By Study and Faith

By Study and Faith is a Latter-day Saint adaptation of Charlotte Mason's pedagogy, built around Heather Merrill's self-published companion book and a free volunteer-run resource website. It is not a packaged curriculum in the ordinary sense. It is a framework.

Last updated: 2026-04-24 · Every Homeschool Editorial Team

At a glance

Method	Charlotte Mason / literature-based / gospel-centered
Worldview	LDS (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints; restoration doctrine integrated with Charlotte Mason's principles)
Grades	PreK-12 (framework scales across all ages)
Formats	Printed book (paperback, hardback, Kindle) plus free online resource site
Cost tier	Budget
Parent intensity	4
ESA-common	No
Accredited	No
Established	2020 (resource site); book published 2025
Website	bystudyandfaith.com

Our scoreboard (1-5)

Criterion	Score	One-line reason
Academic rigor	3	Framework rigor depends on how the family assembles it; the book does not itself prescribe a scope
Ease of teaching	2	Families must build a year plan from curated resources; this is not open-and-go
Content quality	4	Well-articulated philosophy, careful treatment of Mason's 20 Principles, thoughtful hymn and art rotations
Flexibility	5	By design, families select their own books and rhythm, the framework is guidance, not a fixed sequence
Value for money	5	The resource site is free; the companion book is under $30
Worldview scope	1	Narrow by design, built explicitly for LDS families working within Charlotte Mason's method
Visual/design	3	Clean, functional website; the book itself is a straightforward self-published paperback
Support resources	3	Volunteer-run, so community-driven rather than publisher-supported

Who the publisher is

By Study and Faith is the work of Heather Merrill, a Latter-day Saint homeschool parent who began publishing on the intersection of Charlotte Mason's educational philosophy and LDS doctrine through a volunteer-run resource site launched in 2020. The companion book, By Study and Faith: Exploring a Gospel-Centered Homeschool Education, was released in 2025 in paperback, hardback, and Kindle editions and is available through Amazon. The title derives from a passage in the Doctrine and Covenants, "seek learning, even by study and also by faith", which frames the entire project.

The project is small and noncommercial in its origins. Merrill describes the resource site as a volunteer effort maintained by herself and a community of LDS homeschool parents who contribute book lists, study guides, and the 12-year hymn rotation that has become one of the site's signature pieces. The site does not run advertising in the traditional sense, does not charge for any of its content, and uses Amazon and AbeBooks affiliate links for occasional book recommendations to cover hosting costs. This is closer to Ambleside Online's funding posture (donation-supported, volunteer-curated, free access) than it is to a commercial homeschool publisher.

What By Study and Faith is not is a packaged curriculum. Merrill does not sell weekly lesson plans, graded worksheets, or a boxed program. What she sells, in essence, is a framework and a way of thinking about how Charlotte Mason's method can be practiced within an LDS family's faith life. Families who buy the book and use the resource site must themselves assemble their year's work from the curated recommendations, the hymn rotation, the nature study guides, and whatever supplementary materials they prefer for math, phonics, and science. The work of building the actual curriculum stays with the parent.

The core pedagogy

The pedagogical method is Charlotte Mason's, read in its most thorough and serious form, through the lens of Mason's 20 Principles rather than a simplified Sayers-style trivium. Mason's principles, children are born persons, education is an atmosphere, a discipline, and a life, knowledge is living ideas rather than facts, are treated by Merrill as foundational and then reinterpreted through LDS theology. The site has an entire series walking through each of Mason's 20 Principles and articulating how the principle connects to LDS teachings on agency, personal revelation, the nature of the soul, and eternal progression.

The practical shape of the method, short lessons, living books over textbooks, narration as the primary assessment tool, habit training, generous amounts of nature study and fine arts, is Mason's. What Merrill adds is the explicit integration of LDS devotional life: daily scripture study from the standard works (Bible, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, Pearl of Great Price) as the spine of the school day, a hymn rotation drawn from the LDS hymnbook rather than a general Protestant tradition, and a book-list sensibility that treats faith-affirming literature as part of the living-books canon.

Signature mechanics: (1) Charlotte Mason's 20 Principles as the explicit pedagogical framework, not a simplified adaptation but an engagement with Mason's actual philosophical claims. (2) 12-year hymn rotation, a unique contribution to LDS homeschool practice, rotating through the full LDS hymnbook over a 12-year span so a child moving through the grammar, dialectic, and rhetoric ages encounters the hymns at different levels of understanding. (3) Curated nature-study guides, resources for beginning nature study, drawing, and observation, aligned with Mason's method. (4) Volunteer-curated book lists, age-banded recommendations that draw on classical Mason sources (Beatrix Potter, Thornton Burgess, Charles Dickens, George MacDonald) alongside LDS-authored works.

A day in the life

A family using By Study and Faith does not have a pre-built weekly schedule to follow; they build one from the framework. A typical morning for a third-grader in a household using the framework starts with 20-30 minutes of family scripture study and a hymn, drawn from the 12-year rotation, sung together. From 9:00 to about 11:30, the child works through short lessons in the parent-assembled subjects: perhaps a 20-minute math block using an outside curriculum (Saxon, Math Mammoth, or Rod and Staff are common choices), a 20-minute handwriting and copywork block, 30 minutes of a living-books reading followed by narration, a 15-minute foreign-language introduction, and a short picture-study or composer-study block. Afternoons typically include nature study outdoors, handicrafts, and free reading. Total formal instructional time runs around two and a half to three hours, consistent with Mason's conviction that young children should not sit at formal lessons for longer than that.

The framework is scalable. A 12-year-old's day looks similar in structure but with longer reading blocks, a foreign-language sequence that has progressed to actual translation, and more substantive written narrations. A five-year-old's day is mostly read-alouds and unstructured play with a 10-minute phonics block and a hymn.

What they do exceptionally well

Taking Charlotte Mason seriously. Most Charlotte Mason-styled homeschool materials simplify Mason's actual ideas into a set of techniques, short lessons, narration, living books. By Study and Faith engages with the 20 Principles as a philosophical framework, which is the register Mason herself operated in. For families who want to understand what they are doing and why, not just what to do on Monday morning, this depth is the point.

The 12-year hymn rotation. This is a genuine small contribution to the LDS homeschool world. The rotation is free on the resource site, carefully planned, and usable by families regardless of whether they adopt the broader framework. Every LDS homeschool family could take this piece in isolation.

Explicit LDS-Mason theological integration without forcing the connection. Merrill does not pretend the connection is seamless where it is not; she walks through the 20 Principles and notes where LDS theology and Mason's Anglican framework align and where they require reinterpretation. This intellectual honesty is rare in curriculum-adjacent material.

Free access to the core content. The resource site charges for nothing. The full apparatus, book lists, hymn rotation, nature-study guides, the 20 Principles series, is available to any family with an internet connection.

What they do poorly

Not a curriculum. The book and the site together are a framework, not a year's work in a box. Families new to homeschooling who need a schedule, a book list, and a set of graded assignments should not start here. By Study and Faith assumes the parent has the time and interest to build their own curriculum around the framework.

Thin documentation of year-by-year progression. Mason's method is famously progression-agnostic in its public presentation, and Merrill's framework inherits that. Families accustomed to grade-level scope-and-sequence charts will find this frustrating; families comfortable with trusting the child's developmental readiness will not.

No math, phonics, or science sequence of its own. The framework assumes families will pair it with outside materials for these subjects. This is intentional (Mason did much the same) but it means By Study and Faith is definitionally incomplete as a single-source curriculum.

Small-operation support. A volunteer-run site has volunteer-scale support. There is no customer service line. A family with a question about how to interpret a principle or adapt a book list can post on the community but should not expect a Saturday-morning publisher-support call.

Who it fits / who it doesn't

• Pick By Study and Faith if: you are an LDS family committed to Charlotte Mason's method as a philosophy rather than a technique; you have the time and interest to build your own year's work around a framework; you want a free or near-free curriculum backbone with paid materials sourced as needed; you value the explicit integration of gospel principles with a serious pedagogy; you are comfortable sourcing outside math and phonics.

• Skip By Study and Faith if: you want an open-and-go boxed curriculum with weekly lesson plans; you are new to homeschooling and need more scaffolding than a framework offers; you are not LDS (the gospel integration is pervasive and not easily adapted for other Christian traditions); you need a graded scope-and-sequence for reporting purposes in a state with strict homeschool tracking requirements.

Cost honest assessment

The By Study and Faith resource site is free. The companion book retails at approximately $24.99 for the paperback, $34.99 for the hardback, and under $10 for the Kindle edition as of April 2026. That is the publisher's entire direct revenue. A family using By Study and Faith as a framework will typically spend in parallel on the material curricula it recommends: math (Saxon, Math Mammoth, Rod and Staff, $100-$300 depending on selection and grade), a phonics program ($100-$200 once for the early years), a handwriting program ($20-$40 per year), and a growing home library of living books that the framework assumes is building over time.

By comparison: a packaged LDS curriculum like Beehive LDS Schooling at $15 per month provides a complete year's work at $180. A packaged Charlotte Mason curriculum like Ambleside Online is also free in its framework but requires similar self-assembly. A Gentle Feast sells a Mason-inflected packaged curriculum at $175-$350 per year. By Study and Faith sits in the same price range as Ambleside Online and A Gentle Feast for the book itself, then varies enormously by how much outside curriculum a family assembles on top.

Total all-in cost for a family of two elementary children using By Study and Faith plus a math program, a phonics program, and a growing book library: $300-$600 in the first year, dropping substantially in subsequent years as the book library carries over.

ESA eligibility notes

By Study and Faith's status as a free volunteer-run resource rather than a commercial curriculum means ESA funds are not directly applicable to the framework itself. Families using ESA funds can purchase the companion book through retailers that ESA programs accept, and can purchase the outside materials (math programs, phonics, living books) through normal ESA channels if those materials are on the approved marketplace in their state. The LDS-specific content and the hymn rotation are free, so ESA eligibility is not a concern for those components. ESA-funded families should verify with their state program administrator whether book purchases through Amazon or equivalent retailers qualify.

Alternatives

• Ambleside Online, a family would pick Ambleside Online over By Study and Faith for a free, volunteer-run Charlotte Mason framework with a broader Protestant Christian base rather than LDS-specific integration, at comparable philosophical depth and a longer track record in the CM community.
• A Gentle Feast, a family would pick A Gentle Feast over By Study and Faith for a packaged Charlotte Mason curriculum with a full year's scope-and-sequence already built, at a meaningfully higher price and without LDS integration.
• Beehive LDS Schooling, a family would pick Beehive LDS Schooling over By Study and Faith when they want an LDS-integrated curriculum delivered as ready-to-use video and workbook content, accepting that Beehive is a traditional workbook-video program and not a Charlotte Mason framework.

How we verified this

Our editorial team reviewed the By Study and Faith resource site at bystudyandfaith.com, the 20 Principles series at bystudyandfaith.com/study/charlotte-masons-20-principles/, and the About page. We cross-referenced Heather Merrill's published book on Amazon at the paperback listing and the Kindle listing, and compared the framework's positioning against Ambleside Online and A Gentle Feast. Prices and program details verified April 2026.