(Excerpted from Homeschoolers' Success Stories: 15 Adults and 12 Young People Share the Impact That Homeschooling Has Made on Their Lives by Linda Dobson (Prima Publishing, (c) 2000)
Many regard homeschooling as a new educational phenomenon, but that is simply a reflection of the bias of our times. If somehow we could help our caveman see into the future, he would regard government-sponsored schools as the variant, as would the majority of his descendants at least until the middle of the nineteenth century. Until then, the mostly agrarian American society lived a family-centered lifestyle; education happened at home, if only by default.
Through involvement in daily life's work, children gathered knowledge of everything from growing food, construction, caring for livestock, and making tools, clothing, soap, and whatever few other resources they needed. Lessons necessary to turn them into readers, writers, and cipherers proficient enough to handle their own affairs and grow into responsible citizens took only a fraction of the time that they consume today, and they stopped when the season demanded their time and attention in the field or elsewhere. The lessons were provided by parents, older siblings, or perhaps a young single woman hired for a pittance by the community's families to teach the basics. No laws existed, though, to compel (force) attendance.
The development of the modern educational system may be said to have been well on its way (over the objections of many teachers, parents, and public press) with the first state compulsory attendance law, courtesy of Massachusetts in 1852, coupled with the shift from an agrarian to an industrial society and its accompanying, vigorously enforced child labor laws. Modern-day switches from one pedagogical pl ...