I also wanted to share of my favorite classical education 'stories'. Our minds work so well with a story; we remember the information and can visualize concepts that become laborious when written as a descriptive non-fiction guide. My friends know that my two favorite of these books are written by Louisa May Alcott,
"Eight Cousins" and
"Jo's Boys". They are probably my favorites because I began loving Alcott and her stories so long ago, when I was a young girl, and they have continued to give meaning and direction to me as I have taken on the task of educating my children. Several years ago, I read
"The Lonesome Gods" by Louis L'Amour and enjoyed that as well as a guide and an example of a great education. On the way home from St. Thomas, I finished what I will add as my latest classic education favorite story. The book is
"The Song of the Lark" by Willa Cather. (Alcott and Cather books are all free downloads.)
I have to admit that I haven't like the previous books I have read by Cather. I felt that "O Pioneers" and "My Antonia" were both too dark for me, but this book is unlike either of those. In "The Song of the Lark", a young Swedish emigrant pioneer, Thea Klonborg, pursues her dream of discovering herself and the world. She fights against all odds to succeed and eventually becomes a famous musician who is truly gifted. The thing that I loved about the book was how well it illustrated the relationships she had with various people who could be called her 'mentors'. In the book mentioned below by DeMille and Earl, "The Student Whisperer", the authors describe several types of student/mentor relationships. They are each valuable and important. They each serve a purpose in the development of great character and in pursuing a great education. These mentor-types are found all along our journey of life and some are formal and some are informal. These authors suggest that when a mentor is necessary, one will be found. This was certainly true for Thea Klonborg. Now, don't get me wrong, Thea must work hard. Not much comes easy for early pioneers especially for a young girl interested in pursuing a musical education in a very savage land, but Thea's mother notices that she is different and supports her in her pursuits. Her first formal mentor, a music teacher named Harsanyi says to Thea, "Every artist makes himself born. It is very much harder than the other time, and longer. Your mother did not bring anything into the world to play the piano. That you must bring into the world yourself." That spoke to me. I have longed many times for the 'gift' of some talent or another. Talents are work, plain and simple. You must want it enough. "There were hours, too, of great exaltation; when she was at her best and became a part of what she was doing and ceased to exist in any other sense. There were other times when she was so shattered by ideas that she could do nothing worthwhile; when they trampled over her like an army and she felt as if she were bleeding to death under them." and "While she walked she cried. There was scarcely a street in the neighborhood that she had not cried up and down before that winter was over." Real break-throughs are so often emotional: the highest highs and the lowest lows. When we feel passion, we are learning.
I also learned about the sacrifice for greatness. One of her informal mentors, Dr. Archie, told Thea, "Only, if you want a big thing, you've got to have nerve enough to cut out all that's easy, everything that's to be had cheap." And later, "If you love the good thing vitally, enough to give up for it all that one must give up for it, then you must hate the cheap thing just as hard. I tell you, there is such a thing a creative hate! A contempt that drives you through fire, makes you risk everything and lose everything, makes you a long sight better than you ever knew you could be."
As Thea performs at the climax of the book, many of her mentors are there to see her and she is brilliant. She is scared to death, but it all pays off. "That afternoon nothing new came to Thea Kronborg, no enlightenment, no inspiration. She merely came into full possession of things she had been refining and perfecting for so long.....While she was onstage she was conscious that every movement was the right movement, that her body was absolutely the instrument of her idea. Not for nothing had she kept it so severely, kept it filled with such energy and fire. All that deep-rooted vitality flowered in her voice, her face, in her very finger-tips. She felt like a tree bursting into bloom.....everything in her at its best and everything working together."
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