Home School History
Formal school education for all children is a concept that is only about three hundred years old. It was introduced in Germany at the end of the 17th century. Prior to that, all education was given in the home or in informal village groups. Very few children went to a regular school, and those that did were the children of the nobility and the upper classes. In fact, home school history began around with the beginning of mankind. The first cave dweller who taught his children how to hunt was home schooling them. Even today, those children who go to regular schools have also been homed schooled, or else how would they know how to behave in public. The social conditioning that parents give to their children is home schooling.
Education in America, from the time of the first settlers, consisted of learning to do chores in the house or in the fields with perhaps some hunting thrown in. The few parents who could themselves read and write passed on this knowledge to their children as a bonus.
As time passed and America moved from being an agrarian economy to a trading and them manufacturing one, the need for basic reading, writing and mathematical skills grew. Those parents who had these skills gave priority to passing them on to their children. Those who did not tried to find the resources to pay for a teacher to come and teach their children, either alone or in cooperation with other families. One benefactor of the system was Abraham Lincoln who received 18 months of such education. As population centers grew in size and number, the setting up of formal schools became both a social necessity and a profitable business option.
For those who could not send their children to school, the first proper home schooling option made its appearance in 1906 when the Calvert Day School of Baltimore made an all-in-one curriculum (curriculum in a box) available at book shops. In a few years 300 children were using this and the number kept steadily growing.
The government made public school attendance mandatory but and by the end of World War 1, nearly all children were attending formal schools. However, by the middle of the 20th century, there was growing dissatisfaction with both the way education was imparted and its standards and by the 1970 a strong home school movement began to appear and by the 1980s, homes schooling had become legal in about half the states.
One key factor in home school history that has brought it to a place where it is a legitimate and acceptable option for parents to consider is the involvement and support of expert professional like Dr. Raymond Moore, known as the "father of modern home schooling." He and experts in the field of education conducted studies that proved that regimented institutional type of study was not always the best option and that personal care and attention from parents who were involved in teaching their children could more than compensate for the drawbacks of a child not attending a regular school.
Home school history has come in a full circle from the time it was the norm in the 13 colonies, through the time when government mandated school education left parents with no choice, to today when home schooling is legal in all fifty states.