Showing posts with label Electives: Character Education. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Electives: Character Education. Show all posts

Friday, July 8, 2011

The Basket of Flowers/Google Books

Title The Basket of Flowers; or, Piety and Truth Triumphant
Authors Johann Christoph von Schmid, Mary Martha Sherwood
Editor Gregory Townsend Bedell
Published 1882
Click here.

Synopsis from Lamplighter Press(CBD):
"James, the king's gardener, teaches his 15-year-old daughter Mary all the principles of godliness through his flowers. She is falsely accused of stealing, banished from the village, and left homeless. Mary remembers her father's lessons and continues to trust her life to God's care. A remarkable tale of recompense and redemption."

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Advice to Sunday School Children/Project Gutenberg

Click here.

Covers twelve topics:

1. Be early and constant in your attendance at School.
2. Be very attentive to instruction.
3. Be silent in your Class.
4. Be thankful to your Teachers.
5. Honour and obey your parents.
6. Love your Brothers and Sisters.
7. Reverence the Lord's day.
8. Read daily in the Bible.
9. Pray to God constantly.
10. Take a cheerful part in the praises of God.
11. Abhor Swearing.
12. Avoid bad company

Thursday, May 19, 2011

The Little Gleaner(Christian Character Education)/Goolge Books

This was a British children's magazine with a heavy emphasis on Christian character education . Strongly Protestant in flavor and many lovely engravings.

Excerpt from The Seasons:
The four seasons of the year in their turn change the face of nature, affording varied work for the husbandman, and giving the manufacturer and tradesman diversified opportunities of buying and selling goods; and every shrewd merchant and tradesman watches for and embraces the season most favourable for business, just as the mariner does the wind and tides.

No doubt many of you are so favoured and indulged that the varying seasons bring to you suitable recreation and employment; to boys, hoops, peg-tops, and marbles; and girls, hoops, shuttlecock, and skipping-rope, with out-door and in-door employment of a far more intellectual and useful character; so that each change in the year has for you its charm.

But the dream of riper age flits before your eyes at times with such radiance, causing you to think some childish trials very hard to bear. But, remember, dear young ones, you will never have less cares than now. You imagine increased years will give you advanced pleasures, not considering that these things will bring their share of trouble. Ah! far more than you now have, when, with choking sobs and brimful eyes, you hang over a difficult sum, or sigh over a broken toy. Don't forget that behind the blushing rose you may find a pricking thorn, and a bitter sediment may be at the bottom of a sweet cup.

But we would not needlessly cloud your cheerful brows with the hardships of future years. Do your best to improve your home and schooldays, that they may bring you a good return, for we get but the theory of learning at school—the practice of it is acquired later on. This is now the springtime of your life, when the seed is sown that will afterwards spring up of whatever kind it may be. But some of you may be passing the primrose of your days: your character is being fully developed; you may long have been beneath a parent's roof, and have hung on to props and dependencies, just as the ivy clings to and climbs around the oak ; now you are left to your own resources, you may no longer have a father's counsel or a mother's care, but are thrown into the wide world among companions vain and vile. You have to shoulder your way amidst designing men and deceitful women. Oh, may the God of Jacob bless you and keep you, so that, as you ripen into the summer season of your life, it may/be with the prospect of securing a harvest of spiritual as well as of temporal profit! And that you may prosper, abhor an and beware of sloth; both will do you harm, although you may shake off me latter and increase the former. In all things look to the Lord for help; He /can cause you to steer clear where others strike upon the rock and suffer shipwreck. In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will direct your pathway. Many flowery and mossy paths may open invitingly to you, like the various rows Bunyan speaks of in Vanity Fair, where honours, profits, pleasures, and pastimes may be presented to your view in their best garb, to attract your mind and ensnare your feet—offered too at so cheap a rate that you may say, "Why should I deny myself this which costs me so little?" But oh, remember the reckoning day is to come; "for the end of all these things is death" (Rom.vi. 21).



Title The Little Gleaner
Publisher Houlston, 1879, London
Click here.

Monday, May 9, 2011

How to be a Lady for Girls/Google Books

Title How to be a Lady for Girls
Author Harvey Newcomb
Published 1850
Original from the University of Michigan
Click here.

Chapter 18, Indolence:

The indolent dread all exertion. When requested to do any thing, they have something else to do first, which their indolence has left unfinished; or they have some other reason to give why they should not attempt it. But if nothing else will do, the sluggard's excuse, " I can't" is always at hand. Were it not for the injury to them, it would be far more agreeable to do, one's self, what is desired of them, than to encounter the painful scowls that clothe the brow, when they think of making an effort. Solomon has described this disposition to the life : —" The slothful man putteth his hand in his bosom: it grieveth him to take it out again"

Saturday, April 9, 2011

How to Be a Man: A Book for Boys: Containing Useful Hints on the Formation of Character/Google Books

Title How to Be a Man: A Book for Boys: Containing Useful Hints on the Formation of Character
Author Harvey Newcomb
Publisher Gould and Lincoln, 1856
Length 224 pages
Click here.

"A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver.‎"

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Bow-wow and Mew-mew(Easy Reader)/Google Books


Title Bow-wow and Mew-mew
Author Georgiana Marion Craik
Publisher Beckley-Cardy, 1914
Length 95 pages
Click here

Bow-Wow And Mew-mew is one of the few books for beginners in reading that may be classed as literature. Written in words of mostly one syllable, it has a story to tell, which is related in so attractive a manner as to immediately win the favor of young children. It teaches English and English literature to the child in the natural way: through a love for the reading matter. It is the character of story that will, in the not distant future, replace the ordinary primer or reader with detached sentences, and which seldom possesses any relation to literature.

The ultimate objects of any story can only be effected through the love for a story. The prominent point in this story is development of good character, which may well be regarded as the highest purpose of education. The transformation from bad to good traits in the dog and cat cannot but have a desirable effect on every child that reads the story. Bow-Wow and Mew-Mew become dissatisfied with their home and their surroundings, and ungrateful toward their benefactress. As the story tells, "They did not find good in any thing." But after running away and suffering hunger, neglect, and bad treatment, their characters begin to change. They naturally come to reflect their mistress's goodness. They learn the value of companionship and friendship, and the appreciation of a home. However, the ethical thoughts in the story are presented without a moral. The child really lives the scenes described. He has the emotions of the characters and feels their convictions. And this determines the worth of a story as an agent in character development.

The narrative furnishes, further, the proper kind of exercise for the imagination. It affords abundant opportunity for the play of the dramatic instinct in the child, and effects a happy union of the "home world" and the " school world." The illustrations, drawn by Miss Hodge, have been planned and executed with considerable care. J. C. S.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Bold and Brave by Horatio Alger/Project Gutenburg

For about 4th through sixth grades. Click here.

From HoratioAlgerJr.com"

What does the Horatio Alger "Strive and Succeed" philosophy consist of? Are there contemporary versions of it?
There are several elements in the Horatio Alger "Strive and Succeed" Philosophy:


* hard work
* study (informal rather than formal)
* loyalty to superiors and subordinates
* abstaining from alcohol
* frugal living
* importance of dress and personal grooming
* personal integrity
* speaking and writing effectively
* non-credal religious values (Unitarian)
* avoidance of violence and revenge
* speaking the whole truth
* brotherhood of males (family without a mother)
* obligation to help and protect the weak and unfortunate
* duty to mother and/or sisters
* courtesy to all
* accepting the success of others
* emphasis on a secure home
* accept assistance of benefactors
* expectation of own success, acceptance
* eschew class hatred


The Alger success formula seems very like what one finds in _The Autobiography of Benjamin Franklin_. Alger's code is less pragmatic and more altruitstic than Poor Richard's. Alger's code imposes significant personal obligations, but it is not at all individualistic. The Alger code does not seem to have much in common with those individuals labeled "Horatio Alger success stories."

Friday, October 30, 2009

Want Not, Waste Not/Google Books

Didactic character training for ages 7-10(approximate).

Waste not, want not: or, Two strings to your bow
Author Maria Edgeworth
Publisher G. Routledge and Sons, 1883
Length 127 pages

Overview

Monday, April 6, 2009

The Child's Pictorial Preceptor /Google Books


Quite old, but timeless. Pages would make nice mottoes for the classroom, or for framing.

The Child's pictorial preceptor
By E.B. & E.C. Kellogg (Firm)
Contributor E.B. & E.C. Kellogg (Firm)
Published by Published by E.B. & E.C. Kellogg Hartford, Conn. & Berea, Ohio., 1842
46 pages

Main page.
Begin reading here.

Sunday, March 15, 2009

"Say Fellows-": Fifty Practical Talks with Boys on Life's Big Issues/Project Gutenberg

Adapted from the Author's weekly Sunday School
Lesson Treatments in The Sunday School Times,
by permission of the Editors.
Fleming H. Revell Company
1921

Click here.

Saturday, November 8, 2008

A Book of Golden Deeds of All Times and All Lands/Google Books

A Book of Golden Deeds of All Times and All Lands ...
By Charlotte Mary Yonge
Published by The Christian Herald, 1895
314 pages

An excerpt from the introduction, What is a Golden Deed?

"...the eye gleam and the heart throb, and bears
us through the details of suffering, bloodshed,
and even barbarity, — feeling our spirits
moved and elevated by contemplating the courage
and endurance that they have called forth.
Nay, such is the charm of brilliant valor, that
we often are tempted to forget the injustice of
the cause that they may have called forth the
actions that delight us. And this enthusiasm
is often united with the utmost tenderness of
heart, the very appreciation of suffering only
quickening the sense of the heroism that
risked the utmost, till the young and ardent
learn absolutely to look upon danger as
an occasion for evincing the highest qualities.

O Life, without thy checkered scene
Of right and wrong, of weal and woe,
Success and failure, could a ground
For magnanimity be found ?

The true cause of such enjoyment is perhaps
an inherent consciousness that there is nothing
so noble as forgetfulness of self. Therefore it
is that we are struck by hearing of the exposure
of life and limb to the utmost peril, in oblivion,
or recklessness of personal safety, in comparison
with a higher object."

Click here.

Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Thursday, July 26, 2007

Rollo at Play & Rollo in the Woods by Jacob Abbott/Project Gutenberg

"Although this little book, and its fellow, "ROLLO AT WORK," are intended principally as a means of entertainment for their little readers, it is hoped by the writer that they may aid in accomplishing some of the following useful purposes:—
1. In cultivating the thinking powers; as frequent occasions occur, in which the incidents of the narrative, and the conversations arising from them, are intended to awaken and engage the reasoning and reflective faculties of the little readers.
2. In promoting the progress of children in reading and in knowledge of language; for the diction of the stories is intended to be often in advance of the natural language of the reader, and yet so used as to be explained by the connection.
3. In cultivating the amiable and gentle qualities of the heart. The scenes are laid in quiet and virtuous life, and the character and conduct described are generally—with the exception of some of the ordinary exhibitions of childish folly—character and conduct to be imitated; for it is generally better, in dealing with children, to allure them to what is right by agreeable pictures of it, than to attempt to drive them to it by repulsive delineations of what is wrong."

Rollo in the Woods
Rollo at PlaySafe Amusements