Homeschool Homeschool An American History Milton Gaither palgrave macmillan HOMESCHOOL Copyright © Milton Gaither, 2008. Softcover reprint of the hardcover 1st edition 2008 978-0-230-60599-2 All rights reserved. First published in 2008 by PALGRAVE MACMILLAN™ 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010 and Houndmills, Basingstoke, Hampshire, England RG21 6XS Companies and representatives throughout the world. PALGRAVE MACMILLAN is the global academic imprint of the Palgrave Macmillan division of St. Martin’s Press, LLC and of Palgrave Macmillan Ltd. Macmillan® is a registered trademark in the United States, United Kingdom and other countries. Palgrave is a registered trademark in the European Union and other countries. ISBN 978-0-230-60600-5 ISBN 978-0-230-61301-0 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-0-230-61301-0 Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Gaither, Milton. Homeschool : an American history / by Milton Gaither. p. cm. 1. Home schooling—United States—History. 2. Home schooling— Social aspects—United States. I. Title. LC40.G34 2007 371.04920973—dc22 2007038055 A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Design by Newgen Imaging Systems (P) Ltd., Chennai, India. First edition: July 2008 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 Transferred to Digital Printing in 2008 For Rachel, Aidan, Susanna, and Macrina. Sequamini virtutes Contents Acknowledgments ix Introduction 1 One The Family State, 1600–1776 7 Two The Family Nation, 1776–1860 27 Three The Eclipse of the Fireside, 1865–1930 51 Four Why Homeschooling Happened, 1945–1990 83 Five Three Homeschooling Pioneers 117 Six The Changing of the Guard, 1983–1998 141 Seven Making It Legal 175 Eight Homeschooling and the Return of Domestic Education, 1998–2008 201 Notes 227 Index 265 Acknowledgments This book would not have been possible without the willing a ssistance of many people. Several colleagues, including Sheila Moss, Jim Carper, Bob Hampel, Ed McClellan, Barbara Beatty, and John Fea, gave me valuable feedback on different parts of the manuscript. Thanks to the wonderful group of scholars in the History of Education Society whose work and comments at conferences inform even more of this book than the footnotes suggest. I benefited greatly from unpublished research and editorial assistance by Annie Blakeslee, Jesse McBride, Philip Martin, Autumn Carpenter, and Danielle DuBois. Messiah College’s excellent library staff, especially Beth Mark and Dee Porterfield, located obscure references, answered questions, and filled countless interlibrary loan requests for me. Every homeschooling fam- ily I contacted was, without fail, generous with time and graciously answered my many questions. I cannot thank everyone with whom I spoke, but I am particularly grateful to Gregg Harris, Mark Hegener, Susan Richman, Linda Dobson, Cathy Duffy, John Holzmann, Jim Gustafson, and Deborah Stevenson. Special thanks to my wife and intellectual companion Elizabeth for enduring too many hours of table talk (and not a little pillow talk) about this book and giving me dozens of helpful leads and ideas over the past several years. Our chil- dren have grown up a lot as I’ve been writing it, and in its own way this book on home education has contributed its fair share to the learning going on all the time in our own kitchen and living room. I dedicate the book to them. Maybe they’ll even read it!