An Essay towards a Philosophy of Education

This is such a beautiful book, just as it should be to match the beautiful ideas inside. Miss Mason’s work desperately needed a reprint in a beautiful hardback edition. And the expanded material makes it even better! Nice comfortable print size. I look forward to seeing more of Miss Mason’s work released in the future, and I hope to be able to support your other projects in the mean time.

I so appreciated the larger print. You might want to mention that in your description. Of course Charlotte Mason's masterpiece is a welcome addition to any serious educators shelf.

This is such a beautiful edition of Mason's sixth volume in her writings on education. The larger print, of the hardcover, makes this edition easier to read. This may sound like a trivial thing, but when trying to truly grasp and comprehend what Mason is saying, the larger print just takes away the obstacle in that effort. The artwork on the cover is just so lovely, and the addition of "some impressions of the Ambleside method" in the appendix is really useful for those truly seeking to follow Mason's principles.

I love the layout, the additions, and the cover. It’s so lovely! My only suggestion is that I would have liked to see an option with a sewn binding rather than glued. But this is really beautiful, and I look forward to reading it.

I have read Charlotte Mason’s An Essay towards a Philosophy of Education at least three times and referred back to it many more times. It is essential reading for anyone who wants to understand and implement Mason’s educational principles and practices. Over the years, I’ve used two different print versions, one PDF ebook, and two online versions, but I’ve never before seen an edition comparable to this Smidgen Press ebook.

First, this is a true reflowable ebook (unlike the PDF ebook I had previously), so I can customize the typeface, font size, layout options, and color scheme to my preferences—all of which makes it much more accessible and pleasant to read than any other edition I’ve seen. The search function makes it suitable for research, too. When I come across words someone is quoting from Philosophy of Education, I can easily find where they occur in the book and read the surrounding paragraphs to understand the quote in context.

The second thing that truly sets this Smidgen Press Centenary Expanded Edition apart is that it includes quite a bit of material that Mason had intended to include in the original edition but was omitted when it was published two years after her death. It also includes two new forewords, by Deani Van Pelt and Art Middlekauff, and a beautiful new cover design.

I’m so impressed with my free copy of this ebook that I plan to order it in hardcover as well!