shrewd writer suggests that mental indolence may have been in some measure the cause of those pitiable attacks of derangement and depression from which poor Cowper suffered; the making of graceful verses when the 'maggot bit' did not afford him the amount of mental labour necessary for his well-being. The outcome of which is––Do not let the children pass a day without distinct efforts, intellectual, moral, volitional; let them brace themselves to understand; let them compel themselves to do and to bear; and let them do right at the sacrifice of ease and pleasure: and this for many higher reasons, but, in the first and lowest place, that the mere physical organ of mind and will may grow vigorous with work.” * “Cricket, tennis, and rounders are the games par excellence if the children are old enough to play them, both as giving free harmonious play to the muscles, and also as serving the highest moral purpose of games in bringing the children under the discipline of rules….” Examen: Am I ensuring occasions whereby students may experience the formation of rules? Where did I take up my own chances “to do and to bear” today? ~~~~~~~ ...because wholesome mental: Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education, 1:21–22. Cricket, tennis, and rounders: 1:83. Day 67 Discipline of Games meditation/100 days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025  Image by Jason Mills, “The whole group of habitudes, half physical and half moral, on which the propriety and comfort of everyday life depend, are received passively by the child; that is, he does very little to form these habits himself, but his brain receives impressions from what he sees about him; and these impressions take form as his own very strongest and most lasting habits.” * “Discipline is not Punishment––What is discipline? Look at the word; there is no hint of punishment in it. A disciple is a follower, and discipline is the state of the follower; the learner, imitator.” * “…the discipline of habit is at least a third part of the great whole which we call education, and here we feel that the physical science of to-day has placed us in advance of the philosopher of fifty years ago. We hold with him entirely as to the importance of great formative ideas in the education of children, but we add to our ideas, habits, and we labour to form habits upon a physical basis. Character is the result not merely of the great ideas which are given to us, but of the habits which we labour to form upon those ideas.” * “The discipline of habit is never complete until it becomes self-discipline in habits.” * “By ‘education is a discipline,’ we mean the discipline of habits, formed definitely and thoughtfully, whether habits of mind or body. Physiologists tell us of the adaptation of brain structures to habitual lines of thought, i.e., to our habits.” * “…by a course of discipline. There is no other way of forming any good habit, though the discipline is usually that of the internal government which the person exercises upon himself; but a certain strenuousness in the formation of good habits is necessary because every such habit is the result of conflict.” * “And in general I think we should be very cautious about promising and providing rewards and punishments. Because life rarely has its rewards and punishments; usually sacrifices have no reward and often evil goes unpunished; yet they must love good and hate evil, and it is not possible to give any explanation for this.” ~ Natalia Ginzburg Examen: “Distinguish between discipline and punishment.” “How are disciples lured?” “Show that discipline means steady progress on a careful plan.” “Show that discipline must become self-discipline.” Where am I self-disciplined? ~~~~~~~ The whole group: Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education, 1:124–25. Discipline is not: Charlotte M. Mason, Parents and Children, 2:66. ...the discipline of habit: Charlotte M. Mason, School Education, 3:99. The discipline of: 3:107. By “education is a discipline,”: Charlotte M. Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, 6:XXIX. ..by a course: 6:101–2. And in general: Natalia Ginzburg, Little Virtues, 1st edition (Arcade Publishing, 2013), 105. How are disciples: Mason, Parents, 2:295. Show that discipline must: Mason, School, 3:258. Day 66 Dicipline meditation/100 days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025  (see also Being Good) “The community, the nation, the race, are now taking their due place in our religious thought. We are no longer solely occupied in what an Irish woman called 'saving yer dirty sowl.' Our religion is becoming more magnanimous and more responsible, and it is time that a like change should take place in our educational thought.” * “As for self-denial, it is impossible for love to go without what it wants, because it is not aware of personal wants. The mother who feeds her child with the last crust, covers it with her last rag, does not exercise self-denial, but love. Probably a great deal of harm to ourselves and others is done by what we call our self-denials. "I won't have you saving yer dirty sowl upon me," said an Irish woman to her district visitor; and it is just possible that she expressed a law of life, ––that we are not allowed to be good to others, or even to be good in ourselves, just for the sake of being good. Love, and the service of love, are the only things that count.” * “Again, if we wish children to keep clear of all the religious clamours in the air, we must help them to understand what religion is––[What Religion Is, by Bernard Bosanquet, D.C.L.] ‘Will religion guarantee me my private and personal happiness? To this on the whole I think we must answer, No; and if we approach it with a view to such happiness, then most certainly and absolutely No.’ …In a word, ‘I want, am made for and must have a God.’" Examen: How do I recognize true religion? What are the religious clamors of our day? What are my self-denials? ~~~~~~~ The community, the nation,: Charlotte M. Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, 6:46. As for self-denial: Charlotte M. Mason, Ourselves, 4:154–55. Again, if we wish: Mason, 6:149–50. Day 65 'Dirty Sowl' meditation/100 Days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025  Eva Gonzalès (1849-1883), 'Children on the Sand Dunes, Grandcamp', 1877-1878. © National Gallery of Ireland. (see also Books -- Living With) “I think we owe it to children to let them dig their knowledge, of whatever subject, for themselves out of the fit book; and this for two reasons: What a child digs for is his own possession; what is poured into his ear, like the idle song of a pleasant singer, floats out as lightly as it came in, and is rarely assimilated.” * “But boys (and girls) get knowledge only as they dig for it. Labour prepares the way for assimilation, that mental process which converts information into knowledge; and the effort of taking in the sequence of thought of his author is worth to the (girl and) boy a great deal of oral teaching. Do teachers always realise the paralysing and stupefying effect that a flood of talk has upon the mind? The inspired talk of an orator no doubt wakens a response and is listened to with tense attention; but few of us claim to be inspired, and we are sometimes aware of the difficulty of holding the attention of a class. We blame ourselves, whereas the blame lies in the instrument we employ––the more or less diluted oral lesson or lecture, in place of the living and arresting book. We cannot do without the oral lesson––to introduce, to illustrate, to amplify, to sum up. My stipulation is that oral lessons should be few and far between, and that the child who has to walk through life, ––and has to find his intellectual life in books or go without, ––shall not be first taught to go upon crutches.” * “To get at the full significance of a book it is necessary to dig for it.” Examen: “Why should a child dig for his own knowledge?” What have I had to dig for lately? ~~~~~~~ I think we owe: Charlotte M. Mason, School Education, 3:177. But boys (and girls) get: 3:229. To get at: 3:340. Why should a child: 3:265. Day 64 Dig for Knowledge meditation/100 Days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025  Carl Larsson “…a child's mind is no mere sac to hold ideas; but is rather, if the figure may be allowed, a spiritual organism, with an appetite for all knowledge. This is its proper diet, with which it is prepared to deal, and which it can digest and assimilate as the body does foodstuffs.” * “Not until we have mastered, digested and made our own, that which has already been presented, is a new revelation offered to us.” * “The endless succession of story-books, scenes, shifting like a panorama before the child's vision, is a mental and moral dissipation; he gets nothing to grow upon, or is allowed no leisure to digest what he gets.” * “Children no more come into the world without provision for dealing with knowledge than without provision for dealing with food. They bring with them not only that intellectual appetite, the desire of knowledge, but also an enormous, an unlimited power of attention to which the power of retention (memory) seems to be attached, as one digestive process succeeds another, until the final assimilation.” * “No one need invite us to reason, compare, imagine; the mind, like the body, digests its proper food, and it must have the labour of digestion or it ceases to function.” * “All powers of the mind which we call faculties have brought into play in dealing with the intellectual matter thus afforded; so we may not ask questions to help the child to reason, paint fancy pictures to help him to imagine, draw out moral lessons to quicken his conscience. These things take place as involuntarily as processes of digestion.” * “Now this (narration) is no parrot-exercise, but is the result of such an assimilation of the passage that it has become a part of the young scholar.” Examen: What am I trying to force feed? ~~~~~~~ ...a child’s mind: Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education, 1:preface. Not until we: Charlotte M. Mason, Ourselves, 4:87 Bk.II. The endless succession: Charlotte M. Mason, Formation of Character 5:216. Children no more: Charlotte M. Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, 6:14–15. No one need: 6:26. All powers of: 6:173–74. Now this is no: 6:272. Day 63 Digest meditation/100 days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025  "Children Coming Out of School," Honore Daumier c. 1847-48 (see also Born Person, Children, Code of Education) “Despise: to have a low opinion of, to undervalue"––thus the dictionary; and, as a matter of fact, however much we may delight in them, we grown-up people have far too low an opinion of children.” * “The most fatal way of despising the child falls under the third educational law of the Gospels; it is to overlook and make light of his natural relationship with Almighty God. ‘Suffer the little children to come unto Me,’ says the Saviour, as if that were the natural thing for the children to do, the thing they do when they are not hindered by their elders.” * “As a matter of fact, we do not realise children, we under-estimate them; in the divine words, we 'despise' them, with the best intentions in the world, because we confound the immaturity of their frames, and their absolute ignorance as to the relations of things, with spiritual impotence: whereas the fact probably is, that never is intellectual power so keen, the moral sense so strong, spiritual perception so piercing, as in those days of childhood which we regard with a supercilious, if kindly, smile.” * “Next, we depreciate children, even though most teachers lay down their lives for their charges with amazing devotion. We have been so long taught to regard children as products of education and environment, that we fail to realise that from the first they are persons; and, as Carlyle has well said, –– ‘The mystery of a person, indeed, is ever divine, to him that has a sense for the godlike.’ We must either reverence or despise children; and while we regard them as incomplete and undeveloped beings who will one day arrive at the completeness of man, rather than as weak and ignorant persons, whose ignorance we must inform and whose weakness we must support, but whose potentialities are as great as our own, we cannot do otherwise than despise children, however kindly and even tenderly we commit the offence.” Examen: It is the rule of Jesus: “offend not, despise not, hinder not.” Do I have “tender” offences I need to address? How am I growing in my appreciation of this rule? ~~~~~~~ Despise: to have: Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education, 1:17. The most fatal: 1:19–20. As a matter: Charlotte M. Mason, Parents and Children, 2:260. Next, we depreciate: Charlotte M. Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, 6:238. Day 62 Despising Children meditation/100 days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025  This image was drawn on the back of Edward Hopper’s third grade report card dated October 23, 1891, when Hopper was nine years old. Little Boy Looking at the Sea, n.d. The Arthayer R. Sanborn Hopper Collection Trust. (see also Delight, Desires) “Nature will look after (the child) and give him promptings of desire to know many things….” * “The Christian religion is, in its very nature, objective. It offers for our worship, reverence, service, adoration and delight, a Divine Person, the Desire of the world. Simplicity, happiness, and expansion come from the outpouring of a human heart upon that which is altogether worthy.” * “That normal children have a natural desire for, and a right of admission to, all fitting knowledge, appears to me to be suggested by the phrase, 'Education is the science of relations.'” * “This appetite or desire for knowledge is a sufficient stimulus for all schoolwork, if the knowledge be fitly given.” * “Desire will do its devoir (work) in collecting sustenance for the mind.” * “We must learn what we desire to know.” * “Desire of Nations is His name!” * “All men by nature desire to know.” ~ Aristotle Examen: Am I aware of my own desires and their connection to my growth? Do I trust desire to lead learning? ~~~~~~~ Nature will look: Charlotte M. Mason, Home Education, 1:192. The Christian religion: Charlotte M. Mason, Parents and Children, 2:285. That normal children: Charlotte M. Mason, School Education, 3:Preface. The appetite or desire: 3:214. Desire will do: Charlotte M. Mason, Ourselves, 4:75 Bk.I. We must learn: Charlotte M. Mason, Towards a Philosophy of Education, 6:277. Desire of the Nations: Charlotte M. Mason, The Saviour of the World - Vol. 1, 20. All men by: Aristotle, Metaphysics, trans. W. D. Ross (Nuvision Pubns, 2009) Bk.I. Day 61 Desire will do meditation/100 days copyright Laurie Bestvater 2025 |
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