Taste, Swallow, Digest

Some quotes & thoughts I'd like to remember while embarking on my Well-Educated Mind journey with Susan Wise Bauer:

from chapter 1:

Take responsibility for your education! - "Any literate man (or woman, we may add) can rely on self-education to train and fill the mind. All you need are a shelf full of books, a congenial friend or two who can talk to you about your reading, and a few "chasms of time not otherwise appropriated."" (15)

"A well-trained mind is the result of application, not inborn genius." (16)

You can't expect to be a master reader without applying yourself regularly. - "reading is a discipline: like running regularly, or meditating, or taking voice lessons." (17)

Stages of the trivium: - "Some books are to be tasted, others to be swallowed, and some few to be chewed and digested." - Francis Bacon

Grammar ----- taste --------- gather facts
Logic ------- swallow ------- evaluate them
Rhetoric ----- digest --------- form your own opinion

Don't spread yourself too thin! - "Engage not the mind in the intense pursuit of too many things at once, especially such as have no relation to one another. This will be ready to distract the understanding, and hinder it from attaining perfection in any one subject of study." - Isaac Watts

I NEED to do this! It's something that has gone through my mind so much over the last few months, & I honestly function so much better when I follow this counsel. - "early to bed and early to rise is the most effective path to wisdom." - Benjamin Franklin

Don't give up what you want in the long run for what you want now. Moving slow & steady is better than holding still. I little something is better than nothing. - "We do those things which are rewarding to us, and immediate gratification always seems more rewarding than slow progress toward a long-term goal." (23)

A New Project

I have a new project & purpose for this blog. I started homeschooling my Preschooler/Kindergartener this year, & with all of the research I've done on the topic, I am continually drawn to a literary & classical approach. For this reason, I personally want to have a greater knowledge & comprehension of some of the world's great literature - namely classics (of course I will continue to read my other fun &/or more modern books as well. How else would I survive this daunting task I'm preparing to take on?).

While going through some homeschooling blogs, I was really excited to find women who were working their way through The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had. Since classical education is one of my focuses, I was thrilled when I saw their in-depth, yet fun studies of literature throughout history. My favorite blog is: A Classic Case of Madness. These women are hilarious!

 The author of The Well-Educated Mind recommends reading chronologically & by genre, starting with Novels, then Auto/biographies, Histories, Dramas, & finally Poetry. This is with the intent that the reader will master how to analyze & work through the different literary genres by focusing on one at a time, with the difficulty of analysis increasing with each genre.

I am feeling quite intimidated by this task, but am also really excited. I just hope that I can slow down enough to go through these literary studies for the correct reasons instead of just checking them off a list as I tend to do.

 Feel free to join me in any reads that interest you!

The complete list of books (minus a few that I just can't get myself to re-read - namely, Gulliver's Travels) is here.