In this series, I want to review and highlight the Charlotte Mason Centenary Series of monographs released in 2023. The 18 books in this series are brief and readable volumes that encapsulate a diverse range of topics related to the life, writings and philosophy of Charlotte Mason. My intention is to select a few of the volumes to spark your interest in Charlotte Mason as she is studied by modern proponents.
Next up is a volume written by Deani Van Pelt and Camille Malucci entitled Charlotte Mason’s Great Recognition: A Scheme of Magnificent Unity. Mason describes in her book Parents and Children her trip to Florence where she encountered the frescoes of the Spanish Chapel in the basilica Santa Maria Novella. This event and its significance are the subject of this monograph. In roughly 70 pages, this addition to the Centenary Series provides ample information and insight into a key moment in the development of Mason’s philosophy of education.
Deani Van Pelt has been a leading voice in Charlotte Mason education, championing school choice in Canada and adding to our knowledge of Charlotte Mason through her research. The is the current board chair for the Charlotte Mason Institute and is Scholar-in-Residence in Charlotte Mason Studies, University of Cumbria, England. Van Pelt is not only the series editor of the 18 monographs in the Centenary Series, this book is one of two volumes she has had a hand in writing in the series. Co-author Camille Malucci resides in Williamsburg, Virginia and is a homeschooling mother of six. She is not only a Charlotte Mason practitioner, but also a student of her philosophy with a particular interest in the great recognition.
Visit to Florence in 1893
We have all felt the need for a holiday when after a time of great enterprise the body simply needs to be reenergized. The authors chronicle how Mason had been building a number of institutions such as the Parents’ National Education Union (PNEU) and the House of Education in Ambleside. In 1890 the PNEU began publishing The Parents’ Review, and the Springfield property opened in 1892. Such monumental efforts took their toll on Mason:
“The House of Education opened at Springfield, Ambleside, UK, in January of 1892 with four students, and this was also the year that she completed the last of her six geography volumes. Then, in early 1893 a period of illness began.” (18)
A three-month trip to Italy was therefore undertaken with her friend Julia Firth, who had recently begun to give Saturday morning talks at the House of Education. John Ruskin, whom Firth knew personally, had recently published a series of travel guides, directing readers to take in the great cultural artifacts on their visits to places such as Venice, Amiens and Florence. It was his Mornings in Florence (1875) that Mason and Firth used as they explored Santa Maria Novella in Florence.
The authors capture how this visit to Florence coincided with events in Mason’s life that made the visit to the Spanish Chapel such a poignant moment for her, especially as regards the ongoing development of her educational philosophy.
“Thus, the circumstances surrounding Mason’s standing in the Spanish Chapel of the Church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence, Italy were probably characterized by a growing passion for picture study, a deep emotional ache, the satisfying exhaustion of establishing multiple institutions, and the imminent responsibility of maintaining and growing them.” (18-19)
It stands out that the methods deployed in Mason’s pedagogy, and in particular here we can focus on picture study, were not deemed only fit for children. She herself practiced these methods alongside children and teachers. Living ideas, at whatever age or stage of life we might access them, are a means to deep and meaningful insights into life. And this is exactly what Mason found as she focused her attention to the artwork contained within the Spanish Chapel.
The Frescos of Santa Maria Novella
As the authors trace the steps of Mason accompanied by Firth, there are several points they draw out that help us to see why exactly the frescos of the Spanish Chapel were so important to Mason’s educational philosophy. First, the Dominican order that commissioned the paintings were founded with a mission that emphasized education and study. These paintings were first and foremost inspired by this mission and therefore served as a means of inspiration and contemplation for the order. “As it was a room mostly reserved for the order, the paintings commissioned within it were aimed to remind the brothers not only about the story of Christ, but also the special mission of the Dominicans to bring Christ’s teachings to the people through education and preaching in the common tongue.” (19) There is an educational rationale behind the paintings’ provenance, a rationale that would immediately resonate with Mason.
A second important philosophical point centers on St. Thomas Aquinas. As a leading scholar and theological amongst the Dominican order early in its history, the frescos play out a philosophical point made by Aquinas in his work On the Unity of the Intellect, Against the Averroists. The ideas of Averroes (1126-1198) had spread in Western Europe and had promoted an anti-Christian dualism. The authors explain the significance of the Thomistic argument for both faith and reason working together.
“His argument for faith and reason being gifts from a good God, meant to work together for the good of man, would be conclusive and indisputable. He wrote that God wrote two books: the Book of Creation, available to all, and the Book of Scripture, available to those willing to accept divine revelation. This was a unified vision of knowledge and its appropriate uses.” (23)
The unified vision of knowledge would have a profound impact upon Mason’s thinking that she call “the great recognition.” We shall see that this is one of the driving forces in her epistemological statement regarding the “science of relation” or the educational philosophy that all areas of knowledge are related to one another.
A third point draws upon the schema portrayed by the artist Andrea di Buonaiuto. Virtually every surface is covered with paintings organized around the principle of the unity of knowledge that emanates from the mind of God and points back to God. The authors walk us through the four walls and vaulted ceilings following the steps of Mason and Firth with quotes from Ruskin’s guide—north, east, south and then west. The western wall is the culmination of the theological and philosophical expression represented on the walls. The eyes begin at the point of the vault where the Holy Spirit descends upon Mary and the apostles, beneath whom the devout of every nation are gathered (29).
The combined frescoes—The Descent of the Holy Sprit in the vault above the west wall and The Triumph of St. Thomas Aquinas on the west wall—make a theological statement in a highly organizes manner, as ranks upon ranks of individuals cascade down the wall. The authors devote attention to each grouping, particularly those on the west wall. The theological and cardinal virtues (31-33) fly above the seated Aquinas (33-34), who is flanked on either side by biblical figures (34-36). Bowing at Aquinas’s feet are three heretics whose errors are refuted by the teachings of the church (36). Below the biblical figures are two sets of seven thrones upon which are seated figures representing the seven sacred sciences and the seven natural sciences (36-38). Below these allegorical figures are historical individuals associated with each science. There is a handy appendix with a table of all the figures in the fresco (68-70).
We have rushed through some very interesting detail to arrive at one of the main points the authors dwell on having to do with the seven liberal arts. Among the important points made by the authors are that, working from the outside in, the trivium is listed as grammar, rhetoric and then logic. They write:
“Note that the fresco does not list Rhetoric, the ability to speak and persuade, as the third aspect of the trivium, as do other classical versions of the trivium. It is speaking that leads to clarity of thought. One wonder: Is this another reason for Mason prioritizing oracy and narration in her educational philosophy?” (40-41)
It is a point well made, although one also wonders whether the liberal arts have always had an amount of flexibility in them such that we should be cautious about making too great a point about the ordering here. One can equally question whether the rigidity with which some classical educators hold to grammar, logic and rhetoric as stages was somewhat fabricated in the famous Dorothy Sayers essay. Bonaiuto’s fresco should go some way towards revising our thinking to see that these arts fit into a larger schema such that each component is in a sense interwoven with the others (whether that be horizontally with the other arts and sciences or vertically with biblical revelation). Our authors conclude this section with an explanation of the quadrivium—music, astronomy, geometry and arithmetic—alongside the trivium (41-44). Together the natural and sacred sciences make for a wide and varied curriculum that “represent the Book of Scripture and the Book of Creation.” (36)
The Great Recognition for Mason
Mason’s visit to Santa Maria Novella had an indelible impact on her emerging philosophy of education. By the time of her visit, Mason had only written the first volume in her education series, Home Education (1886). We learn of her visit to Florence in the second of her six volumes on education, Parents and Children (1896). The visit to Florence is clearly still present in her thinking in the third volume, School Education (1904) as well as her final work, Towards a Philosophy of Education (1925). Certainly this moment in time arrested her attention such that something crystallized in her thinking about education.
Van Pelt and Malucci develop a number of key insights in the Great Recognition. The initial insight has to do with the emergence of scientific atheism that powerfully altered the aims of education after the Enlightenment and had especially taken root in the Victorian era in which Mason worked. The Great Recognition cuts across the dualism of the era, creating a sacred-secular divide. They quote Mason, “Many of us are content to do without religious education altogether; and are satisfied with what we not only call secular but make secular, in the sense in which we understand the word, i.e. entirely limited to the uses of this visible world” (Mason, Parents and Children, 270). Mason certainly had her finger on the pulse of a dangerous problem in education for society and had gained insight when she encountered the frescos in the Spanish Chapel. The authors rightly highlight the importance of this moment in Mason’s philosophy:
“She knew this was a false dichotomy. She had noted the dove in the tip of the vaulted ceiling, over all—implying an often neglected source of unity.” (Van Pelt and Malucci 45).
God, then, is the source of all knowledge, and all truth emanates from him as it exists in all creation (general revelation) as well as in scripture (special revelation). Mason realized that a secular educational enterprise was not being honest with itself at a deep epistemological level.
The authors provide another interesting insight based on the role of the liberal arts. The Latin root word, liber, means free in the sense that a liberal arts education is one that makes one free from bondage. Anyone who has read the autobiography of Frederick Douglass understands this principle inasmuch as he considered he had gained freedom through self-education well before he was emancipated from slavery.
There was once a sense that the liberal arts were intended for those who are free, meaning the leadership class or those who were free from the constraints of financial dependence. But Mason envisioned an education available to all, or an education that is liberally spread throughout all society.
“It [liber] is where we derive our word liberty from as well. A liberal education makes a person free from the shackles of ignorance. She also uses the word catholic not as a religious term, but because it means universal. This is an education for all: men and women, rich and poor, people of all backgrounds and races—just as we see at the top of the fresco, it is for people of every nation (Acts 2:5).” (46)
Alongside this vision of a liberal education from all, we have a spiritual affirmation that the Holy Spirit is the one who accomplishes the work of teaching. There is an intimacy one notices about this claim, as each individual can have live-giving knowledge presented through the inner work of the Holy Spirit. Mason’s educational philosophy views God as an active agent through the ministry the Holy Spirit who is active in all areas of knowledge. “The Holy Spirit, in His infinite wisdom, is ready to tend to each soul for the entirety of its lifetime and offer knowledge, consolation, wisdom, and peace with abundant measure.” (47) The authors consider this the “golden thread” of Mason’s teaching and writing. “The Holy Spirit is our teacher and we find not only ultimate unity in this Trinitarian God, but also unity on earth when we recognize the reality of His Lordship here.” (48) As the authors demonstrate in a brief coda to this section, there is multiple attestation to these theological principles through the Bible and the many Christian traditions that would find value in Mason’s voice today.
Conclusion
Van Pelt and Malucci have written an accessible and exciting treatment of one of the most important moments in Mason’s development as an educational philosopher. In a little over fifty pages we are taken along a journey with Mason to examine the frescos of Santa Maria Novella afresh. I appreciate their closing sentences:
“This fresco has spoken to generations of viewers spanning 570 years. It continues to invite us—each in our own generation—to engage its wisdom as it points us toward the recognition and promise of a magnificent unity.” (56)
Perhaps this volume will entice you to study Mason in greater depth, to explore the Great Recognition for yourself and your school, and to examine not only the Florentine frescos but numerous other works of art for their inherent inspiration for our contemplation of the truths that God has disseminated throughout his creation.
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