"Education extends to all life. In fact, an educational system that says, one bright summer's day in the dawn of my youth, "There. Now you are educated. This piece of paper says so," is doing me a gross disfavor. The truly educated person has only had many doors of interest opened. He knows that life will not be long enough to follow everything through fully."

--Susan Schaeffer Macaulay

Art credit: A Woman With Children Under an Apple Tree by Hans Olde

"Begin early in exposing children to books. The mother who fails to read to her small children does a disservice to them and a disservice to herself. It takes time, yes, much of it. It takes self-discipline. It takes organizing and budgeting the minutes and hours of the day. But it will never be a bore as you watch young minds come to know characters, expressions, and ideas.... Let your children be exposed to great minds, great ideas, everlasting truth, and those things which will build and motivate for good."

--Gordon B. Hinkley, June 1985 Ensign

Art credit: The First Lesson by Samuel Baruch Ludwig Halle

"Keep thy heart with all diligence; for out of it are the issues of life."
--Proverbs 4:23

Art credit: Kinderfreuden by Fritz Beinke

I've been enjoying a houseful of little people for the last couple of weeks and it's been lively around here! I have loved every minute.

But it also reminds me of the demands placed on you as a mother. Please understand the ideas I share through WEH are designed for busy mothers. Small and simple. Spontaneous and flexible with just enough rhythm to keep your sanity. Learning through everyday life.

It's so important to allow children their childhoods--there will be plenty of time for the academics when they are more developmentally prepared. Build relationships first.

Enjoy the journey. They really do grow up so fast!

Art credit: Mud Pies by Ludwig Knaus

"How infinitely rich our world! Man, live he ever so long, will have time to break off only one bough from an infinite orchard."
--Newell Dwight Hillis

Art credit: An Orchard in Spring by Monet

I just added a story about Robert Fulton to MASB 10. Is it coincidence that the two great inventors--Robert Fulton and Samuel Morse--studied art and were painters? "Drawing produces exactness of thought."

Art credit: Idealismo y Realidad by Juan Comba Garcia

"We shall never properly develop the higher natures of our little ones while we continue to fill their minds with the so-called rudiments. Children will educate themselves under right conditions. They require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction."

--Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller's teacher

Art credit: Children Painting Spring Flowers by Viggo Johansen

"In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours."
--William Ellery Channing

Art credit: Lesende Frau by Paul Barthel

"Knowledge acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind."
--Plato

Art credit: The Stern Teacher by Theophile Emmanuel Duverger

From a 1917 book on storytelling:

"And how much capable mothers might derive from Wordsworth's poetry for the spiritual nurture of their children. Capable mothers are, alas! comparatively few; but forces are now at work which are increasing the number of such mothers, and will continue to increase it more and more as the ideals of true womanhood are more and more realized and exalted."

--Hiram D. Corson, The Voice and Spiritual Education

Art credit: The Lesson by Emanuel Phillips Fox