Plutarch's Life of Julius Caesar - a 'creative' narration

We've just finished Week 9 of Plutarch's Life of Julius Caesar using Anne White's very helpful study guide. The study of Plutarch would never have been on my radar (as I explained here) but I was persuaded to have a try, at least, when I read how highly his writing was regarded by Charlotte Mason. '...perhaps nothing outside of the Bible has the educational value of Plutarch's Lives,' - that's what I'd call high praise!

In History, boys and girls of twelve to fourteen should have a fairly intimate knowledge of English history,...and of Greek and Roman history - the last,by way of biography; - perhaps nothing outside of the Bible has the educational value of Plutarch's Lives. The wasteful mistake often made in teaching English history is to carry children of; say, between nine and fourteen through several small compendiums...whereas their intelligence between those ages is equal to steady work on one considerable book.

 School Education by Charlotte Mason, pg 235

More recently I questioned how well Plutarch's Lives was going to work with just my daughter and me as I've been used to having at least one teenager, sometimes three, joining in for the last six years. I think it is easier with more children in the mix, all taking turns narrating, but it has been going quite well this year with just the two of us.

Reading Plutarch isn't easy. I've always read it aloud and I've often thought to myself, "How can my kids understand this when I struggle with it myself?" But, funnily enough, although it's tough at times, Plutarch has been the originator of some great conversations and interesting written narrations. His vocabulary is so lush and expressive...'fardel.' I knew my daughter would use this word in her narration today - she latched onto the word as I read about Cleopatra being smuggled into Caesar's palace wrapped up in one. I had a good laugh reading over this today. 'It is past the hour of midnight, and I am still in my toga.'


Winter, the month of the two-headed god Janus, 48 B.C

In which much befalls me, and I meet the beautiful, divine, majestic, Cleopatra.

I, Julius Caesar, take my pen in hand to recount the day’s adventures.
I am sitting at my desk, writing this diary. It is past the hour of midnight, and I am still in my toga. Cleopatra is reclining in the room next to mine. Yesterday, I sent a message to her, asking her to meet me at the castle I am now in. She arrived this afternoon. The first notice I had of her arrival was a slave, who marched into my castle gatehouse, carrying a long, rolled up fardel. I stared at him, amazed. I asked him, “What, by Jupiter, is that?!”
The slave ignored me, and placed the fardel carefully on the ground, and started to slowly, and gently unfold it. Curious, I watched him silently. Suddenly, I gasped! The slave had finished unrolling his bundle, and out of it came Cleopatra, helped upright by her faithful slave! She advanced towards me, while I stood staring, my mouth hanging open. She took my arm, and we proceeded towards the banquet hall in severe silence. However, I soon recovered myself, and by the time we walked into supper, and we were talking without restraint, about her voyage, how surprised I had been, how I had not expected her to come like she did, and so on, and so on.
Suddenly, as we were sitting together, a slave came and whispered in my ear, a serious expression on his face. I hastily got up, excused myself, and left the room. I came back about twenty minutes later, with a nonchalant, I-have-done-nothing expression. Cleopatra looked at me suspiciously, then stared at my knife. I looked down at it, too, then hastened to explain.

“Oh dear…um, er, it’s ah, harrumph, nothing…cough, cough, ‘scuse me, um, just a little ah, um, well . . . ah, um, er, ahh, yes, a, I mean, one of my servants was er, um, killing a, ah, cough, cough, ‘scuse me, a, er pig, yes, um, er ah, harrumph, a pig . . .”
 
After this rather disjointed explanation, I dashed from the room, and ran to the bathroom, to wash the blood off my blade. I must admit, I gave a rather false account to Cleopatra, but I did not want her worrying. The blood one my dagger was human, and it was one of two men who had been in a plot to kill me. I had therefore disposed of one of them. My faithful slave who had told me of the plot in the banqueting room, was naturally suspicious by nature, and had, by prowling around (when he probably should have been looking after affairs of my household) uncovered this plot and saved my life.
I went back to supper, avoided the gaze of Cleopatra for the rest of the night, and then went to bed with a sense of relief. I fear, though, that she probably guessed the truth from my dagger. That is all the events of the day. I will most certainly have an eventful day on the morrow, however, for I think that I will be engaged in a battle.


Winter, Janus, 47 B.C
 
In which there is a battle, a fire, and I save some books from the library of Alexandria.

It was bitterly cold today. It is still cold, so I will make this entry as short as possible, so I may get to bed, sooner.
 I have succeeded in my purpose to get Cleopatra’s throne back from her usurping brother. Also, we just had a baby boy, Ptolemy Caesar, or Caesarion. I was made dictator of Rome for the second time. I had a battle with king Pharnaces, and I won. I sent to Rome the words,
“Veni, Vidi, Vici. I came, I saw, I conquered.”
In the battle, my troops were routed at the start, and I was forced to swim to get away from the archers, and in the confusion, the great library of Alexandria was set on fire, but I managed to save some books, though they are rather worse for wear, having been on my head in the water while I was swimming away from the archers, so they are drenched, and have arrow holes!

Cleopatra Before Caesar by Jean-Léon Gérôme, 1866

Unconsidered Aspects of Moral Training: School Education by Charlotte Mason (updated)

'We too are under authority and there are limitations to parental authority.' 

School Education by Charlotte Mason

The limitations to the parental authority we exercise over our children in the area of moral training become more evident as our children mature. When our children are little we have broad overarching responsibilities which tend to obscure these limitations. As our children mature our parental authority is not so black and white anymore, and if I treat my 14 year old the same way I'd treat a 6 year old in how I wield my authority, he is not going to develop any moral muscle.

One of the biggest strains of parenting is adjusting our authority as our children mature and knowing how, when and where to extend or limit the boundaries we have in place.

Morals don't come by nature:

'An educated conscience is a far rare possession than we imagine.'

A sobering thought!

'An educated conscience comes only by teaching with authority and adorning by example.'

Our authority needs to be paired with example. I can't hide behind my authority for very long. They'll spot hypocrisy or double standards a mile away.

I haven't tried to come up with 'lessons' for transmitting moral training or even done much in the way of pre-planning times for this, but something I've purposely tried to do is to live in a devotional context. Every day I have opportunities for devotional living and moral training. Reading quality literature and discussing the various characters and their actions is a way to develop an educated concience. So is taking the common little incidents of daily life and using them as tools for both our children and ourselves. Often these incidents seem like interruptions but I've realised that part of my own moral training has been to see these things as God might see them and ask, "Lord, what can I learn from this?" and "What can I teach my children in this situation?"

God's Word, poetry, biography and the use of mottoes are some suggestions Charlotte Mason gives to help us in the moral training of our children.

Mottoes

I grew up with one or both of my Grannies in the home for many years and both of them used many little sayings or proverbs that were in common use in their day. I now rarely hear anyone quote mottoes or proverbs in everyday speech. 

It's a similar situation with Folksongs - they've almost died out in general society; mottoes even more so, and if we are to keep them alive we need to make a conscious effort to use them.

A stitch in time saves nine.

Good, better, best, never let it rest, until your good is better and your better best.

Do the next right thing.
Leave it better than you found it.

Even a child is known by his actions by whether his conduct is pure and right.

A soft answer turns away anger.

Is it true, is it kind, did I really have to say it?

Let another praise you and not your own mouth, someone else and not your own lips.

Treat others the way you'd like to be treated.

Honour one another above yourselves.

Don't put off until tomorrow what you can do today.

Civility costs nothing.
Practice makes perfect. 

Tomorrow, tomorrow, not today - that's what lazy people say!
Make hay while the sun shines.
Laughter is the best medicine.
The grass is always greener on the other side.
Good things come in small packages.

Measure twice, cut once.
Slow and steady wins the race.
Pretty is as pretty does.

The biographies of famous Greeks and Romans by Plutarch and the reading of poetry have opened doors for moral instruction in our home. I might read a poem aloud and something will resonate with me so I'll share it with our children. Sometimes I'll give some background information on the poet or the poem and why it was written and we'll talk about that. Or we'll be having our Plutarch reading and we'll get into a discussion over one of the questions in the study notes.

When I use my own experience and am honest about my weaknesses and flaws it has helped my children deal with their own. I tend to have a quick temper and have had to learn some hard lessons about keeping myself in check. I have two children who have a similar disposition, although one of them has had a harder time dealing with it than the other. He knows I've had a similar struggle and I've had some good opportunities to educate his conscience in his teachable moments ie. not when he's in a passion!

I took some words to heart as a young Christian from something Edith Schaeffer wrote which was along the lines of, "In your anger, don't say something hurtful that you would never say if you were under control," and have impressed that on him.

Bible

Besides using the Proverbs, memorising scripture is an obvious way to train moral character.

'I have hidden Your Word in my heart that I might not sin against You.' Psalm 119

The accounts of men and women in the Bible, the good, the bad, the faithful and the unfaithful are there for our benefit but,

'In the matter of the ideas that inspire the virtuous life, we miss much by our way of taking things for granted.'

We know the story of Noah inside out and because of this familiarity we sometimes miss things but the other week we heard a sermon on love - 'Love Covers.' The speaker talked about Noah preaching for 120 years, building an ark before it had ever rained on the earth and the ridicule he received while he did it. After all his efforts only eight people were saved. After the deluge, Noah planted a vineyard and then he got drunk. He wasn't a wicked man. Perhaps he was discouraged. It was a moment of weakness. Later one of his sons came along, saw him drunk and naked, and called his two brothers to witness their father's condition. His brothers came but the two of them took a garment and placing it over their shoulders, walked in backwards so they didn't see their father's nakedness and covered him up. Their love covered their father's weakness. How easy it is to broadcast another's weakness as the younger son had done. This message was so powerfully conveyed that we won't be forgetting it, but we'd passed over it when we'd read it in Genesis the week before.

A mistake I made in the early days of mothering was placing too much emphasis on the outward appearance of virtue. Issues of the heart often go unchecked when we do this. I read this in Whatever Happened to Worship by A.W. Tozer:

'Benjamin Franklin...a deist and not a Christian...kept a daily graph on a series of little square charts which represented such virtues as honesty, faithfulness, charity and probably a dozen others. He worked these into a kind of calendar and when he had violated one of the virtues he would write it down. When he had gone for a day or a month without having broken any of his self-imposed commandments, he considered that he was doing pretty well as a human being.

A sense of ethics? Yes.

Any sense of the divine? No.'

In all of my thoughts and intentions regarding moral training, I want to inspire the children God has entrusted me with to godliness, and not just give them ethics.

"Lord, help me to see the things I need to see today in my children and give me the wisdom to reach their hearts in those areas."

Consider This: Charlotte Mason and the Classical Tradition by Karen Glass

Consider This has helped to fill in the gaps in my understanding of Classical Education and to affirm my own 'discoveries' in implementing a Charlotte Mason education. There are ideas on both sides that seem to be in total agreement on the one hand, or diametrically opposed on the other, and this has confused me at times. In recent years the Circe Institute has been instrumental in helping me to better understand classical education and now Consider This, in exploring the roots of Charlotte Mason's ideas, has provided a link between the two approaches.

Glass starts out with the question, 'What is the Classical Tradition?' before looking at whether or not Charlotte Mason has a place in it. She explains that we cannot fully understand classical education by looking only at what they did in the past. We must discover why they did it. We must understand the principles behind their teaching in order to make it serve us today.
Virtue was the goal of a classical education and all areas of education were brought into service to this end. The guiding motivation for classical educators was that right thinking would lead to right acting.
Glass discusses the "classical ideal" - the pursuit of virtue, humility, and synthetic thinking (poetic knowledge) that motivates to right action. Ancient thinkers believed that the universe was orderly and understandable, and that all knowledge was interconnected. Charlotte Mason's insistence that 'education is the science of relationships' is consistent with this classical understanding of the world.

In a brief overview of Charlotte Mason's background and life, Glass shows that Charlotte Mason read widely, but with discernment, and gleaned ideas from the classical world because they represented universal truths about education:

Her ability to see the "big picture" and draw out common principles from various philosophies was her particular genius.

Highlights

* Humility is Necessary to Education - pride of knowledge closes the door to further instruction. Humility keeps us teachable. It is an intellectual virtue as well as a spiritual virtue. At the time I was reading these thoughts on humility, I came across John Ruskin's observation on Lilias Trotter related in the book, A Passion for the Impossible:

...she had a teachable spirit, that mark of humility often missing in the very talented. "Not seeing or feeling the power that is in you is one of the most sure and precious signs of it," he writes, "and that tractability is another. All second-rate people, however strong, are self-conscious and obstinate."

* In Chapter 5, Finding the Forest amid the Trees, the synthetic and analytic methods of learning are explored. Synthesis is the word Charlotte Mason used to describe what many of us would know as poetic knowledge. (I've also heard this described as 'analogical.')

Poetic experience indicates an encounter with reality that is nonanalytical, something that is perceived as beautiful, awful (awe-full), spontaneous, mysterious… Poetic knowledge is a spontaneous act of the external and internal senses with the intellect, integrated and whole, rather than an act associated with the powers of analytic reasoning… It is, we might say, knowledge from the inside out..

The Civilized Reader

Analysis should not be our primary approach to knowledge, especially in the early years. Augustine called education the "ordering of the affections," - every object is accorded that kind of degree of love appropriate to it (C.S.Lewis). Synthetic knowledge speaks to the heart, the seat of the affections, and not just the intellect.

*  The synthetic process of narration lays a firm foundation for analytical thinking later. Modern education jumps into the analytical, examining the parts, before it has experienced the whole.

Once the unity of all knowledge is comprehended and many relationships formed, we are able to employ analytical thinking without harming those relationships.

* Grammar, logic, and rhetoric are not subjects to be studied but arts to be practiced and refined in the process of reading, narrating, and writing (synthetic learning). It is possible to learn both grammar and rhetoric through exposure to correct speech and eloquent writers and speakers i.e. the classical practice of mimesis or "imitation."

*  The concept of the trivium as stages of child development can be found only in materials written within the last few decades, but the trivium, properly understood, is applied in every teaching moment at every stage of our learning and growth.

Consider This, besides being an encouraging read for those using a Charlotte Mason approach, is a valuable addition to anyone interested in a classical model of education. For those who think that Charlotte Mason works well in the younger years but isn't suitable for older students, or that your child doesn't have the intellect for a classical education, this book will be a breath of fresh air. If  home education has lost its joy and you feel you're in a 'classical grind,' Consider This just might be the tonic you need.

Integrity, Inclination, and Doing the Next Right Thing

If you subscribe to my blog via email, you will have noticed there's a little postscript at the end of each post:

Do the next right thing...

I adopted this little quote when I read it in a book by Elisabeth Eliot at the beginning of my mothering journey, and it has served me well, because I have an unruly filly called Inclination who lives with me.  She likes to have her own way, and if I'm not careful, she will run after all sorts of things and lead me astray.

It is well to make up our mind that there is always a next thing to be done, whether in work or play; and that the next thing, be it ever so trifling, is the right thing; not so much for its own sake, perhaps, as because, each time we insist upon ourselves doing the next thing, we gain power in the management of that unruly filly, Inclination.

I have an email I need to send but I see a Facebook post and quick as a flash, Inclination rushes on and before I know it, forty minutes have flown past and the email is still waiting to be sent.
Or I'll be reading a book and stay up late to finish it, forgetting I have an early start the next day and I won't have time in the morning to organise anything. The filly gets loose and it takes all my power to get her back under control.

'Never do today what you can put off till tomorrow!' that unruly filly whinnies.

The dilatory, procrastinating person rejoices over a counsel he can follow! But not so fast, friend; this easy-going rule of life means "putting first things first." Now, the power of ordering, organising, one's work which this implies distinguishes between a person of intelligence and the unintelligent person who lets himself be swamped by details.

Intelligent - from the Latin, intelligens. To be endowed with the faculty of understanding or reason.

The power to distinguish what must be done at once, from what may be done, comes pretty much by habit. At first it requires attention and thought. But mind and body get into the way of doing most things; and the person, whose mind has the habit of singling out the important things and doing them first, saves much annoyance to himself and others, and has gained in Integrity.
What is worth beginning is worth finishing, and what is worth doing is worth doing well...Of course there are fifty reasons for doing the new thing; but here is another case where we must curb that filly, Inclination...

...let us do each bit of work as perfectly as we know how, remembering that each thing we turn out is a bit of ourselves, and we must leave it whole and complete; for this is Integrity.

Integrity takes in the whole moral character, particularly the mind, and we are continually making or marring this character. The word Integrity comes from the Latin word integer (integritas) or whole number; meaning that a person of integrity is a whole person, unimpaired and of a sound, understanding mind.

Doing the next right thing, remembering that each thing I turn out is a bit of myself and I must leave it whole and complete; these little acts of diligence, attention, and perseverance build a foundation for Integrity to rest upon.


The quotes above are taken from Ourselves by Charlotte Mason, Chapter XVII - Integrity: Justice in Action.

Update:

Thank you to 'Tasmanian' who sent me a link to this song - 'Show me the next thing, I'll do the next thing...step by step I'm running to meet you, in the next thing...'