I wonder if Chesterton had read any Charlotte Mason?
…the French have an incomparable idiom for a boy playing truant: “Il fait l’école buissonnière”—he goes to the bushy school, or the school among the bushes….How admirably this “bushy school” expresses half the modern notions of a more natural education! The two words express the whole poetry of Wordsworth, the whole philosophy of Thoreau, and are quite as good literature as either.
—G. K. Chesterton,
Charles Dickens: The Last of the Great Men
Some twenty years ago we named our homeschool “L’école buissonnière” (it is an “accent grave” on the e). Little did I know then that I would have seven boys who would do just has Chesterton says. Nobody here knows what it means (maybe that’s a good thing ;o) ). Thanks for the quote. I had never read it.
Blessings,
Louise, mom of 11
And yes, I would think that Chesterton would had read Charlotte Mason. Before her marriage, Mrs. Chesterton worked in the London office of the PNEU. You can find more info on the Mater Amabilis site. http://www.materamabilis.org/
The name of our school should have been capitalized in the post above. “L’école Buissonnière”.
Blessings,
Louise, mom of 11
Oh, that’s right! I just read that last week at Mater Amabilis and it had already slipped my mind. So glad you mentioned it, Louise!
(And thanks for the accent correction—I shall make the change forthwith.)
As for the name of your homeschool, how delightful!