More than Habit
Charlotte Mason's first volume, Home Education , emphasizes the importance of habits in making our lives run smoothly. We all operate on lines of habit, either good or bad habits; most choices we make are not made consciously but are made habitually. We are all mere creatures of habit. We think our accustomed thoughts, make our usual small talk, go through the trivial round, the common task, without any self-determining effort of will at all. If it were not so––if we had to think, to deliberate, about each operation of the bath or the table––life would not be worth having; the perpetually repeated effort of decision would wear us out. Volume 1, p. 110 Modern neuroscience actually supports this idea , calling the "ruts" of Ms. Mason's terminology "neurological pathways" instead. Reading Volume 1, with its emphasis on formation of solid habits, it is easy to lose site of another part of Ms. Mason's philosophy. Habits were a useful tool, in her es...