Picture Study, as Charlotte Mason practiced it, is just as simple as it sounds: “A friendly picture-dealer supplies us with half a dozen beautiful little reproductions of the work of some single artist, term by term.

My sleepy three-year-old is carried from the car to his bed in big brother’s strong arms. He drowsily blinks up at the star studded sky. “Caleb, did you know that God is a Spirit? He doesn’t have a body like men.” My mother’s heart quietly rejoices . . .

“It doesn’t matter what my child reads, as long as he reads," says the well-meaning but ill-advised friend. Yes, of course, I answer, just as it doesn’t matter what my child eats, as long as he eats.  Books that are shallow and condescending to children are nothing more than junk food for the mind.

Tho' much is taken, much abides, and tho'
We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven, that which we are, we are;
One equal temper of heroic hearts . . .

Therefore, in reading profane authors, the admirable light of truth displayed in them should remind us, that the human mind, however much fallen and perverted from its original integrity, is still adorned and invested with admirable gifts from its Creator.

from Eva Brann’s Homeric Moments: My father, a physician who was educated in a German classical gymnasium, cherished the following story: His Greek professor, bidding goodbye to a student being withdrawn by his father for a business apprenticeship, was heard to say sorrowfully:

When I was expecting my first child, who turned out to be children (twins!), I heard a radio program about homeschooling. My husband and I were immediately convinced — we would certainly home educate our children.

“When you reread a classic, you do not see more in the book than you did before; you see more in you than there was before. Clifton Fadiman’s words, copied long ago in my commonplace book, came to mind on a recent return to Homer's “realms of gold.”

I had a mother who read me lays
Of ancient and gallant and golden days;
Stories of Marmion and Ivanhoe,
Which every boy has a right to know.