Magnanimity as an Outcome of Education
Stability of mind and magnanimity of character is the decisive mark of all real education.
About fifteen years ago I read The Scottish Chiefs aloud to my children. It’s a historical novel written in 1809 by Jane Porter, a friend of Sir Walter Scott. As you might expect, she had an extensive vocabulary. One of my strongest memories of the book was my struggle to get my mouth around a word I’ve never heard anyone actually use. Pusillanimity. If The Scottish Chiefs is ever mentioned in our home, my kids laugh about all the women who swooned, fainted dead away, etc., and of my efforts to get my tongue around that word. It’s a great word. I’ll just never embarrass myself by trying to use it. It comes from the Latin pusillus - small, weak, and animus - soul, courage.
Pusillanimity has the opposite meaning to magnanimity: magnus - great, and animus = greatness of soul.
Magnanimity isn’t a word that’s often used in everyday conversation. I’ve only ever heard it used a couple of times – and that was by the same person. It’s one of those words that has been banished to the inside of old books, but I’d be honoured to be called a magnanimous person. Magnanimity raises a person above petty feelings and revenge. It implies bravery and unselfishness.
In A Philosophy of Education, Charlotte Mason says that the proper outcome and the unfailing test of a Liberal Education is stability of mind and magnanimity of character. It is the decisive mark of all real education. Our aim in education is more about character than conduct.
Our children may get to the end of their formal education and care about a multitude of things. And that is what we desire. But will this caring extend beyond themselves to those outside of their own circle? Will it enable them to rise above self-interest? Will they be magnanimous?
Miss Mason said (V.6, p. 89) that sometimes a stimulus to greatness or magnanimity is needed. She observed that the First World War had provided this stimulus and that we must produce it in the ordinary course of education.
During WWII, Otto Schindler, a wealthy German industrialist, made a decision that could have cost him his life. A member of the Nazi Party, he was a flamboyant man who moved in high places and enjoyed a decadent lifestyle. At first he employed Jews in his factory because they were cheap labour, but when the Nazis atrocities against the Jews began to increase, it proved to be a stimulus to action for Schindler. He used his position in the Nazi system to safeguard the Jews working for him. With the help of his wife, he was responsible for saving over a thousand people from the Nazi death camps.
None of us are hoping for a war to come along to help us here, but Charlotte Mason’s words got me thinking.
How do we help our children to be magnanimous?
We want our children to flourish but if that’s all we’re concentrating on they may end up thinking the world revolves around them. And that’s not good soil for magnanimity to grow in.
We are educated by our intimacies - by the relationships we form and by what we love - and love grows not by what it gets, but by what it gives. So how do we encourage our children to give?
Teach them to serve.
Show them how to include others by practicing it yourself. Children pick up more of what you do than what you say.
Show your child how to be a friend; to consider the interests of others. It’s our job as parents to turn our children’s attention from themselves to others.
It doesn’t necessarily take momentous events to grow into magnanimity. If we open our eyes to the little everyday opportunities that come along, we might be surprised at what stimulates our children to greatness of soul.
Teach me to feel another’s woe,
To hide the fault I see;
That mercy I to others show,
That mercy show to me.- Alexander Pope
This article was first published in the Commonplace Quarterly, Volume 3, Issue 2.
Carol’s Substack is free, but if you’d like to encourage & support my writing you may donate here:
A wonderful reminder of how deep the Charlotte Mason education is. Miss you Carol.
Thank you for sharing, Carol. I like this word and what it represents. A very helpful reflection at this time.