[PrincessPerky]

Originally Posted by disneysteve

Exactly my point in my earlier post. When you didn't have Dr. Phil and Jerry Springer and Nancy Grace and People magazine and all the other outlets that have to find stories to stay in business, problems that would have quickly faded away become major national stories.

Now you can't have it both ways, either the problem with society is new or it is old but now publicized...

When I speak of public school being the problem I am not referring to Mass schooling as a problem (what you send your daughter off to) free or not you and your family still are a part of her education. The same is NOT true for many Americans.

Public school is relatively new ...history of home schooling

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.

compulsory attendance in America

"In colonial times through the early Republic period, when private schools were the rule, a great many people were educated, despite the relatively low living standards of the day. As the historian Robert Seybolt wrote:

In the hands of private schoolmasters the curriculum expanded rapidly. Their schools were commercial ventures, and, consequently, competition was keen.... Popular demands, and the element of competition, forced them not only to add new courses of instruction, but constantly to improve their methods and technique of instruction.

If you really want to get into the politics of public school (again not mass school, while I disagree with mass school, it has its place- I am actually not trying to turn America into a country of home only educators..any more than I am trying to turn the country into a society of home only cooking.) read further down that last link to why we have them..it ain't pretty.

Let our pupil be taught that he does not belong to himself, but that he is public property. Let him be taught to love his family, but let him be taught at the same time that he must forsake and even forget them when the welfare of his country requires it. - Benjamin Rush, signer of the Declaration of Independence

Early compulsory schooling began in Prussia ...under no pretense of 'free thinking' it was begun to try and subjugate the masses.

...attempted to instill social obedience in the citizens through indoctrination. Every individual had to become convinced, in the core of his being, that the King was just, his decisions always right, and the need for obedience paramount.

The schools imposed an official language to the prejudice of ethnic groups living in Prussia. The purpose of the system was to instill loyalty to the Crown and to train young men for the military and the bureaucracy. As the German philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, a key influence on the system, said, "The schools must fashion the person, and fashion him in such a way that he simply cannot will otherwise than what you wish him to will."

Now I am not a conspiracy theorist in fact "Spare yourself the anxiety of thinking of this school thing as a conspiracy, even though the project is indeed riddled with petty conspirators. It was and is a fully rational transaction in which all of us play a part.. (Gatto) but it is hard to imagine a system based on Prussian desire to create 'sheep' could really be best for our children.

America from what I understand largely took on compulsory education as an add on with child labor laws...more history
The fact that the Irish were poor and unschooled did not endear them to the proper Bostonians. Charles Fox, master of the Boylston School, said that he was "exceedingly annoyed by a set of miserable, dirty ragged boys, of wretched parents, who generally are about our streets and wharves.The fact is that some parents will not send their children to any school; they want their services to procure chips, to beg, or steal — in fine, to get anything in any way they can.They will not attend school, unless they are deprived of their liberty." (The Culture Factory by Stanley K. Schultz, p. 292)

Actually, the major cause of truancy among the immigrants was the need to work and help their families survive in the new world. Child labor was widespread but not as horrendous as later depicted by liberal historians. In fact, for many children, the factory was a very adequate school. Stanley Schultz writes (p. 295):

I happen to disagree about the factories, in that day and age they were not as safe as they are today, and I still don't want my 10 year old in one (nor for that long) but the point is, schooling for the Irish immigrants was a way to get the poor beggars out from underfoot...they were working for food! Don't you think adequate food for the family would have given them time to pursue other avenues? Like education.

Lest you think those beggars were the majority of children:
In 1848, the city marshall of Boston was ordered to find out how many truants and vagrants there were in Boston. He found 1,066 children between the ages of 6 and 16 who were either vagrant or truant Considering the fact that in 1849 the total enrollment in Boston's public schools was 20,589, the truants amounted to about 5%. In other words, without compulsory attendance laws, 95% of the city's children were attending school.

BTW after passing the law Massachusetts had to force children off to school at gun point...not all the 5% either..many of the formerly attending objected once the compulsion was put in place, we are still Americans 'land of the free', if barely.

free education (not public)

Prior to the government’s takeover of American education and replacement of it with mass compulsory schooling (this distinction is most important), there was no system. There was a mishmash of different educational alternatives.

Unschooled as most people were, they were not uneducated. Between a mix of occasional formal schooling, homeschooling, apprenticeships, and self-motivation, average Americans were more generally educated and industrious than any other people in the world. This was consistently noticed by European travelers in the early 19th century.

Man I would love for that to be true today!!!! Instead we are the ignorant louts, Europeans wonder how on earth we manage to be a super power with so many dolts living here! Truth is we are standing on the shoulders of those who came before...those who had the freedom to learn any old way that worked.

I suppose an older simpler way to point the trouble with society (In my eyes) is "we lock away our young and our old, instead of letting them learn from each other" (sorry don't recall who said it, but I wasn't the first thats for sure.)