Introduction

Abstract

This book presents a history of education in the home in the United States. It is not just a history of the modern homeschool movement, though that movement plays a key role in the more recent history of education at home. It is a history of how the use of the home to educate children has changed and how it has remained the same from colonial times to the present. Taking such a long view allows us to correct some misconceptions about home education in the past and today. We need a book like this not least because advocates for and against homeschooling have often misrepresented the past in an effort to score political points. In the popular literature many historical misconceptions have circulated for so long that they have become commonplaces. Here are two of the most common.