It is imperative, Mason knew, for children to be nourished by story – nourished in mind and heart. Only living stories satisfy their appetite for life, for living, and their books must be living, to feed the soul. This feeding is our duty, she says, : “Here a little, there a little – whence and whither, we know not, but our great fault, our exceeding great fault, is that we keep our own minds and the minds of our children shamefully underfed. The mind is a spiritual octopus, reaching out limbs in every direction to draw in enormous rations of that which, under the action of the mind, become knowledge.” (vol. 6,
pg 331) We observe the body grows on food, but how can character be weighed on a scale, and what is the right diet of books? Mason encouraged “slow and steady progress,” which we understand with physical growth, slow and steady from newborn to adult, but there’s no growth chart to assess the development of the inner person.

We all need to see to understand. Stories help us see. They particularly appeal to this need to see – and to know. God made us this way. He is a storyteller, who left us His story, the Bible, and, as His image-bearers, we are made to love stories, learn through stories, be people of words. Language is His gift for us to make meaning, communicate with one another. His Word is the Living Book of Books, Jesus Himself called The Word, and as Mason adds, “The word is not a meaningless title applied to the second person of the Trinity; it’s not without significance that every utterance that fell from Him was marked by exquisite literary fitness…” Historically, she adds, “with all primitive people rhetoric was power; that men move the world, but the motivations that move men are conveyed by words…modern education with its focus on things, not words, is demoralizing…human intelligence demand[s] … literature as a bread hunger.” (vol. 6, pg 331)

We are shaped by the literature that feeds us. It nourishes our moral imagination, gives light to see by. Stories are like eyeglasses for the soul, to peer inside where physical eyes cannot see, to provide knowledge of ourselves, knowledge of others and our world, and, the highest aim in education: knowledge of God.

I have experienced the truth of these ideas myself. Words shaped into stories have had a formative influence in my life. My own story is not fiction, though a good deal of fiction comes into it. I was born at the peak of the “baby boom,” the first child of teenage parents, still kids themselves. They both grew up in homes where education and books were valued. I remember my grandmother’s home being stuffed with books in every conceivable place.My father worked in the auto factory seven days a week, long hours of mindless labor. When he relaxed, it was with a book. Both parents read to us – it was my sister’s and my favorite means of getting their undivided attention, “read us a story.”