The Large Room of a Charlotte Mason Education

Ambleside Online Conference

Held at Greenville Oaks Church of Christ, Allen, Texas

On July 30, 2005

Report by Colleen in Wis.

Both Donna-Jean Breckenridge and Lynn Bruce closed the Conference by speaking on the topic, “The Large Room.”

Donna-Jean’s talk was wonderfully encouraging, aimed at anyone who is struggling with life or with home education. I think she had the majority of the audience in tears as she shared from her own experiences.

Lynn’s message focused on the benefits of the Charlotte Mason method of education. Miss Mason wrote of preparing a student for a full life, a life with an immense number of interests, a life in a large room rather than in a narrow, confined room. Lynn inspired us to give this to our children, then turned our attention to the most important relationships to pass on to our children, in other words, two of the most important things to teach: 1) Who God is; 2) Who you are. She ended by sharing some wonderful thoughts and ideas about building relationships within our families.

School Education, Volume 3 of the Home School Series by Charlotte Mason, contains this passage from which the idea of “The Large Room” is taken:

“Our aim in Education is to give a Full Life.––We begin to see what we want. Children make large demands upon us. We owe it to them to initiate an immense number of interests. Thou hast set my feet in a large room; should be the glad cry of every intelligent soul. Life should be all living, and not merely a tedious passing of time; not all doing or all feeling or all thinking––the strain would be too great––but, all living; that is to say, we should be in touch wherever we go, whatever we hear, whatever we see, with some manner of vital interest….

The question is not,––how much does the youth know? when he has finished his education––but how much does he care? and about how many orders of things does he care? In fact, how large is the room in which he finds his feet set? and, therefore, how full is the life he has before him?” pp. 170, 171.