I was lucky enough to get my part of my college education at a great books program – that is, a program based on the sort of education that’s been going over in England for centuries – back to the Regency time and beyond.

The big differences between what I did and what your average Regency gentleman did are:

1. I got to study the great works of Western literature in translation. Back in the day, you would have read Aristotle, Plato, Virgil and the rest in the original Greek and Latin.

2. I got to do it even though I’m a woman.

Self-Education

I’m almost a decade out of college now, and I still feel the effects of my great books education, in the best of ways. My world grew when I read those books, and, as I reread them, it’s still growing.

And if you’re in America, you’re literate, and you have a public library card, you too can read the books an educated Regency gentleman – an educated medieval gentleman, an educated Roman gentleman! – would have had (or longed to have) on his book shelves.

That’s the beautiful thing about education: it doesn’t have to stop. If there’s something you want to know about, if there’s wisdom you want to gain, you can do it. No, just reading books won’t give you all the benefit of reading them under brilliant professors and it won’t give you all the joy of discussing them with other eager-eyed students. But here are some hacks for the adult, self-starting student:

1. Try online courses, many of them free, in the subject area you’re interested in. iTunes U has a lot, and there are even Christian universities offering free, good content.

2. Use a book to help you find and understand good books. The Well-Educated Mind is one that will give you a guided course of good reading.

3. Pick translations of the great works that also have great introductions. Most copies of classic works in translation will contain introductions that explain the context of the work and why it’s important. I hardly ever skip these, because they’re like a mini-tour, giving me a heads-up about what I ought to be looking for when I read the book itself.

What Good Is It?

So, why should you try reading the great works? Well, I can’t answer it for you, but here are some benefits I’ve noticed for myself:

1. I have context. When I read new political ideas or religious ideas, they don’t seem bigger than they should. I can see where they fit on a continuum centuries long. When I read a new story, I can see the echoes of the old story it’s riffing on.

2.  The Bible makes more sense. When you read other works written around the same time as the Bible, it helps you understand the Bible better – and also to admire it more! When you see what kinds of things were written at the same time, the truth and beauty of scripture stand out.

3.  Some of it’s just plain enjoyable. So much of good literature is valued not just because it’s true or influential, but because it’s beautiful. Indulge yourself – read some Boethius!

4. You can recognize new lies as old ones. There isn’t much new under the sun. And if you’ve read about politics in Rome, you’ll learn something about politics in America. If you’ve read about temptation in Dante, you’ll recognize temptation in your day-to-day life.

5. You can recognize that truth is always truth. There’s something reassuring about reading across the centuries, because you can see that some things don’t change. The goodness of the Lord is everlasting, and it shows up in the written record of human history.

Question for you:

What’s your favorite old book? Or which do you think you’d enjoy reading the most?

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell 

Originally posted 2012-09-12 10:00:00.

I know God is in control, but it makes me sad that children today are not read to, sung to, or taught nursery rhymes. Nursery rhymes originated centuries before the Regency, but were used even then for early language skill learning.

Two well-known nursery rhymes refer to school: Mary Had a Little Lamb (it followed her to school one day), and Here We Go Round the Mulberry Bush (This is the way we come home from school).

In our house we enjoy Kate Greenaway’s Nursery Rhyme Classics, a book with beautiful illustrations, mostly of children in Regency dress. Greenaway was a preeminent illustrator who lived from 1846 to 1901. Her drawings take you to a life forever beautiful, with children dancing in flowery meadows.

She used the Empire, Regency, and late-18^th century fashions for her most of her nursery rhyme illustrations. They are full of high-waisted dresses, pinafores, mobcaps, straw bonnets, and smock frocks. Some of her illustrations are of particular interest to Regency fans, since they feature young ladies and we can get a good look at many outfits. Great inspiration for our novels!

The popularity of her drawings led to a clothing fad in the 1880s and 1890s which had London’s mothers dressing their children Greenaway style.

Wondering what your favorite nursery rhymes are? Do you teach them to your children?

Originally posted 2012-09-10 10:00:00.

Kristi here.

In Regency England, education levels varied drastically from class to class and even person to person. For some people, it was the lack of availability that limited their education. If the family couldn’t afford tutors, then the children could only learn as much as their parents or governess knew.

Churches were starting to make some basic schooling available but it was limited and crowded and served many purposes besides just education.

Most of the public schools for young boys (which are much closer to the idea of private school in the US, or more to the point boarding school) had scholarship spots, but they could be difficult to get if you didn’t have tutors to get you up to a certain level before you applied.

Education was really reserved for the elite and well-to-do in Regency England.

This isn’t the case anymore. At least not in first world countries such as the US and UK. Now, everyone can attend school, is even required to by law. You even have options! Public school, private school, magnet schools, home schooling, online schooling, the possibilities are nearly endless on ways for you to get your education.

Options continue even as we age. College, vocational schools, apprenticeships, community classes, continuing education, online tutorials, even newspapers and documentaries put information at our fingertips.

Sadly, many of us take it for granted.

Nearly every teenager is back in school by now. Where I live, they’ve been in for a month already. Most of them gripe about it. They complain about having to go to school and learn. They skip. They slack. Some of them fail a class and couldn’t care less.

Don’t get me wrong, I know there are some that dedicate themselves to getting to most out of their education. But even kids with high grades can be coasting through school, doing just enough to get by. I know. I was one.

I know adults that have gotten within fifteen hours of a college degree and quit. Not because of money or family obligations. Just quit because they didn’t want to go anymore.

God isn’t happy with this. And as with most things, it drives down to the motive and spirit behind our clinging to ignorance.

“Much will be required of everyone who has been given much. And even more will be expected of the one who has been entrusted with more.” Luke 12:48

 

Based on the gift they have received, everyone should use it to serve others, as good managers of the varied grace of God.  1 Peter 4:10

God has given us the opportunity to learn things. Not just as scholars, but as people. We have access to the internet, to libraries, community and continuing education classes.

Several years ago there was a commercial for a college scholarship fund. The slogan was, “A mind is a terrible thing to waste.”

When God made us in His image, he gave us a mind that could think and learn and be used to make better and wiser decisions using that knowledge.

All too often I find myself wasting that opportunity. I don’t want to take the time to research something, so I let someone else do the leg work and the thinking and just accept their conclusion. Sometimes it just feels safer to be ignorant, so I choose not to open my mind to the moments around me.

I don’t think that’s living up to what God required when he gave me a working brain, free from disease or other conditions that make thinking harder. I don’t think that makes me a good manager of what He gave me.

Be a good manager. Take every opportunity to learn something new. You never know when God will expect you to use it.

Have you ever learned something that seemed pointless at the time but later came in handy?

Originally posted 2012-09-07 10:00:00.

We love our readers! It’s why we write this blog. Connecting and sharing with a group of people who love Regency England and Inspirational fiction as much as we do inspired us to write our first post back in February.

In some ways, this is as much your blog as it is ours. Without you, what we do wouldn’t matter. So we wanted to take this moment to ask you, where would you like this blog to go?

What do you like? Would you change anything? Have you had a favorite post that you’d like to see more things similar to?

As we start the approach to our first birthday (still five months away, but coming up fast!) we want to make sure that this blog is meeting your needs and wants.

So tell us what you think in the comments below. You and your opinions matter to us.

Originally posted 2012-09-05 17:23:00.

These days there’s a lot of talk about food localism: the practice of eating food that was grown close to where you eat. Enthusiasts of the movement often try to make their meals only out of food grown within 200 miles of where they live.

If I did that, I’d be without my two (okay, three!) cups of coffee every morning, but I admit that I see the appeal. I’m lucky enough to live in a region with community-supported agriculture (or “CSA”) groups, which means that our family largely eats produce that was grown only miles from where we live.

But families in the Regency took local eating to a whole new level, especially in the large country estates. These estates, formed hundreds of years before there were safe and reliable roads and trade routes, grew almost all of their own food out of necessity, and even in the Regency, when importing food was more feasible, many of these large estates still produced most of what they ate right there on the property.

What kinds of foods were produced on a country estate?

The food produced on an English country estate ran the gamut from meat to vegetables, wheat to fruit, dairy to game.

Estates supported large farms, which could grow grains and vegetables in their fields, while the more well-off landowners could also support greenhouses dedicated to expensive and rare tropical fruit like pineapples (a princely gift in those times!). Wheat was made into bread and also used for brewing beer.

Estates also were hugely concerned with animal husbandry. Cows provided the milk for on-the-grounds dairies, and they also provided meat, along with pigs and sheep. There were even estates with dovecotes that raised pigeons for the table – the nestlings, or “squabs”, were prized for their delicate meat. Large estates could also contain fishponds.

The extraordinary thing to modern eyes was not necessarily how much food was produced in the lands surrounding the great English houses, but how much of the processing of that food was done on the property. Nowadays, farms grow food and factories process them. But in the 1800s, the growing and processing was often done on the same property, with the cows being milked, the dairymaid making cheese, and the cook arranging the cheese dish all being owned or employed by the same family.

Further Reading

For a much more thorough overview of the food production and processing on an English estate, I recommend Christina Hardyment’s “Behind the Scenes: Domestic Arrangements in Historic Houses”.

And for a fascinating look at current localism, I recommend Barbara Kingsolver’s “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle”.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell 

Originally posted 2012-08-27 10:00:00.

An aspect of the Regency that is so different from today were the menus. Granted, we read much more about the meals of the wealthy than the poor, but it gets me thinking about managing the meals in one of those grand homes.

Just for fun, I have a passage for you from the The Poor Relation, by Marion Chesney, published in 1984. It gives us a taste of the type of menu expected for breakfast at a country house party:

“Amaryllis walked over to the sideboard, which was laden with cold joints, collared and potted, meats, cold game, veal and ham pies, game and rumpsteak pies, and dishes of mackerel, whiting, herring, dried haddock, mutton chops, rump steak, broiled sheep’s kidneys, sausages, bacon, and eggs.”

One more thing to be thankful for is that we don’t have to plan or prepare meals like this!

If you’ve read even a few Regencies, you’ll have come across the concept of young ladies being prepared for the marriage market. One way they prepared was by learning to run a large home and its staff of servants. Many rules operated in this arena, and the young lady had to master them all.

Today, we have other things to master, such as shopping, cooking meals, cleaning (oh, where are those servants?) and possibly gardening, a home business, home education and more. God still equips his saints and doesn’t give them more than they can handle, with or without servants. The following proverb applied then and does today:

She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Proverbs 31:27

It’s always amazing when we notice how God’s word is so timeless!

Originally posted 2012-08-17 10:00:00.

It’s no secret that America has a problem with disordered eating. In a land of abundance, food isn’t just fuel; it’s comfort, it’s reward, it’s entertainment.

I’m no exception to this trend, so this devotional is written from a place of weakness, not strength. But as I’ve been thinking about this month’s theme of “Food and Frolic”, I find myself meditating on St. Paul’s dictum that he who does not work shall not eat.

This verse comforts me because it reminds me what food is for. Food is a thing with a purpose. Food lets us work, and work is such a great good that it existed even before the Fall.

So in some ways food is a reward. It’s the proper end to a day full of employment. It’s the proper preparation for a day full of good work. It’s both a reward and a necessity. We need food to do the good things God has given us to do, and we are blessed with food after we do those good things. (Because, after all, if you plant the garden, you get to enjoy its fruits. If you put in the hours, you get the paycheck.)

I think this is why saying grace before our meals is one of the best correctives to the disordered American appetite. So many traditional table prayers contain within themselves a proper theology of food. My favorite is the very simple, “Bless, O Father, thy gifts to our use and us to thy service; for Christ’s sake.”  This to us, Lord, and us to You. Or, as I prayed regularly once upon a time, “Lord, please bless this food, and may I use the energy I get from it to serve You.”

Indeed. Amen!

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

Originally posted 2012-08-10 10:00:00.