Heather Gorsett’s Reviews > Parents and Children > Status Update

In Chapter 18: Feelings Educable by Parents, Mason shows that feelings, like sensations, are educable. Subtle and often unconscious, they can be immediate or recalled, inspiring acts of kindness and shaping character. Parents cultivate them gently through example, sympathy, and tact, guiding children to feel outwardly toward the world, fostering appreciation, reverence, and moral sensibility.

In Chapter 17: Sensations Educable by Parents, Mason does three things: defines sensations, explains their educational importance, and shows parents how to cultivate them. The five senses are children’s first encounters with the world. Through everyday observation, the senses become gateways of knowledge, cultivating not pleasure, but accurate perception of life.

Chapter 16: Discipline, was difficult for me because I find myself pushing back on the claim that discipline is not punishment. I believe discipline includes both: the reaction to wrongdoing in punishment and the proactive shaping of character through habit training. Even so, Mason’s emphasis is clear—lasting change comes from replacing faulty habits with better ones and inspiring the will with good ideas.

In Chapter 15: Is It Possible?, Mason asks whether the most degraded people can change. Though heredity, bad upbringing, and habits seem to make reform impossible, science and Christianity show that new ideas can reshape the mind and form new habits. No human being is beyond renewal! Parents must avoid teaching children to be cynical and instead grow them up believing that redemption and transformation are possible.

Chapter 14: The Heroic Impulse, tells how heroic literature shapes young minds, using Beowulf as the pinnacle of English heroism. Courage, prudence, patience, and loyalty are highlighted as virtues to inspire children. By connecting youth to noble deeds and ancestral ideals, heroic tales cultivate moral character, honor, and a love for the past. Stories of valor and wisdom remain essential for shaping virtuous lives.

In Chapter 13: Faith and Duty—Man lives by Faith, Godward and Manward, Mason argues that faith is the natural posture of persons before God, dissolving the sacred–secular divide. All of life rests on trust, yet true faith is Godward, grounded in His sovereign nearness. When we see every idea and duty under Christ’s rule, communion with God becomes not mystical escape but daily dependence.

Chapter 12: Faith and Duty–Claims of Philosophy as an Instrument of Education, is making one big argument: You cannot have a sound system of education unless you first have a sound philosophy of human nature. And: Every educational approach is rooted in some philosophy—whether we notice it or not. Mason engages Alfred Fouillée who says ideas shape the world, linking science and literature through philosophy.

In Chapter 11: Faith and Duty–Parents as Teachers of Morals, Mason reviews Felix Adler’s The Moral Instruction of Children, praising his structure but arguing that morality cannot stand without divine authority. She defends the Bible as essential, warns against diluted storytelling, and urges parents to give children rich narratives, clear ethical teaching, and a foundation of “ought” rooted in God.

Chapters 8–9, The Culture of Character, show that parents are their children’s first trainers—not just in manners, but in the culture of character itself. Though heredity shapes tendencies, it is training that forms virtue. Every strength holds a flaw; faults must be replaced, for “habit is driven out by habit.” Through guiding thoughts and actions, parents help shape the very paths of a child’s mind.

In Chapter 7: The Parent as Schoolmaster, Mason echoes Chapter 2: Parents as Rulers, teaching that education’s roots reach deep into home soil. Before lessons begin, authority and habit must be diligently sown, or the teacher’s work will falter. Children are not to grow wild in a state of nature, but are to be guided early toward obedience, self-control, and virtue—the parent’s first and noblest duty.