A Life Full of Living Books

English: Lesson 180

My plan to put my knowledge of literature to productive lifetime use.

Books have been a huge staple in my education. Before finding the Ron Paul Curriculum, my parents homeschooled me with the Charlotte Mason method. One of her mottos is, “Education is an Atmosphere, a Discipline, a Life.” Books and good literature provide atmosphere, discipline, and life, especially living books which are written by someone with a real passion and excitement for his topic, rather than dry, traditional textbooks. What the Charlotte Mason method and the Ron Paul Curriculum have taught me the most, is that education does not end with high school or university. You will constantly be educating yourself through courses, video series, and books till the day you die. Good literature, by teaching me what has happened in the past, will help me figure out what is happening now and what can happen in the future.

The task and authority of education was given to my parents from God until I become an adult. Their job is to give me the tools, teach me how to use them, and then push me out of the nest with a full toolbox and a somewhat competent head on my shoulders, so that I can go out into the world prepared and ready to meet whatever challenges come my way. A great majority, and I think almost 90% of those tools, are found in good literature.

Parents pass down their favourite authors, childhood stories, and books that shaped and taught them how they think to their children. When you become an adult that authority is passed to you, and it is your job to continue educating and shaping yourself so one day you can do the same for your children.

“He requires much knowledge, for the mind needs sufficient food as much as does the body.”

(A Philosophy of Education, p. xxx).

Just as you must continue feeding your body after you leave your parent’s house, it is also important that you continue feeding your mind. And just how your body cannot properly function on only one kind of food, you must also feed your mind with a wide variety of topics like history, economics, geography, theology, etc. I intend to never stop educating myself on these topics and every other subject I am curious about, and I believe it will be found in good literature and living books.

I have already started a small book collection of my favourite classic novels and authors, but it is beginning to fill up with important economics authors as well, like Robert Nesbit, Frederic Bastiat, Gary North, and Friedrich A. Hayek. My goal when I have a house of my own, is to have a large library with books shelves full of the authors I love. I am not the only one that will benefit from such a library, but it is also a legacy and something I can teach and pass down to my own children. Because knowledge once learned, can never be taken away.