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Homeschooling

2008-11-01T14:54:08Z

Bush43:

[[Image:Homeschool.jpg|right|thumb|300px|A young homeschool student]]
'''Homeschooling''' consists of the practice of students receiving education from a parent or guardian, or instructors acting under the direction of a parent or guardian, rather than from certified teachers in a formal school setting like a [[public school]].

Homeschooling enables students to do well in contests, often winning over students from the school system. For example, the most successful [[mathematician]] in contests in history, Reid Barton, was [[homeschooled]].<ref>http://www.amstat.org/PUBLICATIONS/amsn/index.cfm?fuseaction=highlights0812001</ref> One negatve aspect of homeschooling is that the children are often socially inept because they are sheltered from the real world. The top college football player and the first to win the Heisman Trophy as a sophomore, [[Tim Tebow]], was homeschooled until college.<ref>http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/783999/heisman_trophy_winner_tim_tebow_puts.html</ref>
In the [[United States]], an estimated one to two million students are homeschooled, or about one out of every 50 students. Homeschooling includes many of the top college and graduate students in mathematics today.<ref>For example, Princeton University math prodigy Arie Israel "never attended a regular school. His parents home schooled both him and his older sister, Rachel, allowing them to work at their own pace and discover their own interests. His dad, Benjamin, a computer programmer, helped him with math and science, while his mom, Rebekah, taught him English and history." [http://weblog.science.fau.edu/info/images/israel.html]</ref>

Reasons for '''homeschooling''' include:<ref>For 57 unique benefits of homeschooling, see [http://capitolhillcoffeehouse.com/more.php?id=5239_0_1_0_M].</ref>

* Escaping [[public school]] without incurring the high cost of private school.
* Freedom from [[liberal]] and/or [[atheistic]] bias and culture found in public and private schools.
* A more flexible daily schedule, ability to take vacations and travel during the school year, less commuting, and a healthier diet.<ref>Obesity in [[public school]] students from junk food appears worse than in [[homeschooled]] students.</ref>
* Avoiding conflicts with [[public school]] officials.
* More time spent by parents with their children in formative years.
* Avoiding violence, intimidation, invasions of privacy (e.g., searches) and other hostile aspects of the [[public school culture]].<ref>As an example of the violent culture at [[public school]], "parents said there have been violent incidents, mostly fistfights, at the high school every day this week. 'My daughter is terrified,' said Elizabeth Sabalu, whose daughter is a junior. 'She doesn't want to come to school any more.'" [http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/877459,CST-NWS-skul04.article]</ref><ref>"Nationally, about 160,000 [[student]]s miss [[Public schools|school]] daily because they [[fear]] being [[Bully|bullied]]," and in [[Hawaii]] students viciously fight each other and post videos of it on [[YouTube|Youtube.com]]. One victim is now "being [[homeschooled]] at state expense."[http://starbulletin.com/2008/05/18/news/story01.html]</ref>
* Avoiding objectionable [[vaccines]], "mental health" screening, and questionnaires.
* Avoiding competition between genders, including public school [[feminists]] claiming that girls are equal to boys.
* Developing the discipline to be self-employed as an adult, and to work at home.
* Creating an environment in which students are less likely to pick up life-long unhealthy addictions from peers, like drugs, cigarettes, sex, or alcohol.
* Having the time and availability to learn a trade or profession as an apprentice, as has been done throughout history.
* Homeschooling is often an essential approach to achieve the very best in many fields, from [[mathematics]] to music to certain sports.<ref>For example, [[Jordin Sparks]] (b. 1989) became youngest winner of the music talent competition "[[American Idol]]" after she left [[public school]] for homeschooling to concentrate on her singing.[http://www.pr-inside.com/singer-jordin-sparks-12-400-video-newest-r592857.htm]</ref>
* Be part of a community that has a much higher percentage of adopted children than formal school; the homeschooling community has a refreshing culture of life.
* homeschoolers develop independent thinking and self-reliance that help insulate them from techniques of mind control that afflict public school students and teachers<ref>This is most recently illustrated by techniques of mind control employed by conservapedia.[http://www.aapsonline.org/newsoftheday/0089]</ref>

Homeschooling, like being self-employed, requires more self-discipline and greater initiative. Many parents understandably give up or burn out after homeschooling for years, just as many people who try to be self-employed do also. Without a rigid schedule and structure to the day, there are constant distractions and excuses to making the same effort that one makes when told to do something. Initiative is required for homeschooled teenagers to meet other homeschooled teenagers, for example, and many return to [[public school]] in the absence of that effort.

Homeschooling [[parent]]s oversee their children's education, usually providing some of the instruction themselves. In addition, homeschooling enables them to mix-and-match other instructional approaches, including:
* attending a weekly course provided in many communities by the homeschooling community
* using a correspondence school (or the modern video- or [[computer]]-based equivalent)
* taking classes at local museums or nature centers
* joining with other [[family|families]] to share teaching responsibilities in a co-op
* encouraging the student to self-instruct using library books, traditional textbooks or workbooks, knowledgeable mentor's and/or hands-on experiences
* hiring a tutor for certain difficult topics, like [[physics]]

Homeschoolers often include local "after school" enrichment programs like scouts, 4-H, sports, [[music]] lessons, karate or dance classes, public library programs, and summer camps as part of their educational program. In 2003, "76 percent of homeschool graduates surveyed between the ages of 18 to 24 voted within the last five years, compared to only 29 percent of the corresponding U.S. population."<ref>http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35226</ref>

==Homeschooling Statistics==

In the [[United States]], homeschooling includes an estimated that 1.1 million students - about 2.2% of children in grade K-12 - as of 2003.<ref>[http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/homeschool/estimated.asp] Homeschooling in the United States: 2003 Statistical Analysis Report, National Center for Educational Statistics, NCES 2006-042, Feb 2006</ref>
A 2005 estimate from the [[National Home Education Research Institute]] places the number between 1.9 million and 2.4 million while the [[National Center for Education Statistics]] estimates that the number of students being homeschooled increased by 29% from 1999 to 2003.<ref>Christian Examiner, Sept. 2007, Vol 25, No 9, Pg 1</ref>

Families who homeschool their children do so for a number of reasons. A 2001 study by the [[US Census Bureau]] found that the single largest reason that parents homeschool is that they feel they can give their children a better education at home. This accounted for 50% of the homeschooling families; [[religion|religious]] reasons came in second at 33%.<ref>Home Schooling in the United States: Trends and Characteristics, by Kurt J. Bauman, Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau, August 2001, Working Paper Series No. 53 [http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0053.html]</ref> Other frequently mentioned reasons include dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools, the ability to provide religious or moral instruction along with academics, the ability to control what the child is being taught, flexibility in meeting the needs of a child with special needs (such as a physical or mental health problem, a temporary illness or giftedness), flexibility in scheduling family life, and concern about safety, drugs, and peer pressure at other schools.<ref>Homeschooling in the United States: 2003 Statistical Analysis Report, National Center for Educational Statistics, NCES 2006-042, Feb 2006>[http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/homeschool/TableDisplay.asp?TablePath=TablesHTML/table_4.asp] </ref>

Admissions departments at major [[college]]s are now familiar and comfortable with homeschooling, according to a 2004 Boston Globe article. The article quotes a [[Liberal Arts college|Williams College]] admission officer as saying: <blockquote>"We read homeschoolers' applications just like any other application. They don't get any special consideration, but they're not discriminated against, either. Their applications are interesting, and they've certainly done independent work their whole lives."</blockquote> It notes that the acceptance rate of homeschoolers at Williams is 20 percent,<ref>[http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2004/03/21/schoolhouse_rocked?mode=PF Schoolhouse rocked] "home schooling has gone main stream, especially in Massachusetts. It's estimated that as many as 20,000 children here have abandoned test-crazy public schools and high-priced private schools for the comfort of the living room couch. But most surprising of all is that Harvard, BU, Brown, and other colleges are welcoming homeschoolers like all other students." Source for Williams College admission officer's quote, 20% figure.</ref> virtually identical to its overall acceptance rate.<ref>[http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-11-02-collegerates_x.htm College acceptance rates]: Williams, 19.2%. U. S. News and World Report</ref>

In the [[United States]], some states permit homeschooled students to participate in extracurricular activities at their local public schools.

The states of Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wyoming in one way or another expressly allow equal access. In most other states, participation is worked out on a case-by-case basis. <ref>HSLDA: State Laws Concerning Participation of Homeschool Students in Public School Activities [http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000000/00000048.asp]</ref> In addition, some states, such as Alabama, are considering equal access legislation. <ref>HSLDA: Alabama - Legislation for Participation in Public School Activities[http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/al/200705010.asp]</ref> In New Jersey, school athletic associations dominated by public schools exclude homeschoolers from participation in athletics, even though they allow students at different charter schools to participate.<ref>[[New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association]]</ref>

It should also be noted that stay at home moms, the most common teachers for homeschooling, reported having happier lives than their working counterparts.<ref>http://www.momlogic.com/2008/07/sahm_wahm_happiness_poll.php?icid=100214839x1204880052x1200231518#start</ref>

==History==

In the United States, opting out of [[public school]]s is not new. When [[Thomas Edison]]'s public school teacher said he was "addled," Edison's mother took him out of public school and taught him at home.

Education at public school year-round from about ages 6 to 18 became common only in the 20th century due to compulsory education laws. The first [[law]] requiring attendance at public school passed in [[Massachusetts]] in 1852; the second such law passed in [[Washington D.C.]] in 1864; and most states did not pass mandatory schooling laws until between 1870 and 1917.<ref>[http://www.ncsl.org/programs/educ/CompulsoryEd.htm Compulsory Education], National Conference of State Legislatures: "More than 150 years have passed since Horace Mann helped Massachusetts establish a statewide system of education that eventually led to the requirement that all children attend public school. In 1852, Massachusetts became the first state to pass compulsory school attendance laws, and by 1918, all states required children to receive an education."</ref><ref>http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/kellmeyer/050428</ref>

But even under compulsory education laws in the late 1800s, the school year was only twelve to twenty weeks long. Very few stayed in school from ages 6 to 18. For example, by 1900, only 6% of Americans had graduated from a formal high school. Moreover, these students did not learn basic skills like reading in school; they learned those at home.<ref>''id.''</ref>

Baltimore's Calvert School began selling the school's curriculum to parents in 1905. Within five years, more than 300 children were enrolled in Calvert's correspondence courses. Over the next hundred years, Calvert served over 500,000 children from a wide variety of families nation-wide and around the world, including missionary families and those in remote locations.<ref>Calvert School Homeschooling: A Century of Tradition and Innovation [http://www.calvertschool.org/education-services/home-school-history/]</ref>

The homeschooling ''movement'' began in the 1960s from very different ideological sources. [[Seventh-Day Adventists]] Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore pioneered homeschooling as a result of their research into education and their concern about the harmful effects of schooling on students, particularly boys, between ages 5 and 15.<ref>http://www.moorefoundation.com/article.php?id=2</ref> On the other side of the political spectrum, John Holt wrote a book critical of schooling in 1964, entitled ''How Children Fail.'' Holt was "a left-winger who regarded schools as instruments of the bureaucratic-industrial complex."<ref>Micklethwait, John and Adrian Wooldridge, ''The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America.'' Penguin, 2004. pp. 190-1</ref> More generally, millions of Americans were alarmed at the 1962 [[U. S. Supreme Court]] ruling which banned school-sponsored prayer in public schools, and many of those parents began to look for alternatives.

Truancy laws brought pioneering homeschoolers into conflict with local officials. The first [[New York Times]] story on "home schooling" appeared in 1974, and concerned two parents charged with "educational neglect" by the [[Westchester]] County Department of Social Services. Tests showed that they performed at or about grade level "except for one who is a little slow in reading," and the parents received strong support from a state senator.<ref>"Parents Accused in Home Schooling," ''The New York Times,'' July 28, 1974, p. 45</ref> By the mid-1980s the ''Times'' was running articles with titles like "Schooling in the Home: A Growing Alternative" and "There Are Benefits In Homeschooling," and states were legalizing homeschooling.<ref>Belluck, Pam (1998), "Life After Home Schooling," ''The New York Times,'' November 1, 1998, p. ED26: "Some 15 years after states began legalizing home schooling in earnest, these early graduates are starting to make their way in the world."</ref> A 1997 article said "It's not only [[Christian fundamentalists]] any more" and a 2003 article noted "Unhappy in Class, More Are Learning at Home."

== Prominent people who were homeschooled ==




Throughout history, a remarkably high percentage of accomplished people were homeschooled, including many great [[mathematician]]s. Here is a growing list of such achievers:

*[[Ansel Adams]], (1902-1984), the finest landscape photographer of the twentieth century. "At twelve, unable to stand the confinement and tedium of the classroom, he utterly disrupted his lessons with wild laughter and undisguised contempt for the inept ramblings of his teachers. His father decided that Ansel’s formal education was best ended. From that point forward, the boy was homeschooled in Greek, the English classics, algebra, and the glories of the ocean, inlets, and rocky beaches that surrounded their home very near San Francisco."<ref>http://wy.essortment.com/anseladamsbio_rjrq.htm</ref>

*[[John Adams]] (1735-1826), U.S. President. Learned to read at home, and was then taught in the kitchen by a neighbor with a handful of children. He matriculated to Harvard College at age 15.{{fact}}

*[[Louisa May Alcott]] (1832-1888), the author of ''Little Women'' and other great works, was taught by her father.{{fact}}

*[[Susan B. Anthony]], leading pro-life feminist and advocate of women's suffrage. Her father homeschooled her.<ref>http://www.homeschoolutah.org/pages/pastandpresent.htm</ref>

* [[Benjamin Banneker]] (1731-1806)) wrote the first almanac by a black man and helped survey [[Washington, D.C.]]. Banneker was taught to read and write by his grandmother in rural [[Maryland]]."<ref>http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Banneker.html</ref>

*[[Clara Barton]] (1821-1912), pioneering nurse during the [[Civil War]], founder of the [[American Association of the International Red Cross]]. Barton was homeschooled, and at 15 started teaching school. She later attended the Liberal Institute in Clinton, New York. <ref>White House Dream Team: Clara Barton[http://www.whitehouse.gov/kids/dreamteam/clarabarton.html]</ref> <ref>Clara Harlowe Barton, Source: "Historical Times Encyclopedia of the Civil War" edited by Patricia L. Faust
[http://www.civilwarhome.com/bartonbio.htm]</ref>

*[[Alexander Graham Bell]] (1847-1922), inventor of the telephone. His deaf mother taught him to read and write, and he returned the favor by inventing the telephone to try to help her (and other deaf persons) communicate.

*[[Dietrich Bonhoeffer]] (1906-1945), a [[Christian]] who spoke against [[Hitler]] and was martyred for doing so.

*[[Mary Breckinridge]] (1881-1965), pioneering American midwife and founder of Kentucky's Frontier Nursing Service. Mary's father was a diplomat, and she was educated in America and abroad by private tutors.<ref>Frontier Nursing Service[http://www.frontiernursing.org/History/MaryBreckinridge.shtm] </ref>

*[[William Jennings Bryan]], [[Secretary of State]] under President [[Woodrow Wilson]] and before that was the founder of the modern [[Democratic Party]]. He was also the leading critic of the [[theory of evolution]] who prevailed in the [[Scopes Trial]] and was perhaps the greatest orator in [[American]] history. He was homeschooled until age 10 as his mother taught him to stand on table to recite his lessons.<ref>http://www.homeschoolutah.org/pages/pastandpresent.htm</ref>

*[[William F. Buckley]], leading [[conservative]] intellectual. He was homeschooled by his parents and tutors.<ref>http://www.homeschoolutah.org/pages/pastandpresent.htm</ref>

*[[Robert Burns]] (1759-1796) [[Scotland]]'s national poet.

*[[Andrew Carnegie]] (1835-1919), the brilliant American businessman and philanthropist of the late 1800s, his father was a poor weaver and Andrew dropped out of elementary school<ref>http://www.education-reform.net/dropouts.htm</ref> and had only five years of formal schooling.<ref>http://www.carnegieinstitution.org/carnegiemedal/background.html</ref>

*[[George Washington Carver]] (1864-1943) Botanical and agricultural researcher and educator. Born a slave, Carver "learned to read, write and spell at home because there were no schools for African Americans in" his area.<ref>http://lib.iastate.edu:9060/gwc/bio.html</ref> He did not attend school until age 12, when he went to a one-room schoolhouse in Missouri; he later graduated from Minneapolis High School in Kansas. Became the first black student at Simpson College in Iowa, transferred to Iowa Agricultural College in 1891. Earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1894 and a Master of Science degree in bacterial botany and agriculture in 1897.<ref>MSN Encarta Encyclopedia - George Washington Carver article [http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761574196/Carver_George_Washington.html]</ref><ref>George Washington Carver, By Mary Bellis [http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa041897.htm]</ref>

*[[Augustin-Louis Cauchy]] (1789-1857), one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, was taught by his father during an 11-year retreat to the country to escape the [[French Revolution]]. His father "wrote his own textbooks, several of them in the fluent verse of which he was master. Verse, he believed, made grammar, history and, above all, morals less repulsive to the juvenile mind."<ref>E.T. Bell, "Men of Mathematics," 273 (1937).</ref><ref>http://james.fabpedigree.com/mathmen.htm#Cauchy</ref>

*[[Pafnuty Chebyshev]] (1821-1894), one of the greatest Russian [[mathematician]]s, was homeschooled until college.<ref>http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Chebyshev.html</ref>

*[[Agatha Christie]] (1890-1976), best-selling English mystery writer. Christie was homeschooled by her mother, who encouraged her to write from a very early age. At sixteen she was sent to finishing school in Paris. <ref>PBS Mystery Series "Miss Marple" site: Biography of Agatha Christie[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/mystery/marple/christie.html]</ref>

*[[Winston Churchill]] (1874–1965), [[British]] statesman. It was at home that he was taught how to read, write and do math, and was not enrolled in a school until several months into the school year at the age of seven. After only about two years at that school, he was abruptly pulled out and then spent several years under the instruction of two maiden sisters in a less formal school setting.<ref>William Manchester, "The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, VISIONS OF GLORY 1874-1932 (Little Brown & Co.).</ref>

*[[Charles Dickens]], prolific [[English]] author who could not afford school. His "passions for reading were awakened by his mother," who homeschooled him with a curriculum that included English and Latin.<ref>http://www.homeschoolutah.org/pages/pastandpresent.htm</ref>

*[[Thomas Edison]] (1804–1896), the most prolific inventor in the history of the world and considered by many to be the most influential person of the last 1000 years.<ref>http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bledison.htm</ref> His mother pulled him out of public school at age 7, after just a few months, and began homeschooling him by reading from the Bible.

*[[Paul Erdos]] (1913–1996), the most prolific [[mathematician]] of the 20th century, was taught at home until college.<ref>http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Erdos.html</ref>

*[[Pierre de Fermat]] (1601?-1665), the greatest [[mathematician]] of the 17th century and the founder of the modern theory of numbers, was homeschooled.<ref>E.T. Bell, "Men of Mathematics" 57 (1937)</ref>

*[[Benjamin Franklin]] (1706-1790), a leading [[Founding Father]] and prolific inventor and statesman, only attended part-time school from ages 8 to 10.{{fact}}

*[[Robert Frost]], the leading [[American]] poet of the 20th century and winner of the [[Pulitzer Prize]]. He "disliked school so much he became physically ill; what schoolwork he did was done at home until he passed the entrance exams and entered high school."<ref>http://www.homeschoolutah.org/pages/pastandpresent.htm</ref>

*[[Evariste Galois]] (1811–1832), among the brightest mathematicians ever and the founder of Galois groups and fields and Galois theory. "Until the age of twelve Galois had no teacher but his mother, Adelaide-Marie Demante."<ref>E.T. Bell, "Men of Mathematics," 362 (1937). Galois' life was tragically cut short at age 20 in a [[duel]], and his work was published posthumously.[scidiv.bcc.ctc.edu/Math/Galois.html]</ref>

*[[William Hamilton]] (1805-1865), the greatest Irish mathematician and biggest contributor since [[Isaac Newton]] of [[mathematics]] to [[physics]]. He was taught by his uncle, the Reverend James Hamilton.<ref>E.T. Bell, "Men of Mathematics," 340-41 (1937).</ref>

*Zac, Taylor, and Isaac Hanson, of the band [[Hanson]]. Educated at home by their mother, and later by a tutor. <ref>Hanson: The All American Boys[http://www.drdrew.com/DrewLive/article.asp?id=1112]</ref><ref>Hangin With Presents
Hanson[http://www.agirlsworld.com/rachel/hangin-with/hanson.html]</ref>

*[[Fred Hoyle]] (1915-2001), the greatest British physicist of the 20th century, received a "homespun" education in which he sneaked away from his school for 60% of the time between ages 5 and 9.<ref>"My earliest research work was in truancy from school, in which I was successful enough to whittle down the time I spent mewed up in classrooms to something like forty percent of what it was supposed to be between the ages of five and nine." Fred Hoyle, ''Mathematics of Evolution'' at p. 1 (Acorn Enterprises 1999). Note, however, that Hoyle's parents were also apparently unaware of his [[truancy]].</ref>

*[[Julia Ward Howe]] (1819–1910), abolitionist, writer, and women's rights activist. Julia was educated by tutors at home and in girls' schools until age 16. <ref>Open Connections Program, Women Working 1800-1930, Harvard University Library: Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910)[http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ww/people_howe.html]</ref>

*[[Carl Jacobi]] (1804-1851), a prominent and prolific German mathematician, was taught at home until the age of 12 and was taught the classics and [[mathematics]] by a maternal uncle.<ref>E.T. Bell, "Men of Mathematics," 327 (1937).</ref>

*[[Joan of Arc]] (1412-1431), one of the greatest military leaders ever. Taught domestic skills and religion by her mother. <ref>"As a child she was taught domestic skills as well as her religion by her mother. ... It was my mother alone who taught me the 'Our Father' and 'Hail Mary' and the 'Creed;' and from none other was I taught my faith."[http://www.stjoan-center.com/#bio A Short Biography of Saint Joan of Arc][http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08409c.htm New Advent - Catholic Encyclopedia - St. Joan of Arc][http://joan-of-arc.org/joanofarc_biography.html Biography of Joan of Arc]</ref>

*[[John the Apostle]] (c. A.D. 20-100), the author of the [[Gospel of John]], considered by many to be the greatest written work ever. He also wrote several other books in the [[New Testament]]. His parents placed him, most likely as a child, under the homeschool-like teaching of [[Jesus]] rather than a more traditional school setting.<ref>In an approach common among homeschoolers, John's parents placed ''both'' their sons under the homeschool-like teaching of Jesus.</ref> John became the first to develop [[Christian]] [[faith]] and his work has since spread Christianity to billions.<ref>For growing evidence that John was a child, see [[Mystery:Was John a Child?]].</ref>

*[[C.S. Lewis]] (1898-1963), the author of the ''Chronicles of Narnia'' and other famous works, was taught at home by his mother and a governess until age 10, and later sent to be taught by a tutor to prepare him for [[Oxford]].<ref>'''Lewis, C. S.''', ''Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life'', London: Harvest Books (1955) ISBN 0-1568-7011-8</ref>

*[[Abraham Lincoln]] (1809-1865), American president. "Though his [formal] education was limited to a few months in a 1-teacher school, Lincoln avidly read books such as the Bible, ''Pilgrim's Progress'' and Weemss ''Life of Washington''."<ref>http://www.civilwarhome.com/lincolnbio.htm</ref>

*Countess Augusta [[Ada Lovelace]] (1815-1852), a visionary programmer and namesake of the [[ADA]] programming language, was homeschooled by governesses and tutors hired by her mother.{{fact}}

*General [[Douglas MacArthur]], the leading [[American]] general of the 20th century, both in [[World War II]] against [[Japan]] and in the [[Korean War]]. His mother homeschooled him until the age of 13, and he was tutored afterwards. When he entered [[West Point]] he attained the highest entrance exam scores ever reported.<ref>http://www.homeschoolutah.org/pages/pastandpresent.htm</ref>

*[[Benoit Mandelbrot]], a [[Yale]] mathematics professor known as the "father of fractals" and the person who coined the term,<ref>http://www.creativitysoftware.com/fractals-images/pages-hs/mandelbrot.htm</ref> received no extended formal schooling and was taught at home by his uncle beginning at the age of 12.<ref>http://www.fractalwisdom.com/FractalWisdom/fractal.html</ref>

*[[Yehudi Menuhin]] (1916-1999), noted violinist and conductor, never attended school, and was taught Mathematics, History and Hebrew by his father, and French, German, Italian and Spanish by his mother.<ref>Slater, Elinor and Slater, Robert ''Great Jewish Men'' (Jonathon David Publishers; 1996) ISBN 0-8246-0381-8</ref>

*[[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]] (1756-1791), German composer. "He was educated by his father, Leopold Mozart, a violinist of high repute in the service of the archbishop of Salzburg."<ref>[http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica]</ref>

*[[Isaac Newton]] (1643-1727), considered the greatest physicist of all time. He was homeschooled until age ten, and then was an underachiever at school until he lodged with the headmaster.<ref>http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Newton.html</ref>

* [[Christopher Paolini]] (1983-), the author of the best-selling [[Inheritance Trilogy]] ([[Eragon]], [[Eldest]], and a third book yet unreleased). He was homeschooled by his parents, through an accredited correspondence course from the American School in Chicago, Illinois, from which he graduated with his high school diploma at 15 years of age. <ref>Book Browse Author Biography: Christopher Paolini[http://www.bookbrowse.com/biographies/index.cfm?author_number=934]</ref>

* [[Blaise Pascal]] (1623-1662), one of the greatest mathematicians and philosophers of all time, was homeschooled by his father.<ref>E.T. Bell, "Men of Mathematics," 74-76 (1937).</ref>

* [[George Patton]] (1885–1945), one of America's greatest generals. He was taught at home until age 11 based on his "father's theory of education" that "youthful mind should be led along a path that parallels the development of the mind of the race" by being read to by elders.<ref>http://www.pattonhq.com/unknown/chap01.html The Patton Society ("The Early Years")]</ref><ref>http://www.freeinfosociety.com/site.php?postnum=517</ref>

* [[Henri Poincaré]] (1854-1912), one of the greatest mathematicians ever and an original developer of the [[Theory of Relativity]]. Poincaré, who had diphtheria as a child, received special instruction from his gifted mother and excelled in written composition while still in elementary school. He entered the Lycée in Nancy (now renamed the Lycée Henri Poincaré in his honor), in 1862 and spent eleven years there. He entered the École Polytechnique in 1873, graduating in 1875. After graduating from the École Polytechnique, Poincaré continued his studies at the École des Mines. <ref>Jules Henri Poincaré[http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Poincare.html]</ref>

* [[Alexander Pope]] (1688-1744), one of the greatest and most-often quoted [[English]] poets and essayists. "From Twyford School he was expelled after writing a satire on one of the teachers. At home, Pope's aunt taught him to read. Latin and Greek he learned from a local priest and later he acquired knowledge of French and Italian poetry."<ref>http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/apope.htm</ref>

*[[Ferdinand Porsche]] (1875-1951), designer of the [[German]] Porsche automobile. He was homeschooled and self-taught during his formative years,<ref>http://famousbrandnames.blogspot.com/2007/02/porsche.html</ref> which is ironic given that homeschooling is illegal in [[Germany]] today.

*[[Joseph Priestley]] (1733-1804), the father of modern chemistry and the discoverer of oxygen, dropped out of school as a teenager and privately learned geometry, algebra and numerous languages.{{fact}}

*[[Bernhard Riemann]] (1826-1866), a German recognized as the greatest modern mathematician. He was taught at home by his father, a Lutheran minister, until he was ten. After that he was tutored by a teacher from a local school until he entered the Lyceum in Hannover at 14. <ref>School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland -- Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann, by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson[http://www-groups.dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Riemann.html]</ref><ref>http://www.andrews.edu/~calkins/math/biograph/199899/bioriema.htm</ref>

*[[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] (1882-1945), U.S. President. He was educated by private tutors at home through age 14, then entered Groton, an elite private school in Massachusetts, in 1896. <ref>The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers. "Franklin D. Roosevelt." Teaching Eleanor Roosevelt, ed. by Allida Black, June Hopkins, et. al. (Hyde Park, New York: Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, 2003).
[http://www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/roosevelt-franklin.htm]</ref>

*[[Theodore Roosevelt]] (1858–1919), U.S. President. "Roosevelt never enrolled in a public school. He was mostly instructed by private tutors until he entered Harvard College in 1876."<ref>http://law.enotes.com/presidential-biography/theodore-roosevelt-administrations/education</ref>

*[[Erwin Schrodinger]] (1887-1961), was one of the developers of the theory of [[quantum mechanics]] in physics. "He was not sent to elementary school, but received lessons at home from a private tutor up to the age of ten ...."<ref>http://bdaugherty.tripod.com/berlin/schrodinger.html</ref>

*[[George Bernard Shaw]] (1856-1950), author. Tutored in the classics by a clerical uncle until he entered school at age 10. Left school by age 15. <ref>Encyclopedia of World Biography on George Bernard Shaw[http://www.bookrags.com/biography/george-bernard-shaw/]</ref> <ref>Dictionary of Literary Biography on George Bernard Shaw[http://www.bookrags.com/biography/george-bernard-shaw-dlb/]</ref><ref>George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950 Biographical Sketch[http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/research/fa/shaw.gb.bio.html]</ref>

*[[Mark Twain]] (real name was Samuel Clemens) (1835-1910), American author and satirist who said, "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." Attended school through the 5th grade, where he "excelled only in spelling" and was frequently truant, then worked as a printer's apprentice for a local newspaper. His mother said, "He was always a great boy for history, and could never get tired of that kind of reading; but he hadn't any use for schoolhouses and text books." <ref>The Mark Twain House and Museum: Biography of Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain [http://www.marktwainhouse.org/theman/bio.shtml]</ref><ref>The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mark Twain, by Archibald Henderson
[http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/8/7/6873/6873.txt]</ref>

* [[Leonardo da Vinci]] (1452–1519), Italian artist, inventor, and all-around "Renaissance man". Leonardo went to school in Vinci, where he learned to write, to read and to calculate, and was taught geometry and Latin. At 14, Leonardo moved to Florence where he began an apprenticeship in the workshop of Verrocchio. <ref>Leonardo da Vinci[http://www.kausal.com/leonardo/childhood.html]</ref>

*[[Laura Ingalls Wilder]], the author of the Little House on the Prairie.<ref>http://www.homeschoolutah.org/pages/pastandpresent.htm</ref>

*[[Andrew Wyeth]] (1917- ), American artist, was tutored at home until he was 18. <ref>The Homeschooling of Andrew Wyeth, A Conversation with the Artist, Gifted Children Monthly, May 1986, Vol 7 No. 5.[http://www.nfgcc.org/51.htm] </ref>

*[[Frank Lloyd Wright]] (1867-1959), considered the finest architect ever, was taught at home by his mother who dreamed that he would become an architect. She used "Froebel's geometric blocks to entertain and educate her son" as his father led the family among various Baptist churches, where he preached.<ref>http://freenet.buffalo.edu/bah/a/archs/wright/bio/index.html</ref> Wright then attended high school but dropped out of college.<ref>http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0942394/bio</ref>

*[[Brigham Young]], the leader of the [[Morman Church]] and founder of 200 towns and villages. He was homeschooled and had only "11 days of formal education."<ref>http://www.homeschoolutah.org/pages/pastandpresent.htm</ref>

In addition, a number of prominent people have chosen to homeschool their children. [[David Guterson]], author of the novel ''Snow Falling on Cedars'' (1994), which won the 1995 [[PEN/Faulkner Award]], also wrote ''Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense'' (1992), an account of his family's homeschooling journey. <ref>www.randomhouse.com: David Guterson [http://www.randomhouse.com/vintage/read/snow/guterson.html]</ref> Actor and recording artist Will Smith and his wife actress Jada Pinkett Smith homeschool their children. <ref>Reader's Digest: Will Power: Will Smith is One Driven Guy[http://www.rd.com/content/will-smith-interview/1/]</ref>. Roseanne Barr stated in an interview that she has started to homeschool her 11-year-old son.<ref>Reuters Interview - Roseanne Barr says age gives her a louder voice [http://in.news.yahoo.com/070322/137/6dlba.html]</ref> Jimmy Wales, co-founder of [[Wikipedia]], also homeschools.<ref>http://reason.com/news/show/119689.html</ref> Kristin Maguire, head of the [[South Carolina]] board of education, which governs all its [[public schools]], homeschools all four of her children.<ref>http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/01/09/17stjour.h27.html</ref>

==See Also==
*[[People Who Arguably Were Homeschooled]]
*[[Previous Breaking News/Homeschooling|Articles about '''Homeschooling''' from previous "In the news"]]

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==See also==
*[[Homeschool Legal Defense Association]]
*[[Homeschooling in England and Wales]]
[[Category:Education]]

==External links==
*[http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/view/rc/s31p54.htm Christian Children Must Have More Than A Fighting Chance] - Four reasons to homeschool your children, by [[Art Robinson]]
*[http://www.homeschoolacademy.com/famoushomeschoolers.htm] - List of homeschooled achievers.

[[Category:Homeschooling|*]]

Homeschooling

2008-11-01T14:52:03Z

Bush43:

[[Image:Homeschool.jpg|right|thumb|300px|A young homeschool student]]
'''Homeschooling''' consists of the practice of students receiving education from a parent or guardian, or instructors acting under the direction of a parent or guardian, rather than from certified teachers in a formal school setting like a [[public school]].

Homeschooling enables students to do well in contests, often winning over students from the school system. For example, the most successful [[mathematician]] in contests in history, Reid Barton, was [[homeschooled]].<ref>http://www.amstat.org/PUBLICATIONS/amsn/index.cfm?fuseaction=highlights0812001</ref> One negatve aspect of homeschooling is that the children are often socially inept because they are sheltered from the real world. The top college football player and the first to win the Heisman Trophy as a sophomore, [[Tim Tebow]], was homeschooled until college.<ref>http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/783999/heisman_trophy_winner_tim_tebow_puts.html</ref>
In the [[United States]], an estimated one to two million students are homeschooled, or about one out of every 50 students. Homeschooling includes many of the top college and graduate students in mathematics today.<ref>For example, Princeton University math prodigy Arie Israel "never attended a regular school. His parents home schooled both him and his older sister, Rachel, allowing them to work at their own pace and discover their own interests. His dad, Benjamin, a computer programmer, helped him with math and science, while his mom, Rebekah, taught him English and history." [http://weblog.science.fau.edu/info/images/israel.html]</ref>

Reasons for '''homeschooling''' include:<ref>For 57 unique benefits of homeschooling, see [http://capitolhillcoffeehouse.com/more.php?id=5239_0_1_0_M].</ref>

* Escaping [[public school]] without incurring the high cost of private school.
* Freedom from [[liberal]] and/or [[atheistic]] bias and culture found in public and private schools.
* A more flexible daily schedule, ability to take vacations and travel during the school year, less commuting, and a healthier diet.<ref>Obesity in [[public school]] students from junk food appears worse than in [[homeschooled]] students.</ref>
* Avoiding conflicts with [[public school]] officials.
* More time spent by parents with their children in formative years.
* Avoiding violence, intimidation, invasions of privacy (e.g., searches) and other hostile aspects of the [[public school culture]].<ref>As an example of the violent culture at [[public school]], "parents said there have been violent incidents, mostly fistfights, at the high school every day this week. 'My daughter is terrified,' said Elizabeth Sabalu, whose daughter is a junior. 'She doesn't want to come to school any more.'" [http://www.suntimes.com/news/education/877459,CST-NWS-skul04.article]</ref><ref>"Nationally, about 160,000 [[student]]s miss [[Public schools|school]] daily because they [[fear]] being [[Bully|bullied]]," and in [[Hawaii]] students viciously fight each other and post videos of it on [[YouTube|Youtube.com]]. One victim is now "being [[homeschooled]] at state expense."[http://starbulletin.com/2008/05/18/news/story01.html]</ref>
* Avoiding objectionable [[vaccines]], "mental health" screening, and questionnaires.
* Avoiding competition between genders, including public school [[feminists]] claiming that girls are better than boys.
* Developing the discipline to be self-employed as an adult, and to work at home.
* Creating an environment in which students are less likely to pick up life-long unhealthy addictions from peers, like drugs, cigarettes, sex, or alcohol.
* Having the time and availability to learn a trade or profession as an apprentice, as has been done throughout history.
* Homeschooling is often an essential approach to achieve the very best in many fields, from [[mathematics]] to music to certain sports.<ref>For example, [[Jordin Sparks]] (b. 1989) became youngest winner of the music talent competition "[[American Idol]]" after she left [[public school]] for homeschooling to concentrate on her singing.[http://www.pr-inside.com/singer-jordin-sparks-12-400-video-newest-r592857.htm]</ref>
* Be part of a community that has a much higher percentage of adopted children than formal school; the homeschooling community has a refreshing culture of life.
* homeschoolers develop independent thinking and self-reliance that help insulate them from techniques of mind control that afflict public school students and teachers<ref>This is most recently illustrated by techniques of mind control employed by the Obama campaign.[http://www.aapsonline.org/newsoftheday/0089]</ref>

Homeschooling, like being self-employed, requires more self-discipline and greater initiative. Many parents understandably give up or burn out after homeschooling for years, just as many people who try to be self-employed do also. Without a rigid schedule and structure to the day, there are constant distractions and excuses to making the same effort that one makes when told to do something. Initiative is required for homeschooled teenagers to meet other homeschooled teenagers, for example, and many return to [[public school]] in the absence of that effort.

Homeschooling [[parent]]s oversee their children's education, usually providing some of the instruction themselves. In addition, homeschooling enables them to mix-and-match other instructional approaches, including:
* attending a weekly course provided in many communities by the homeschooling community
* using a correspondence school (or the modern video- or [[computer]]-based equivalent)
* taking classes at local museums or nature centers
* joining with other [[family|families]] to share teaching responsibilities in a co-op
* encouraging the student to self-instruct using library books, traditional textbooks or workbooks, knowledgeable mentor's and/or hands-on experiences
* hiring a tutor for certain difficult topics, like [[physics]]

Homeschoolers often include local "after school" enrichment programs like scouts, 4-H, sports, [[music]] lessons, karate or dance classes, public library programs, and summer camps as part of their educational program. In 2003, "76 percent of homeschool graduates surveyed between the ages of 18 to 24 voted within the last five years, compared to only 29 percent of the corresponding U.S. population."<ref>http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35226</ref>

==Homeschooling Statistics==

In the [[United States]], homeschooling includes an estimated that 1.1 million students - about 2.2% of children in grade K-12 - as of 2003.<ref>[http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/homeschool/estimated.asp] Homeschooling in the United States: 2003 Statistical Analysis Report, National Center for Educational Statistics, NCES 2006-042, Feb 2006</ref>
A 2005 estimate from the [[National Home Education Research Institute]] places the number between 1.9 million and 2.4 million while the [[National Center for Education Statistics]] estimates that the number of students being homeschooled increased by 29% from 1999 to 2003.<ref>Christian Examiner, Sept. 2007, Vol 25, No 9, Pg 1</ref>

Families who homeschool their children do so for a number of reasons. A 2001 study by the [[US Census Bureau]] found that the single largest reason that parents homeschool is that they feel they can give their children a better education at home. This accounted for 50% of the homeschooling families; [[religion|religious]] reasons came in second at 33%.<ref>Home Schooling in the United States: Trends and Characteristics, by Kurt J. Bauman, Population Division, U.S. Census Bureau, August 2001, Working Paper Series No. 53 [http://www.census.gov/population/www/documentation/twps0053.html]</ref> Other frequently mentioned reasons include dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools, the ability to provide religious or moral instruction along with academics, the ability to control what the child is being taught, flexibility in meeting the needs of a child with special needs (such as a physical or mental health problem, a temporary illness or giftedness), flexibility in scheduling family life, and concern about safety, drugs, and peer pressure at other schools.<ref>Homeschooling in the United States: 2003 Statistical Analysis Report, National Center for Educational Statistics, NCES 2006-042, Feb 2006>[http://nces.ed.gov/pubs2006/homeschool/TableDisplay.asp?TablePath=TablesHTML/table_4.asp] </ref>

Admissions departments at major [[college]]s are now familiar and comfortable with homeschooling, according to a 2004 Boston Globe article. The article quotes a [[Liberal Arts college|Williams College]] admission officer as saying: <blockquote>"We read homeschoolers' applications just like any other application. They don't get any special consideration, but they're not discriminated against, either. Their applications are interesting, and they've certainly done independent work their whole lives."</blockquote> It notes that the acceptance rate of homeschoolers at Williams is 20 percent,<ref>[http://www.boston.com/news/globe/magazine/articles/2004/03/21/schoolhouse_rocked?mode=PF Schoolhouse rocked] "home schooling has gone main stream, especially in Massachusetts. It's estimated that as many as 20,000 children here have abandoned test-crazy public schools and high-priced private schools for the comfort of the living room couch. But most surprising of all is that Harvard, BU, Brown, and other colleges are welcoming homeschoolers like all other students." Source for Williams College admission officer's quote, 20% figure.</ref> virtually identical to its overall acceptance rate.<ref>[http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2006-11-02-collegerates_x.htm College acceptance rates]: Williams, 19.2%. U. S. News and World Report</ref>

In the [[United States]], some states permit homeschooled students to participate in extracurricular activities at their local public schools.

The states of Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Washington, and Wyoming in one way or another expressly allow equal access. In most other states, participation is worked out on a case-by-case basis. <ref>HSLDA: State Laws Concerning Participation of Homeschool Students in Public School Activities [http://www.hslda.org/docs/nche/000000/00000048.asp]</ref> In addition, some states, such as Alabama, are considering equal access legislation. <ref>HSLDA: Alabama - Legislation for Participation in Public School Activities[http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/al/200705010.asp]</ref> In New Jersey, school athletic associations dominated by public schools exclude homeschoolers from participation in athletics, even though they allow students at different charter schools to participate.<ref>[[New Jersey State Interscholastic Athletic Association]]</ref>

It should also be noted that stay at home moms, the most common teachers for homeschooling, reported having happier lives than their working counterparts.<ref>http://www.momlogic.com/2008/07/sahm_wahm_happiness_poll.php?icid=100214839x1204880052x1200231518#start</ref>

==History==

In the United States, opting out of [[public school]]s is not new. When [[Thomas Edison]]'s public school teacher said he was "addled," Edison's mother took him out of public school and taught him at home.

Education at public school year-round from about ages 6 to 18 became common only in the 20th century due to compulsory education laws. The first [[law]] requiring attendance at public school passed in [[Massachusetts]] in 1852; the second such law passed in [[Washington D.C.]] in 1864; and most states did not pass mandatory schooling laws until between 1870 and 1917.<ref>[http://www.ncsl.org/programs/educ/CompulsoryEd.htm Compulsory Education], National Conference of State Legislatures: "More than 150 years have passed since Horace Mann helped Massachusetts establish a statewide system of education that eventually led to the requirement that all children attend public school. In 1852, Massachusetts became the first state to pass compulsory school attendance laws, and by 1918, all states required children to receive an education."</ref><ref>http://www.renewamerica.us/columns/kellmeyer/050428</ref>

But even under compulsory education laws in the late 1800s, the school year was only twelve to twenty weeks long. Very few stayed in school from ages 6 to 18. For example, by 1900, only 6% of Americans had graduated from a formal high school. Moreover, these students did not learn basic skills like reading in school; they learned those at home.<ref>''id.''</ref>

Baltimore's Calvert School began selling the school's curriculum to parents in 1905. Within five years, more than 300 children were enrolled in Calvert's correspondence courses. Over the next hundred years, Calvert served over 500,000 children from a wide variety of families nation-wide and around the world, including missionary families and those in remote locations.<ref>Calvert School Homeschooling: A Century of Tradition and Innovation [http://www.calvertschool.org/education-services/home-school-history/]</ref>

The homeschooling ''movement'' began in the 1960s from very different ideological sources. [[Seventh-Day Adventists]] Dr. Raymond and Dorothy Moore pioneered homeschooling as a result of their research into education and their concern about the harmful effects of schooling on students, particularly boys, between ages 5 and 15.<ref>http://www.moorefoundation.com/article.php?id=2</ref> On the other side of the political spectrum, John Holt wrote a book critical of schooling in 1964, entitled ''How Children Fail.'' Holt was "a left-winger who regarded schools as instruments of the bureaucratic-industrial complex."<ref>Micklethwait, John and Adrian Wooldridge, ''The Right Nation: Conservative Power in America.'' Penguin, 2004. pp. 190-1</ref> More generally, millions of Americans were alarmed at the 1962 [[U. S. Supreme Court]] ruling which banned school-sponsored prayer in public schools, and many of those parents began to look for alternatives.

Truancy laws brought pioneering homeschoolers into conflict with local officials. The first [[New York Times]] story on "home schooling" appeared in 1974, and concerned two parents charged with "educational neglect" by the [[Westchester]] County Department of Social Services. Tests showed that they performed at or about grade level "except for one who is a little slow in reading," and the parents received strong support from a state senator.<ref>"Parents Accused in Home Schooling," ''The New York Times,'' July 28, 1974, p. 45</ref> By the mid-1980s the ''Times'' was running articles with titles like "Schooling in the Home: A Growing Alternative" and "There Are Benefits In Homeschooling," and states were legalizing homeschooling.<ref>Belluck, Pam (1998), "Life After Home Schooling," ''The New York Times,'' November 1, 1998, p. ED26: "Some 15 years after states began legalizing home schooling in earnest, these early graduates are starting to make their way in the world."</ref> A 1997 article said "It's not only [[Christian fundamentalists]] any more" and a 2003 article noted "Unhappy in Class, More Are Learning at Home."

== Prominent people who were homeschooled ==




Throughout history, a remarkably high percentage of accomplished people were homeschooled, including many great [[mathematician]]s. Here is a growing list of such achievers:

*[[Ansel Adams]], (1902-1984), the finest landscape photographer of the twentieth century. "At twelve, unable to stand the confinement and tedium of the classroom, he utterly disrupted his lessons with wild laughter and undisguised contempt for the inept ramblings of his teachers. His father decided that Ansel’s formal education was best ended. From that point forward, the boy was homeschooled in Greek, the English classics, algebra, and the glories of the ocean, inlets, and rocky beaches that surrounded their home very near San Francisco."<ref>http://wy.essortment.com/anseladamsbio_rjrq.htm</ref>

*[[John Adams]] (1735-1826), U.S. President. Learned to read at home, and was then taught in the kitchen by a neighbor with a handful of children. He matriculated to Harvard College at age 15.{{fact}}

*[[Louisa May Alcott]] (1832-1888), the author of ''Little Women'' and other great works, was taught by her father.{{fact}}

*[[Susan B. Anthony]], leading pro-life feminist and advocate of women's suffrage. Her father homeschooled her.<ref>http://www.homeschoolutah.org/pages/pastandpresent.htm</ref>

* [[Benjamin Banneker]] (1731-1806)) wrote the first almanac by a black man and helped survey [[Washington, D.C.]]. Banneker was taught to read and write by his grandmother in rural [[Maryland]]."<ref>http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Banneker.html</ref>

*[[Clara Barton]] (1821-1912), pioneering nurse during the [[Civil War]], founder of the [[American Association of the International Red Cross]]. Barton was homeschooled, and at 15 started teaching school. She later attended the Liberal Institute in Clinton, New York. <ref>White House Dream Team: Clara Barton[http://www.whitehouse.gov/kids/dreamteam/clarabarton.html]</ref> <ref>Clara Harlowe Barton, Source: "Historical Times Encyclopedia of the Civil War" edited by Patricia L. Faust
[http://www.civilwarhome.com/bartonbio.htm]</ref>

*[[Alexander Graham Bell]] (1847-1922), inventor of the telephone. His deaf mother taught him to read and write, and he returned the favor by inventing the telephone to try to help her (and other deaf persons) communicate.

*[[Dietrich Bonhoeffer]] (1906-1945), a [[Christian]] who spoke against [[Hitler]] and was martyred for doing so.

*[[Mary Breckinridge]] (1881-1965), pioneering American midwife and founder of Kentucky's Frontier Nursing Service. Mary's father was a diplomat, and she was educated in America and abroad by private tutors.<ref>Frontier Nursing Service[http://www.frontiernursing.org/History/MaryBreckinridge.shtm] </ref>

*[[William Jennings Bryan]], [[Secretary of State]] under President [[Woodrow Wilson]] and before that was the founder of the modern [[Democratic Party]]. He was also the leading critic of the [[theory of evolution]] who prevailed in the [[Scopes Trial]] and was perhaps the greatest orator in [[American]] history. He was homeschooled until age 10 as his mother taught him to stand on table to recite his lessons.<ref>http://www.homeschoolutah.org/pages/pastandpresent.htm</ref>

*[[William F. Buckley]], leading [[conservative]] intellectual. He was homeschooled by his parents and tutors.<ref>http://www.homeschoolutah.org/pages/pastandpresent.htm</ref>

*[[Robert Burns]] (1759-1796) [[Scotland]]'s national poet.

*[[Andrew Carnegie]] (1835-1919), the brilliant American businessman and philanthropist of the late 1800s, his father was a poor weaver and Andrew dropped out of elementary school<ref>http://www.education-reform.net/dropouts.htm</ref> and had only five years of formal schooling.<ref>http://www.carnegieinstitution.org/carnegiemedal/background.html</ref>

*[[George Washington Carver]] (1864-1943) Botanical and agricultural researcher and educator. Born a slave, Carver "learned to read, write and spell at home because there were no schools for African Americans in" his area.<ref>http://lib.iastate.edu:9060/gwc/bio.html</ref> He did not attend school until age 12, when he went to a one-room schoolhouse in Missouri; he later graduated from Minneapolis High School in Kansas. Became the first black student at Simpson College in Iowa, transferred to Iowa Agricultural College in 1891. Earned a Bachelor of Science degree in 1894 and a Master of Science degree in bacterial botany and agriculture in 1897.<ref>MSN Encarta Encyclopedia - George Washington Carver article [http://encarta.msn.com/encyclopedia_761574196/Carver_George_Washington.html]</ref><ref>George Washington Carver, By Mary Bellis [http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa041897.htm]</ref>

*[[Augustin-Louis Cauchy]] (1789-1857), one of the greatest mathematicians of all time, was taught by his father during an 11-year retreat to the country to escape the [[French Revolution]]. His father "wrote his own textbooks, several of them in the fluent verse of which he was master. Verse, he believed, made grammar, history and, above all, morals less repulsive to the juvenile mind."<ref>E.T. Bell, "Men of Mathematics," 273 (1937).</ref><ref>http://james.fabpedigree.com/mathmen.htm#Cauchy</ref>

*[[Pafnuty Chebyshev]] (1821-1894), one of the greatest Russian [[mathematician]]s, was homeschooled until college.<ref>http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Chebyshev.html</ref>

*[[Agatha Christie]] (1890-1976), best-selling English mystery writer. Christie was homeschooled by her mother, who encouraged her to write from a very early age. At sixteen she was sent to finishing school in Paris. <ref>PBS Mystery Series "Miss Marple" site: Biography of Agatha Christie[http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/mystery/marple/christie.html]</ref>

*[[Winston Churchill]] (1874–1965), [[British]] statesman. It was at home that he was taught how to read, write and do math, and was not enrolled in a school until several months into the school year at the age of seven. After only about two years at that school, he was abruptly pulled out and then spent several years under the instruction of two maiden sisters in a less formal school setting.<ref>William Manchester, "The Last Lion: Winston Spencer Churchill, VISIONS OF GLORY 1874-1932 (Little Brown & Co.).</ref>

*[[Charles Dickens]], prolific [[English]] author who could not afford school. His "passions for reading were awakened by his mother," who homeschooled him with a curriculum that included English and Latin.<ref>http://www.homeschoolutah.org/pages/pastandpresent.htm</ref>

*[[Thomas Edison]] (1804–1896), the most prolific inventor in the history of the world and considered by many to be the most influential person of the last 1000 years.<ref>http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bledison.htm</ref> His mother pulled him out of public school at age 7, after just a few months, and began homeschooling him by reading from the Bible.

*[[Paul Erdos]] (1913–1996), the most prolific [[mathematician]] of the 20th century, was taught at home until college.<ref>http://www-history.mcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Erdos.html</ref>

*[[Pierre de Fermat]] (1601?-1665), the greatest [[mathematician]] of the 17th century and the founder of the modern theory of numbers, was homeschooled.<ref>E.T. Bell, "Men of Mathematics" 57 (1937)</ref>

*[[Benjamin Franklin]] (1706-1790), a leading [[Founding Father]] and prolific inventor and statesman, only attended part-time school from ages 8 to 10.{{fact}}

*[[Robert Frost]], the leading [[American]] poet of the 20th century and winner of the [[Pulitzer Prize]]. He "disliked school so much he became physically ill; what schoolwork he did was done at home until he passed the entrance exams and entered high school."<ref>http://www.homeschoolutah.org/pages/pastandpresent.htm</ref>

*[[Evariste Galois]] (1811–1832), among the brightest mathematicians ever and the founder of Galois groups and fields and Galois theory. "Until the age of twelve Galois had no teacher but his mother, Adelaide-Marie Demante."<ref>E.T. Bell, "Men of Mathematics," 362 (1937). Galois' life was tragically cut short at age 20 in a [[duel]], and his work was published posthumously.[scidiv.bcc.ctc.edu/Math/Galois.html]</ref>

*[[William Hamilton]] (1805-1865), the greatest Irish mathematician and biggest contributor since [[Isaac Newton]] of [[mathematics]] to [[physics]]. He was taught by his uncle, the Reverend James Hamilton.<ref>E.T. Bell, "Men of Mathematics," 340-41 (1937).</ref>

*Zac, Taylor, and Isaac Hanson, of the band [[Hanson]]. Educated at home by their mother, and later by a tutor. <ref>Hanson: The All American Boys[http://www.drdrew.com/DrewLive/article.asp?id=1112]</ref><ref>Hangin With Presents
Hanson[http://www.agirlsworld.com/rachel/hangin-with/hanson.html]</ref>

*[[Fred Hoyle]] (1915-2001), the greatest British physicist of the 20th century, received a "homespun" education in which he sneaked away from his school for 60% of the time between ages 5 and 9.<ref>"My earliest research work was in truancy from school, in which I was successful enough to whittle down the time I spent mewed up in classrooms to something like forty percent of what it was supposed to be between the ages of five and nine." Fred Hoyle, ''Mathematics of Evolution'' at p. 1 (Acorn Enterprises 1999). Note, however, that Hoyle's parents were also apparently unaware of his [[truancy]].</ref>

*[[Julia Ward Howe]] (1819–1910), abolitionist, writer, and women's rights activist. Julia was educated by tutors at home and in girls' schools until age 16. <ref>Open Connections Program, Women Working 1800-1930, Harvard University Library: Julia Ward Howe (1819-1910)[http://ocp.hul.harvard.edu/ww/people_howe.html]</ref>

*[[Carl Jacobi]] (1804-1851), a prominent and prolific German mathematician, was taught at home until the age of 12 and was taught the classics and [[mathematics]] by a maternal uncle.<ref>E.T. Bell, "Men of Mathematics," 327 (1937).</ref>

*[[Joan of Arc]] (1412-1431), one of the greatest military leaders ever. Taught domestic skills and religion by her mother. <ref>"As a child she was taught domestic skills as well as her religion by her mother. ... It was my mother alone who taught me the 'Our Father' and 'Hail Mary' and the 'Creed;' and from none other was I taught my faith."[http://www.stjoan-center.com/#bio A Short Biography of Saint Joan of Arc][http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08409c.htm New Advent - Catholic Encyclopedia - St. Joan of Arc][http://joan-of-arc.org/joanofarc_biography.html Biography of Joan of Arc]</ref>

*[[John the Apostle]] (c. A.D. 20-100), the author of the [[Gospel of John]], considered by many to be the greatest written work ever. He also wrote several other books in the [[New Testament]]. His parents placed him, most likely as a child, under the homeschool-like teaching of [[Jesus]] rather than a more traditional school setting.<ref>In an approach common among homeschoolers, John's parents placed ''both'' their sons under the homeschool-like teaching of Jesus.</ref> John became the first to develop [[Christian]] [[faith]] and his work has since spread Christianity to billions.<ref>For growing evidence that John was a child, see [[Mystery:Was John a Child?]].</ref>

*[[C.S. Lewis]] (1898-1963), the author of the ''Chronicles of Narnia'' and other famous works, was taught at home by his mother and a governess until age 10, and later sent to be taught by a tutor to prepare him for [[Oxford]].<ref>'''Lewis, C. S.''', ''Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Life'', London: Harvest Books (1955) ISBN 0-1568-7011-8</ref>

*[[Abraham Lincoln]] (1809-1865), American president. "Though his [formal] education was limited to a few months in a 1-teacher school, Lincoln avidly read books such as the Bible, ''Pilgrim's Progress'' and Weemss ''Life of Washington''."<ref>http://www.civilwarhome.com/lincolnbio.htm</ref>

*Countess Augusta [[Ada Lovelace]] (1815-1852), a visionary programmer and namesake of the [[ADA]] programming language, was homeschooled by governesses and tutors hired by her mother.{{fact}}

*General [[Douglas MacArthur]], the leading [[American]] general of the 20th century, both in [[World War II]] against [[Japan]] and in the [[Korean War]]. His mother homeschooled him until the age of 13, and he was tutored afterwards. When he entered [[West Point]] he attained the highest entrance exam scores ever reported.<ref>http://www.homeschoolutah.org/pages/pastandpresent.htm</ref>

*[[Benoit Mandelbrot]], a [[Yale]] mathematics professor known as the "father of fractals" and the person who coined the term,<ref>http://www.creativitysoftware.com/fractals-images/pages-hs/mandelbrot.htm</ref> received no extended formal schooling and was taught at home by his uncle beginning at the age of 12.<ref>http://www.fractalwisdom.com/FractalWisdom/fractal.html</ref>

*[[Yehudi Menuhin]] (1916-1999), noted violinist and conductor, never attended school, and was taught Mathematics, History and Hebrew by his father, and French, German, Italian and Spanish by his mother.<ref>Slater, Elinor and Slater, Robert ''Great Jewish Men'' (Jonathon David Publishers; 1996) ISBN 0-8246-0381-8</ref>

*[[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart]] (1756-1791), German composer. "He was educated by his father, Leopold Mozart, a violinist of high repute in the service of the archbishop of Salzburg."<ref>[http://www.1911encyclopedia.org/Wolfgang_Amadeus_Mozart The 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica]</ref>

*[[Isaac Newton]] (1643-1727), considered the greatest physicist of all time. He was homeschooled until age ten, and then was an underachiever at school until he lodged with the headmaster.<ref>http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Newton.html</ref>

* [[Christopher Paolini]] (1983-), the author of the best-selling [[Inheritance Trilogy]] ([[Eragon]], [[Eldest]], and a third book yet unreleased). He was homeschooled by his parents, through an accredited correspondence course from the American School in Chicago, Illinois, from which he graduated with his high school diploma at 15 years of age. <ref>Book Browse Author Biography: Christopher Paolini[http://www.bookbrowse.com/biographies/index.cfm?author_number=934]</ref>

* [[Blaise Pascal]] (1623-1662), one of the greatest mathematicians and philosophers of all time, was homeschooled by his father.<ref>E.T. Bell, "Men of Mathematics," 74-76 (1937).</ref>

* [[George Patton]] (1885–1945), one of America's greatest generals. He was taught at home until age 11 based on his "father's theory of education" that "youthful mind should be led along a path that parallels the development of the mind of the race" by being read to by elders.<ref>http://www.pattonhq.com/unknown/chap01.html The Patton Society ("The Early Years")]</ref><ref>http://www.freeinfosociety.com/site.php?postnum=517</ref>

* [[Henri Poincaré]] (1854-1912), one of the greatest mathematicians ever and an original developer of the [[Theory of Relativity]]. Poincaré, who had diphtheria as a child, received special instruction from his gifted mother and excelled in written composition while still in elementary school. He entered the Lycée in Nancy (now renamed the Lycée Henri Poincaré in his honor), in 1862 and spent eleven years there. He entered the École Polytechnique in 1873, graduating in 1875. After graduating from the École Polytechnique, Poincaré continued his studies at the École des Mines. <ref>Jules Henri Poincaré[http://www-gap.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Poincare.html]</ref>

* [[Alexander Pope]] (1688-1744), one of the greatest and most-often quoted [[English]] poets and essayists. "From Twyford School he was expelled after writing a satire on one of the teachers. At home, Pope's aunt taught him to read. Latin and Greek he learned from a local priest and later he acquired knowledge of French and Italian poetry."<ref>http://www.kirjasto.sci.fi/apope.htm</ref>

*[[Ferdinand Porsche]] (1875-1951), designer of the [[German]] Porsche automobile. He was homeschooled and self-taught during his formative years,<ref>http://famousbrandnames.blogspot.com/2007/02/porsche.html</ref> which is ironic given that homeschooling is illegal in [[Germany]] today.

*[[Joseph Priestley]] (1733-1804), the father of modern chemistry and the discoverer of oxygen, dropped out of school as a teenager and privately learned geometry, algebra and numerous languages.{{fact}}

*[[Bernhard Riemann]] (1826-1866), a German recognized as the greatest modern mathematician. He was taught at home by his father, a Lutheran minister, until he was ten. After that he was tutored by a teacher from a local school until he entered the Lyceum in Hannover at 14. <ref>School of Mathematics and Statistics, University of St Andrews, Scotland -- Georg Friedrich Bernhard Riemann, by: J J O'Connor and E F Robertson[http://www-groups.dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk/~history/Biographies/Riemann.html]</ref><ref>http://www.andrews.edu/~calkins/math/biograph/199899/bioriema.htm</ref>

*[[Franklin D. Roosevelt]] (1882-1945), U.S. President. He was educated by private tutors at home through age 14, then entered Groton, an elite private school in Massachusetts, in 1896. <ref>The Eleanor Roosevelt Papers. "Franklin D. Roosevelt." Teaching Eleanor Roosevelt, ed. by Allida Black, June Hopkins, et. al. (Hyde Park, New York: Eleanor Roosevelt National Historic Site, 2003).
[http://www.nps.gov/archive/elro/glossary/roosevelt-franklin.htm]</ref>

*[[Theodore Roosevelt]] (1858–1919), U.S. President. "Roosevelt never enrolled in a public school. He was mostly instructed by private tutors until he entered Harvard College in 1876."<ref>http://law.enotes.com/presidential-biography/theodore-roosevelt-administrations/education</ref>

*[[Erwin Schrodinger]] (1887-1961), was one of the developers of the theory of [[quantum mechanics]] in physics. "He was not sent to elementary school, but received lessons at home from a private tutor up to the age of ten ...."<ref>http://bdaugherty.tripod.com/berlin/schrodinger.html</ref>

*[[George Bernard Shaw]] (1856-1950), author. Tutored in the classics by a clerical uncle until he entered school at age 10. Left school by age 15. <ref>Encyclopedia of World Biography on George Bernard Shaw[http://www.bookrags.com/biography/george-bernard-shaw/]</ref> <ref>Dictionary of Literary Biography on George Bernard Shaw[http://www.bookrags.com/biography/george-bernard-shaw-dlb/]</ref><ref>George Bernard Shaw, 1856-1950 Biographical Sketch[http://www.hrc.utexas.edu/research/fa/shaw.gb.bio.html]</ref>

*[[Mark Twain]] (real name was Samuel Clemens) (1835-1910), American author and satirist who said, "I have never let my schooling interfere with my education." Attended school through the 5th grade, where he "excelled only in spelling" and was frequently truant, then worked as a printer's apprentice for a local newspaper. His mother said, "He was always a great boy for history, and could never get tired of that kind of reading; but he hadn't any use for schoolhouses and text books." <ref>The Mark Twain House and Museum: Biography of Samuel Clemens/Mark Twain [http://www.marktwainhouse.org/theman/bio.shtml]</ref><ref>The Project Gutenberg EBook of Mark Twain, by Archibald Henderson
[http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/6/8/7/6873/6873.txt]</ref>

* [[Leonardo da Vinci]] (1452–1519), Italian artist, inventor, and all-around "Renaissance man". Leonardo went to school in Vinci, where he learned to write, to read and to calculate, and was taught geometry and Latin. At 14, Leonardo moved to Florence where he began an apprenticeship in the workshop of Verrocchio. <ref>Leonardo da Vinci[http://www.kausal.com/leonardo/childhood.html]</ref>

*[[Laura Ingalls Wilder]], the author of the Little House on the Prairie.<ref>http://www.homeschoolutah.org/pages/pastandpresent.htm</ref>

*[[Andrew Wyeth]] (1917- ), American artist, was tutored at home until he was 18. <ref>The Homeschooling of Andrew Wyeth, A Conversation with the Artist, Gifted Children Monthly, May 1986, Vol 7 No. 5.[http://www.nfgcc.org/51.htm] </ref>

*[[Frank Lloyd Wright]] (1867-1959), considered the finest architect ever, was taught at home by his mother who dreamed that he would become an architect. She used "Froebel's geometric blocks to entertain and educate her son" as his father led the family among various Baptist churches, where he preached.<ref>http://freenet.buffalo.edu/bah/a/archs/wright/bio/index.html</ref> Wright then attended high school but dropped out of college.<ref>http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0942394/bio</ref>

*[[Brigham Young]], the leader of the [[Morman Church]] and founder of 200 towns and villages. He was homeschooled and had only "11 days of formal education."<ref>http://www.homeschoolutah.org/pages/pastandpresent.htm</ref>

In addition, a number of prominent people have chosen to homeschool their children. [[David Guterson]], author of the novel ''Snow Falling on Cedars'' (1994), which won the 1995 [[PEN/Faulkner Award]], also wrote ''Family Matters: Why Homeschooling Makes Sense'' (1992), an account of his family's homeschooling journey. <ref>www.randomhouse.com: David Guterson [http://www.randomhouse.com/vintage/read/snow/guterson.html]</ref> Actor and recording artist Will Smith and his wife actress Jada Pinkett Smith homeschool their children. <ref>Reader's Digest: Will Power: Will Smith is One Driven Guy[http://www.rd.com/content/will-smith-interview/1/]</ref>. Roseanne Barr stated in an interview that she has started to homeschool her 11-year-old son.<ref>Reuters Interview - Roseanne Barr says age gives her a louder voice [http://in.news.yahoo.com/070322/137/6dlba.html]</ref> Jimmy Wales, co-founder of [[Wikipedia]], also homeschools.<ref>http://reason.com/news/show/119689.html</ref> Kristin Maguire, head of the [[South Carolina]] board of education, which governs all its [[public schools]], homeschools all four of her children.<ref>http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2008/01/09/17stjour.h27.html</ref>

==See Also==
*[[People Who Arguably Were Homeschooled]]
*[[Previous Breaking News/Homeschooling|Articles about '''Homeschooling''' from previous "In the news"]]

==References==
{{reflist|2}}

==See also==
*[[Homeschool Legal Defense Association]]
*[[Homeschooling in England and Wales]]
[[Category:Education]]

==External links==
*[http://www.robinsoncurriculum.com/view/rc/s31p54.htm Christian Children Must Have More Than A Fighting Chance] - Four reasons to homeschool your children, by [[Art Robinson]]
*[http://www.homeschoolacademy.com/famoushomeschoolers.htm] - List of homeschooled achievers.

[[Category:Homeschooling|*]]

Abraham Lincoln

2008-11-01T14:48:18Z

Bush43:

{{President
|image=Ncoln2.jpg
|seq=16
|term_start=March 4, 1861
|term_end=April 15, 1865
|party=Republican
|vp=Hannibal Hamlin
|vp_dates=1861-1865
|2vp=Andrew Johnson
|2vp_dates=1865
|previous=James Buchanan
|next=Andrew Johnson
|birth_date=February 12, 1809
|birth_place=Hardin County, Kentucky
|death_date=April 15, 1865 (aged 56)
|death_place=Washington, D.C.
|spouse=Mary Todd
|spouse2=
|religion=
}}

'''Abraham Lincoln''' was the 16th [[President of the United States of America]] serving from 1861 to 1865. He led his country through its darkest chapter, the [[American Civil War | Civil War]]. He was [[homeschooled]] and almost completely self-taught, which likely gave him independent thinking, reliance on logic, and a desire to continue to learn as an adult.<ref>For example, Lincoln successfully proved all of Euclid's theorems while Lincoln served in Congress.</ref> He is considered the most eloquent writer of any American president in history. He is also one of the very few whose [[faith]] developed and grew while holding high public office.

==Early life==
''“I was born Feb. 12, 1809, in Hardin County, Kentucky. My parents were both born in Virginia, of undistinguished families-- second families, perhaps I should say. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks, some of whom now reside in Adams, and others in Macon Counties, Illinois.”'' [http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/autobiog.htm]

Abraham Lincoln was born in a backwoods cabin some three miles south of Hodgenville, Kentucky. His father was Thomas Lincoln, who himself was a descendant of a weaver’s apprentice who had migrated to Massachusetts from England some years after the Mayflower landed. Thomas was a sturdy man, committed to pioneering in the new lands of Kentucky and Indiana, despite his lack of prosperity. He married Nancy Hanks on June 12, 1806, and together they had three children: Sarah, Abraham, and Thomas, who did not survive infancy. Young Abraham’s earliest memories of his days in Kentucky were his helping his father plant some seeds of corn and sunflower, and of a flood that washed them away.
[[Image:Young abraham lincoln.jpg|thumb|200px|left|The oldest-known photograph of Lincoln, about 1847.]]
In December 1816 Thomas had to pack up his family and leave for southwestern Indiana to avoid a lawsuit which had threatened him with a takeover of his property. There he built what was a “half-faced” camp, just a crude log structure with one side open to the elements, and there the family stayed as squatters on public land until Thomas had finished a permanent cabin, and later would buy the land outright on which it stood. Helping Thomas clear the land and plowing the fields was Abraham, who would also take care of the crops but developed a dislike for tasks which put additional food on the table, hunting and fishing. The poverty, Lincoln recalled, was “pretty pinching” at times, and by the age of nine he was a tall, lanky boy dressed rather ragged and unkempt.

Then the fall of 1818 brought the hardest blow: Nancy had died of the “milk sickness”, leaving Abraham without the mother whom he deeply loved. Some time later, Thomas had taken the buckboard and the mule, and left Abraham and Sarah on their own for two weeks; when he returned, he was with a new wife, Sarah Bush Johnson; she immediately made up for the absence of Nancy by replacing Abraham’s corn husk mattress with one of down, winning him over the first day. The new step-mother treated both children with an even hand (she herself was a widow with three children, whom she had brought), but she became very fond of Abraham, and he in turn was fond of her, referring to her as his “angel mother” for the rest of his life.

===Education===
Both of Abraham’s parents were nearly completely illiterate, and he himself had not much more than one year of formal education. When he did go to school, it was by “littles” – a little here, a little there – and he would call it “blab” school, which meant that they had to recite their lessons constantly due to lack of paper, pencils, and chalk. “Of course, when I came of age I did not know much. Still, somehow, I could read, write, and cipher to the rule of three; but that was all.”

His step-mother encouraged his reading as much as possible, and although Abraham did not have access to a large number of books, he would read as much of what was there, and read voraciously. He read John Bunyan’s Pilgrim’s Progress, ''Aesop’s Fables'', Daniel DeFoe’s ''Robinson Crusoe'', Parson Weems's ''Life and Memorable Actions of George Washington'', Edward Gibbon’s ''Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire'', and undoubtedly he read many times the only book his family actually owned, the Bible. He would walk for miles to borrow a book he heard about, and after his chores he would collapse into a heap in front of the fire and read for hours. He would say years later that his best friend was the man who let him borrow a book he hadn’t read yet.

===The Rail-Splitter===
[[Image:Railsplitter.jpg|thumb|200px|right|An artist's impression of a young Abe Lincoln, the ''Rail-Splitter''.]]
The Lincolns moved to Illinois in March, 1830, with Abraham driving the team of oxen himself, a young man of 21, rawboned and lanky at six feet four inches tall. But the years working on the Indiana farm have also made him physically powerful, and on his arrival in Illinois he was soon to demonstrate the skill with which he could wield an axe, putting it to good use by clearing the trees and laying the fence on his father’s new farm; the speed with which he could take tree trunks and split them into the rails needed for the fencing just by using his axe earned him the nickname “rail-splitter.” He could make an axe flash and bite deep; one neighbor saying “He could sink an axe deeper into wood than any man I ever saw.” And after a good deal of chopping, he could take the axe by its handle and hold it straight out away from his body, without a single quiver. (Sandburg, pg. 14) Good-natured as well, he would make friends easily, despite his awkward-looking stride and backwoods language.
[[Image:Lincoln hair.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Fearing that his friends wouldn't recognize him "without a bad tousle", Lincoln messed his hair up in this picture before the photographer closed the shutter.]]
Soon, he signed on as a deckhand on a flatboat, and made a voyage down the Mississippi River to New Orleans. When he returned he settled in a small town on the Sangamon River called New Salem, working as a store keeper, surveyor, or a postmaster, the later of which allowed him to be the first to read the arriving newspapers. Then talk went about town of Lincoln’s utter honesty, how he would walk six miles to return a few cents to a customer he had accidentally overcharged, or the woman that had bought some tea, and having used the wrong weight for the purchase, Lincoln made the correction and walked the many miles to her house to ensure she got the right order (Sandburg, pp 24-25).

In 1832 he enlisted in the Black Hawk War, and was elected captain of his company, but the only fighting he admitted seeing action in was the “many bloody struggles with the mosquitoes.” After he was mustered out of his company, he aspired for the state legislature, losing the contest the first time he ran, then getting elected and re-elected several times afterward. He had briefly thought about practicing the trade of blacksmithing, but his craving of reading led him to law books, which caused some serious studying. Lincoln passed the bar in 1836, and began a new career practicing law.

==Springfield==
The following year he moved to the new state capital of Illinois, Springfield, becoming law partners with John T. Stuart, Stephan T. Logan, and finally William H. Herndon in 1844, who, although junior in age to Lincoln by a decade, made a good, balanced partner. Few records exist of their law business, and when they got paid for their services they split the cash, no matter who was paid. Lincoln would earn $1,200 - $1,500 annually within just a few years; by comparison circuit judges earned $750. But to earn it he kept busy and worked hard; often he would climb into his buggy and travel the circuit of neighboring counties and practice before the courts there. And often the cases he would be involved in were petty

Years before he had tried, and failed, to push legislation through the state assembly to have the Sangamon River made navigable to New Salem; by 1850 the railroads were bringing business and prosperity to Illinois, and Lincoln, by virtue of the ease the railroad made in traveling to his courts, profited more. He had served as a lobbyist for the Illinois Central Railroad, enabling it to get a state charter; he would defend the company against McClean County’s unsuccessful efforts to tax it. He handles cases for other railroads, banks, manufacturing, and other large companies in the state; he handled some patent suits and a few criminal trials. And he also saved the first bridge to cross the Mississippi River from demolition, when river interests demanded the bridge be taken down.

===The moonlight murder===
In Lincoln’s New Salem days he was introduced to the Clary’s Grove Boys, a group of rowdy men from that nearby town would come into New Salem to bully some of the male townsfolk. The leader of the group was Jack Armstrong, who’s challenge to wrestle the Salem men usually resulted in Armstrong throwing the unfortunate man to the ground in a very short time; when he saw Lincoln, Armstrong would dismiss the lanky young man as a pushover. It was when they fought that Armstrong discovered just how hard it was to throw Lincoln – in fact, it was impossible. The battle ended in a draw, and the good-natured Lincoln made a new friend. Armstrong would later be one of the men to elect Lincoln to lead the company of volunteers in the Black Hawk War.

In 1856, Jack Armstrong’s son, William (or “Duff”), was charged with murder. A witness had claimed that he had seen Duff and another kill a New Salem man late at night by the light of full moon. Lincoln pulled out an almanac and proved that the witness could not have seen anything at all, as the moon was at its quarter and had actually set over an hour before. Duff was acquitted, and Lincoln won the case.

==Politics==
Andrew Jackson, the hero of New Orleans in the War of 1812 and a Democrat from Tennessee, was in the White House when Lincoln first entered politics. He shared with Jackson the sympathies for the common man, but differed in the role of government as related to it; Jackson stated the government should be separated from the economic enterprise, while Lincoln was of the view that “the legitimate object of government is to do for a community of people whatever they need to have done, but cannot do at all, or cannot do so well, for themselves, in their separate and individual capacities.” Lincoln most associated himself with the Whig Party, as among their members Henry Clay and Daniel Webster both advocated a government should be encouraging business, and the development of the country to that end. It was an easy choice for Lincoln: he saw Illinois as needing such aid to improve the development of its own economy.

In the Illinois State Legislature Lincoln found that politics could be detrimental and harsh, as well as rewarding. An example of the former occurred in 1836, just as he gave a speech in support of his re-election. Democrat John Forquer, also seeking election, used his response and acid tounge to denounce him. "This young man needs to be taken down" he said, pointing to Lincoln, "and I'm afraid the task devolves upon me." The success of Forquer's speech convinced some of Lincoln's own allies that his career was over.

But when Lincoln rose to make his rebuttal, he thought of Forquer, and what he had done recently in conniving with President Jackson to change parties; in reward for doing so he was made Government Land Register with a $3,000 annual salary. Forquer was then able to construct a fine new house in Springfield, complete with a curiosity residents had heard about from science but had never seen before: a lightning rod. Before he entered the state house building that day, Lincoln spent a few minutes at Forquer's house staring at the thing, and having heard Forquer's speech later on, he thought of what he saw. Lincoln's reply was blistering, and sealed Forquer's fate.

:''"Among other things he said, the gentleman commenced his speech by saying that 'this young man,' alluding to me, 'must be taken down.' I am not so young in years as I am in the tricks and the trades of a politician, but, live long or die young, I would rather die now than, like the gentleman, change my politics, and with the change receive an office worth $3,000 a year, and then feel obliged to erect a lightning-rod over my house to protect a guilty conscience from an offended God!"'' (Sandburg, pg.49)

Lincoln also proposed state funding to construct a network of roads, railroads, and canals. Both Whigs and Democrats would join in for the passing of this omnibus bill, but a business depression was created by the panic of 1837, and as a result most of the provisions in the bill were abandoned. 1837 was also marked by the murder of Elijah Lovejoy, a newspaperman from Alton who was killed by a mob due to his anti-slavery views. The legislature introduced resolutions defending Southern slavery while condemning abolitionist societies, as per the U.S. Constitution. In protest of the resolutions Lincoln, with a fellow legislator, drew up a declaration [http://www.nps.gov/archive/liho/slavery/al02.htm] which stated that slavery was “founded on both injustice and bad policy,” while also declaring that “the promulgation of abolition doctrines tends rather to increase than to abate its evils.”
[[Image:Lawyer Lincoln.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Lincoln in the late 1850's, about to debate his rival Stephen A. Douglas.]]
He only served one term in the United States Congress, 1847 to 1849, during which time he did little on legislative matters. He did introduce a bill calling for a gradual emancipation of slaves within the District of Columbia, but since it hinged on the approval of the white citizens there, it only caused mild anger from abolitionists as well as slave holders, and was quietly dropped. His one main issue was over the Mexican War, in which he condemned the American entry into it on false pretenses, particularly blaming current president James K. Polk. He worked toward the nomination of Zachary Taylor for the presidency, and when Taylor had won, Lincoln expected to be rewarded with the job of land commissioner, but failed. He was voted out of office by his constituents, as they felt he was too critical of the war. Disillusioned, he left politics and reentered his law practice.

==Return to politics==
He stayed out for five years, winning several cases before the courts, then in 1854 he had read in the papers that Stephan A. Douglas, his political rival and Democratic senator from Illinois, had placed before Congress a bill which would reopen the territory of the Louisiana Purchase to slavery, as well as allow settlers in the Kansas and Nebraska territories to vote for themselves whether or not they wanted it, a concept which was called “popular sovereignty” by Douglas. The resulting Kansas-Nebraska Act would do nothing more than provoke violent opposition; a border war would result between Kansas and Missouri as both pro and anti-slavery forces would cause much bloodshed; and voters in the Old Northwest, Illinois among them, would react vehemently against it, resulting in the destruction of the Whigs as a political party, and the birth of the Republicans, of which Lincoln quickly became a member. The [[Dred Scott]] decision of 1856, in which a black man who sued for his freedom only to be told that he was never a citizen and had to remain a slave, only added more fuel to the fire, as the states were aligning slave versus free, North versus South.

As the leading member of the Republican Party in Illinois, Lincoln was nominated for the Senate seat held by Douglas at the Republican State Convention in Springfield on June 16, 1858. The acceptance speech he gave has been called the [[Lincoln's "House Divided" Speech|House Divided]] speech, after the opening lines, which were based upon Matthew 12:25:

:''If we could first know where we are, and whither we are tending, we could better judge what to do, and how to do it. We are now far into the fifth year since a policy was initiated with the avowed object, and confident promise, of putting an end to slavery agitation. Under the operation of that policy, that agitation has not only not ceased, but has constantly augmented. In my opinion, it will not cease, until a crisis shall have been reached and passed. "A house divided against itself cannot stand."  I believe this government cannot endure permanently half slave and half free. I do not expect the Union to be dissolved -- I do not expect the house to fall -- but I do expect it will cease to be divided. It will become all one thing, or all the other. Either the opponents of slavery will arrest the further spread of it, and place it where the public mind shall rest in the belief that it is in the course of ultimate extinction; or its advocates will push it forward, till it shall become alike lawful in all the States, old as well as new -- North as well as South.'' [http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/divided.htm]

August through October, 1858 saw seven Illinois towns witnessing the [[Lincoln-Douglas debates]]; Douglas the national figure defending the choice of voters whether to accept slavery or not, and the little-known Lincoln taking a stand against slavery on political, social, and moral grounds. Douglas never wavered from defending popular sovereignty, and he also played on the voters' fears of [[black integration]]. Stating blacks were inferior to whites, he appealed to racists by declaring that the government was "established upon the white basis. It was made by white men, for the benefit of white men." (TL 1, pg 106). Lincoln on the other hand knew Douglas was in a war of his own with President [[Franklin Buchanan]]'s administration over acceptance of the Kansas constitution which barred slavery from the state, further alienating Southern Democratic support; the fear was that Douglas would be more appealing to moderate Republicans in the east. Lincoln's strategy therefore was to point out and use the vast difference between the moral indifference to slavery as embodied by Douglas's popular sovereignty, and the moral wrong that slavery actually was as embodied by Republican opposition to it. Douglas was, Lincoln insisted, a man who did not care whether slavery was "voted up or voted down." By his last debate, Lincoln would narrow the differences between himself and Douglas as the basic principle of right and wrong.

:''"That is the real issue. That is the issue that will continue in this country when these poor tongues of Judge Douglas and myself shall be silent. It is the eternal struggle between these two principles -- right and wrong -- throughout the world. They are the two principles that have stood face to face from the beginning of time; and will ever continue to struggle. The one is the common right of humanity and the other the divine right of kings. It is the same principle in whatever shape it develops itself. It is the same spirit that says, "You work and toil and earn bread, and I'll eat it." No matter in what shape it comes, whether from the mouth of a king who seeks to bestride the people of his own nation and live by the fruit of their labor, or from one race of men as an apology for enslaving another race, it is the same tyrannical principle."'' [http://www.nps.gov/archive/liho/slavery/al11.htm]

Douglas for his part knew how formidable his foe was, and declared that if he won, “it would be a hollow victory.” He did win, retaining his Senate seat, but by a narrow margin.

==The presidency==
[[Image:Lincoln and beard.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Soon after his election, a little girl named Grace Bedell wrote to Lincoln, telling him his face would be softened by the addition of a beard; here he just started on her advice.]]
:''My friends, no one, not in my situation, can appreciate my feeling of sadness at this parting. To this place, and the kindness of these people, I owe everything. Here I have lived a quarter of a century, and have passed from a young to an old man. Here my children have been born, and one is buried. I now leave, not knowing when, or whether ever, I may return, with a task before me greater than that which rested upon Washington. Without the assistance of the Divine Being who ever attended him, I cannot succeed. With that assistance I cannot fail. Trusting in Him who can go with me, and remain with you, and be everywhere for good, let us confidently hope that all will yet be well. To His care commending you, as I hope in your prayers you will commend me, I bid you an affectionate farewell.'' Lincoln's Farewell Speech to the citizens of Springfield, February 11, 1861.

On May 18, 1860 at the Republican National Convention held in Chicago, Lincoln was nominated on the third ballot. He then set aside his law practice and gave full time to the direction of his campaign, with the object of first uniting the Republicans from anything with which the party could disagree over. The Democrats were already divided, having nominated Douglas in Baltimore on the Northern platform of popular sovereignty, and John C. Breckenridge who was elected on a platform of states’ rights and slavery by Southern Democrats. Lincoln won the [[United States presidential election of 1860]], winning a clear majority in popular votes as well as electoral votes, despite winning no votes in the South.

The state of South Carolina proclaimed its secession from the Union in December, 1860, soon after Lincoln’s victory. To try to prevent other states from following, compromises were hurriedly pushed through Congress, one of which, the [[Crittenden Amendment]], guaranteed the existence of slavery in perpetuity where it already existed, and dividing the territories between slave and free; Lincoln, however, was opposed to it, as he believed that despite this slavery would still expand south of the U.S. border. Six more states seceded, joining with South Carolina to form the Confederate States of America.

A crisis was thus forced upon Lincoln before he even entered the White House. Fort Sumter, in South Carolina’s Charleston Harbor, was claimed by the Confederacy and ordered to be turned over; the commander, Major Robert Anderson, refused. Lincoln, still in Springfield, asked Winfield Scott, general in chief of the U.S. Army, to be prepared “to either hold, or retake, the forts, as the case may require, at, and after the inauguration.”

On the 4th of March, 1861, a few weeks after Jefferson Davis was inaugurated as president of the Confederacy, Abraham Lincoln was inaugurated as the nation's 16th president. In his address he reiterated his stance, and what he believed the stance of the nation should be, namely non-interference with slavery where it existed, and preventing slavery to spread in the territories, and above all was his stand to preserve the Union. The substance of what he said was conciliatory, but it also mentioned the obvious

:''"In your hands, my dissatisfied fellow-countrymen, and not in mine, is the momentous issue of civil war. The Government will not assail you. You can have no conflict without being yourselves the aggressors. You have no oath registered in heaven to destroy the Government, while I shall have the most solemn one to "preserve, protect, and defend it."'' [http://www.pbs.org/civilwar/war/lincoln_address1.html]

However, communications between the fort and Charleston broke down, and General P.G.T. Beauregard, believing Fort Sumter had a supply ship on the way, ordered the fort shelled on April 14, 1865. The Civil War had begun.

==Civil War==
[[Image:Mary Todd Lincoln.jpg|thumb|200px|left|Mary Todd Lincoln]]
Lincoln’s goal was to preserve the Union; he would have been happy to preserve the peace as well, but he was willing to engage in a war to preserve it as well, a war he thought would be short. After Fort Sumter he proclaimed a blockade of Southern ports and called for thousands of volunteers to enlist for ninety days. He also believed that an overland war was inevitable, and he ordered forces on a march on the Virginia front, resulting in the first great defeat for the Union at Bull Run (July 21, 1861). Shortly afterward, Lincoln issued a set of memorandums for the military, of which his basic thought was that armies in the field must advance concurrently and on several fronts.

Finding himself as the leader of a country now at war, Lincoln used a description of himself in which he let events control him, and then react to the problem. It was something of himself that was used with success as a politician. In this sense he was being practical, ready to employ an action or decision which would help the cause, and ready to abandon it and use another if the first failed. But his first insight with which he held fast to, that of taking the fight to the enemy’s army, failed many times when successive generals tried to take the fight to the enemy’s capitol and failed, or failed in following up on a rare victory. He had George McClellan on the Peninsula, but was beaten back during the Seven Days battles. His replacement, John Pope, lost in a repeat of Bull Run. McClellan was back again, winning a victory at Antietam, but failed to follow through in capturing the enemy’s army afterwards. Then Ambrose Burnside, followed by Joseph Hooker, led the Army of the Potomac to massive defeats at Fredericksburg and Chancellorsville, respectively. Then George Gordon Meade was put in, just in time for the Battle of Gettysburg; Meade would not finish off the enemy either. Robert E. Lee, the commander of the Confederate Army of Northern Virginia, commented on the frequent changes in generals. “I’m afraid they’re going to find a general I cannot understand.”

Having seen what he done at Donelson, Shiloh, Vicksburg, and Chattanooga, Lincoln found the fighting general he was looking for in Ulysses S. Grant. In March 1864 he promoted Grant to lieutenant general and gave him command of all Federal armies. Grant would have his headquarters in the field with Meade’s Army of the Potomac, and his subordinates William T. Sherman, Philip Sheridan, and George H. Thomas would each lead an army to take the fight to the enemy. Halleck would be given a new title, chief of staff, and remain in Washington as the presidential liaison. Secretary of War Edwin M. Stanton would be responsible for the procurement of men and supplies. By this reorganization Lincoln created the structure of the high command in which all the energies of and resources of the country were mobilized into a grand strategy for the completion of the war. It was all the more remarkable as prior to 1861, he had no knowledge of military theory or affairs; he threw himself into studying the subject that by 1864, he was considered to be something of a military genius.

==Personal life==
Ann Rutledge played a part in stories as being the first woman Lincoln may have fallen in love with. However, evidence is scant, and what surviving letters and documents there are indicate they were close friends. She died in 1835 at the age of 22, and the entire community grieved with Lincoln.
[[Image:Lincoln and tad.jpg|thumb|200px|left|The irrepressible Tad Lincoln, striking a typical pose next to his father, who could barely restrain a smile.]]
The one true love of Lincoln’s life was a well-educated woman with a quick wit, [[Mary Todd]], from a well-to-do family in Springfield. Lincoln endured a courtship that lasted two years (and was broken once), before they were married on November 4, 1842. Together they would have four boys: Robert Todd, Edward Baker (“Eddie”, who died at age 4), William Wallace (“Willie”), and Thomas (“Tad”). Willie and Tad were the first children in the White House, and the halls and gardens were filled with childish romps, especially from the rambunctious, uncontrollable Tad, who once took a group of office seekers there to see the president on a trip through a confusing maze of hanging laundry; drove a herd of goats inside; got into the attic and rang the servants’ bells for hours; and succeeded in getting his doll executed for sleeping on watch.

The Lincolns also had their share of quarrels, and stories passed through the years tended to exaggerate them, but existing letters between the two indicate they were like any other married couple. They were devoted to each other’s company, and when apart they missed each other. "I have fallen in love with her," Lincoln would write to a friend about Mary, "and have never fallen out." Mary did have fits of temper and a sense of insecurity; while in the White House she had spells of simple jealousy which she staged in front of guests; sometimes the scene would be quite embarrassing. She also rang up large bills for her personal wardrobe and redecorating the White House; Lincoln, when he found out one such bill which totaled near $20,000 and coupled with a request for Congress to appropriate the money needed to pay for it, displayed a rare occurrence of pure anger:

:''"It would stink in the nostrils of the American people to have it said the President of the United States had approved a bill overrunning an appropriation of $20,000 for flub dubs, for this damned old house, when the soldiers cannot have blankets!"'' [http://www.historyswomen.com/1stWomen/marytoddlincoln.htm]

The early deaths of Eddie in 1850 and Willie in 1863 may have played a role in Mary’s eccentricity. Lincoln did what he could to support her, even pointing out the presence of a nearby building which housed a sanitarium, hinting that Mary could be placed there if she didn't control herself over Willie's death.

==On slavery==
In 1841, Lincoln had a flatboat trip down the Mississippi, and he saw sitting on board another boat a group of slaves chained together. He described the sight in a letter to Joshua Speed in 1855: “You may remember, as I well do, that from Louisville to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border.”

Lincoln hated slavery. “I hate it because of the monstrous injustice of slavery itself,” he declared. “I hate it because it deprives our republican example of its just influence in the world; enables the enemies of free institutions with plausibility to taunt us as hypocrites.” [http://www.nps.gov/archive/liho/slavery/al05.htm] In 1855, writing to his friend Joshua Speed, he recalled a steamboat trip the two had taken on the Ohio River14 years earlier. “You may remember, as I well do,” he said, “that from Louisville [Kentucky] to the mouth of the Ohio there were, on board, ten or a dozen slaves, shackled together with irons. That sight was a continual torment to me; and I see something like it every time I touch the Ohio, or any other slave-border.” [http://www.nps.gov/archive/liho/slavery/al03.htm]

Lincoln often penned fragments on slavery. He would begin it by starting a hypothetical vested interest in slavery, and end it with the only logical conclusion, that is was a great moral wrong.

:''If A. can prove, however conclusively, that he may, of right, enslave B.—why may not B. snatch the same argument, and prove equally, that he may enslave A?''

:''You say A. is white, and B. is black. It is color, then; the lighter, having the right to enslave the darker? Take care. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with a fairer skin than your own.''

:''You do not mean color exactly? You mean the whites are intellectually the superiors of the blacks, and, therefore have the right to enslave them? Take care again. By this rule, you are to be slave to the first man you meet, with an intellect superior to your own.''

:''But, say you, it is a question of interest; and, if you can make it your interest; you have the right to enslave another. Very well. And if he can make it his interest, he has the right to enslave you.'' (Fragment on Slavery, April, 1854)

Lincoln was elected on a platform which pledged no interference with slavery where it had already existed, and he was hesitant to adopt an abolitionist policy. He was concerned about the reaction of the border states should such a policy be enacted. He was concerned about four million newly-freed blacks being incorporated into the country’s social, economic, and political life. Some individuals, such as General John C. Freemont, made it a point to proclaim freedom in districts which they had conquered; Lincoln revoked those proclamations. In a letter to Horace Greely, Lincoln plainly stated
:''"My paramount object in this struggle is to save the Union, and is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could save the Union without freeing any slave I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves I would do it; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving others alone, I would also do that."''

Lincoln was willing to play a major part in removing slavery altogether during the war. He first proposed an idea in which slaves were to be freed gradually by the actions of the states, with the federal government sharing the cost of compensation. None of the border states were willing to implement it, and no prominent African-American leader was willing to see newly-freed blacks sent to Africa, as part of the idea called for.

But with the victory at Antietam in September 1862, Lincoln brought out an idea which he read before his cabinet, that slaves held in the Confederate States were declared to be free. He would declare it formally with his Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Although it did not include those areas under Union control, and officially it was a war measure, it had a great deal of significance as a symbol, and European countries who had toyed with the idea of recognizing the Confederacy abandoned it and supported the Union.

Lincoln also felt that the freed slaves would be put back in chains at war's end, as the Proclamation itself was not constitutional. But Lincoln was prepared for something else: he drafted the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution, which stated slavery was illegal except for crimes committed. He also urged the Republican Party to add the proposed amendment as a plank to the 1864 presidential campaign, stating slavery was the cause of the war, and that the Proclamation had aimed “a death blow at this gigantic evil;” only by a constitutional amendment could slavery be rendered extinct. After the election, Lincoln did not wait for the new Congress. He got the two-thirds needed for ratification before the year was over, and rejoiced when his state of Illinois led the way.

:''"In giving freedom to the slave, we assure freedom to the free - honorable alike in what we give, and what we preserve. We shall nobly save, or meanly lose, the last best hope of earth. Other means may succeed; this could not fail. The way is plain, peaceful, generous, just - a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud, and God must forever bless."'' Annual Message to Congress, December 1, 1862.

==Religion==
Abraham Lincoln, like many other people of his day, believed, at least initially, that "Religion is a private affair between a man and his God." Doubts about Lincoln's faith have arisen mainly because he never officially joined a church, which his political opponents used sometimes to accuse him. He had a love of the Bible and memorized parts of the Bible, and used biblical allusions later on in political speech. Lincoln said once that:
''"I doubt the possibility or propriety of settling the religion of Jesus Christ in the models of man-made creeds and dogmas. I cannot without mental reservations assent to long and complicated creeds and catechisms."''

He also said on another occasion:
:''"That I am not a member of any Christian church is true, but I have never denied the truth of the Scriptures, and I have never spoken with intentional disrespect of religion in general or of any denomination of Christians in particular."''

He also made statements that suggest a strong faith, such as when his father was ill:
:''"Tell father to remember to call upon and confide in our great, and good, and merciful Maker who will not turn away from him in any extremity. He notes the fall of a sparrow and numbers the hairs of our heads; and he will not forget the dying man who puts his trust in him. If it is to be his lot to go now, he will soon have a joyous meeting with many loved ones gone before; and where the rest of us, through the help of God, hope ere long to join them."''

Regardless of Lincoln's views on faith as a youth, it seemed to grow as President. Lincoln penciled in "under God" after "one nation" for his [[Gettysburg Address]] delivered on November 19, 1863. The phrase "under God" was not in the early drafts. Mrs. Lincoln recalled her husband's last words just prior to his assassination in Ford's Theater: "He said he wanted to visit the Holy Land and see those places hallowed by the footprints of the [[Savior]]. He was saying there was no city he so much desired to see as Jerusalem."<ref>http://www.amerisearch.net/index.php?date=2004-09-08&view=View</ref>

In 1864, a close friend of Lincoln's, Joshua Speed, confided in Lincoln that he did not accept the Bible as true. Lincoln famously replied, "Take all this book upon reason that you can, and the balance on faith, and you will live and die a happier and better man".

After Lincoln was shot at Ford's theater two clergy claimed that he had made a secret trip from Washington to be baptized. Also a Roman Catholic Priest claimed that Lincoln received the sacrament of baptism in secret. Neither of these claims have any proof in White House records or his personal diary.<ref> [[God and the Oval Office]], by John C. McCollister, W Publishing, 2005. </ref>

==Lincoln's conservatism==
In his [[Lincoln's Cooper Union Speech|Cooper Union Address]], Lincoln spoke of the sectionalism which was fracturing the country as a result of slavery; the Republican Party was new in 1859, and a serious threat to slavery's existence. Lincoln and his party were called radical and destructive, but he counted himself among the earliest defenders of conservative principles, which was in essence a defense of time-honored, traditional values. Lincoln said that out of the 39 framers of the Constitution, 23 of the 39 voted on whether to prevent the spread of slavery, and that 21 of the 23 voted in favor of doing so. Lincoln therefore said that it was the pro-slavery South that was radically breaking with the tradition begun by those that created the Constitution. As Lincoln said:

:''But you say you are conservative - eminently conservative - while we are revolutionary, destructive, or something of the sort. What is conservatism? Is it not adherence to the old and tried, against the new and untried? We stick to, contend for, the identical old policy on the point in controversy which was adopted by "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live;" while you with one accord reject, and scout, and spit upon that old policy, and insist upon substituting something new. True, you disagree among yourselves as to what that substitute shall be. You are divided on new propositions and plans, but you are unanimous in rejecting and denouncing the old policy of the fathers. Some of you are for reviving the foreign slave trade; some for a Congressional Slave-Code for the Territories; some for Congress forbidding the Territories to prohibit Slavery within their limits; some for maintaining Slavery in the Territories through the judiciary; some for the "gur-reat pur-rinciple" that "if one man would enslave another, no third man should object," fantastically called "Popular Sovereignty;" but never a man among you is in favor of federal prohibition of slavery in federal territories, according to the practice of "our fathers who framed the Government under which we live.''

By today's standards, Lincoln can also be viewed as a liberal. He opposed state's rights and expanded the powers of the presidency. The Republican's of the 1860s more closely resemble the Democratic party of today.
==Lincoln's style of writing==
[[Image:Lincoln seated.jpg|thumb|200px|right|Lincoln in November, 1863, about to leave for Pennsylvania. The reason for his confident look may have been within the envelope lying on the table, believed to contain his draft of the Gettysburg Address]]
A White House visitor, Orville Browning, told Lincoln's personal secretary John Nicolay one day that he had spoke to Lincoln sometime in 1861 on the subject of slavery; that if the right thing about slavery wasn't done, God just couldn't be on the side of the Union. Browning remembered Lincoln's reply: "What if the Almighty takes a different view of slavery than we do?", and right then and there Browning realized that Lincoln had thought very deep on the subject, much deeper than Browning did. [http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/books/wilson.htm]

Lincoln was known to think long and deep on various topics, and often he would take notes, write them on little scraps of paper, and stuff them into his tall stovepipe hat for later use. When it was time for use, such as his "House Divided" speech, he pulled them out, laid them on a table, and would commence to writing. He would sift through the subject, adding this, removing that, and sometimes he would stand in his empty room and deliver it out loud to an imaginary audience, testing the effects of what he spoke, and altering it as needed. According to author Garry Wills, Lincoln brought to bear the rhetorical tone of the Greek Revival and Transcendental movements, in which spoken oratory was practiced in government and on the stage. The leading speakers of this time, and whom Lincoln looked upon, were Danial Webster and Henry Clay, both of the Senate, and Edward Everett, a speaker much in demand.

The training he had given himself also enabled him to write a simple letter or a speech on the spot. Words would flow clear when Lincoln wrote in his later years, and he didn't have to do twice one of his finest personal letters, one of consolation to Mrs. Bixby of Boston, who had lost five sons in the war.

:''Executive Mansion,''
:''Washington, Nov. 21, 1864.''

:''Dear Madam,''

:''I have been shown in the files of the War Department a statement of the Adjutant General of Massachusetts that you are the mother of five sons who have died gloriously on the field of battle.''
:''I feel how weak and fruitless must be any word of mine which should attempt to beguile you from the grief of a loss so overwhelming. But I cannot refrain from tendering you the consolation that may be found in the thanks of the Republic they died to save.''
:''I pray that our Heavenly Father may assuage the anguish of your bereavement, and leave you only the cherished memory of the loved and lost, and the solemn pride that must be yours to have laid so costly a sacrifice upon the altar of freedom.''

:''Yours, very sincerely and respectfully,''

:''A. Lincoln''

What many consider his masterpiece is the [[Gettysburg Address]]. Here Lincoln, going through perhaps a dozen writes and re-writes of what he had thought on the subject, entirely changed the meaning of the war itself in a mere 272 words, and in so doing, according to Wills, remaking America.

==Politics in war==
That there had to be a certain degree of support to win the war was a given, and Lincoln strove to have unity for that effort in the North. Politics was required, and Lincoln had a special knack for appealing to his fellows and talking to them at their own level and language. He would smooth over lingering differences, and held the loyalty of those who were antagonistic to one another.

But the Democrats remained strong, and frequently clashed. Its member included both war and peace Democrats; the peace side was called “Copperheads”, after the snake which strikes without warning while hidden. Lincoln tried conciliating with both, but with the latter he had to resort to arrest at times, most famously to an Ohio Congressman, Clement L. Valandigham, who was arrested after he had repeatedly exhorted soldiers to desert. He justified his actions on the grounds that the suspension of ''habeas corpus'' was necessary only in times of rebellion, insurrection, or when the public safety may require it, as stated in the Constitution; certainly the Civil War had met those specific conditions. Many would dissent, and openly criticize Lincoln for arbitrarily violating the Constitution that he had sworn to preserve. In response to the criticism in general, and the case of Valandigham in particular, Lincoln wrote:
:''"Must I shoot a simple-minded soldier boy who deserts, while I must not touch a hair of a wiley agitator who induces him to desert? This is none the less injurious when effected by getting a father, or brother, or friend, into a public meeting, and there working upon his feeling, till he is persuaded to write the soldier boy, that he is fighting in a bad cause, for a wicked administration of a contemptable government, too weak to arrest and punish him if he shall desert. I think that in such a case, to silence the agitator, and save the boy, is not only constitutional, but, withal, a great mercy."'' [http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/text-idx?c=lincoln;cc=lincoln;type=boolean;rgn=div1;q1=soldier;op2=and;q2=deserts;op3=and;q3=agitator;singlegenre=All;view=text;subview=detail;sort=occur;idno=lincoln6;node=lincoln6%3A569]
Lincoln faced reelection against Democrat George McClellan in 1864, who promised a restoration of the Union, but waffled on many of its points, even abandoning the Democratic platform of armistice and peaceful separation. Lincoln was able to beat him in the election, assisted by the timely victories of Sheridan in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia, and Sherman in Georgia. Overtures of peace from Confederates were not wholly rejected. On February 3, 1865, Lincoln met with Confederate commissioners, among them Vice President Alexander Stephens, on a steamship in Hampton Roads, Virginia. There would be peace, he insisted, if the South would quit the war, abandon slavery, and accept re-unification, and once these conditions were met he would gracious with pardons. But his terms satisfied neither the Confederacy nor the Radical Republicans in Congress.
His postwar policy was one of compassion. As he explained to his top leaders on board a riverboat, the City Queen, he wanted peace above all else. His Second Inaugural Address expressed his point of healing the wounds caused by the war.
:''With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations."''

When asked specifically, he related the following, according to General Sherman, one of those present:
:''Mr. Lincoln was full and frank in his conversation, assuring me that in his mind he was all ready for the civil reorganization of affairs at the South as soon as the war was over; and he distinctly authorized me to assure Governor Vance and the people of North Carolina that, as soon as the rebel armies laid down their arms, and resumed their civil pursuits, they would at once be guaranteed all their rights as citizens of a common country; and that to avoid anarchy the State governments then in existence, with their civil functionaries, would be recognized by him as the government de facto till Congress could provide others.''
:''I know, when I left him, that I was more than ever impressed by his kindly nature, his deep and earnest sympathy with the afflictions of the whole people, resulting from the war, and by the march of hostile armies through the South; and that his earnest desire seemed to be to end the war speedily, without more bloodshed or devastation, and to restore all the men of both sections to their homes. In the language of his second inaugural address, he seemed to have "charity for all, malice toward none," and, above all, an absolute faith in the courage, manliness, and integrity of the armies in the field.'' [http://www.sonshi.com/sherman24.html]

==Final curtain==
Lincoln received the news of Lee’s surrender at Appomattox, Virginia, on April 9, and he was called out to the balcony of the White House that night by a large crowd gathered in celebration. When asked to make a speech, Lincoln noticed a band among them, and made an unusual request.
:''"I have always thought ‘Dixie’ one of the best tunes I have ever heard. Our adversaries over the way attempted to appropriate it, but I insisted that we fairly captured it. I presented it to the Attorney General, and he gave it as his legal opinion that it is our lawful prize. I now request the band to favor me with its performance."''
He entered Richmond the following day, to the joyous delight of free blacks, who welcomed the arrival of "Father Abraham" as they called him, and he paid a visit to the Confederate White House, and sat at the desk of Jefferson Davis. The only thing he asked for was a glass of water.

Just four days later on April 14 he attended a play at Ford's Theater. It was called ''Our American Cousin'', with well-known stage actress Laura Keane and comedian Harry Hawke in the title role. Unseen to the audience was another actor making his way quietly up the stairs to the president's private box, [[John Wilkes Booth]], a Southern sympathizer who had hatched a conspiracy with a few others to kill the president and other leading officials. Booth entered the box, shot Lincoln in the head, stabbed a guest, and dropped to the stage, escaping behind the curtains. Taken across the street to a boarding house, the mortally-wounded Lincoln was laid across a small bed in humble surroundings, similar it seemed, to where he was born. He died at sunrise a few hours later.

"Now he belongs to the ages" Edwin Stanton was heard to say.

==References==
*McCollister, John C. ''God and the Oval Office'', W Publishing Group, Nashville, Tennessee(2005)
*Sandburg, Carl. ''Abraham Lincoln'', Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York (1954)
*Walsh, John E. ''Moonlight'', St. Martin's Press, New York (2000)
*Goodwin, Doris Kearns. ''Team of Rivals: the Political Genius of Abraham Lincoln'', Simon and Schuster, New York (2005)
*Hanchett, William. ''The Lincoln Murder Conspiracies'', University of Illinois (1983)
*Donald, David Herbert. ''Lincoln'', Jonathan Cafe (Random House), London (1995)
*Wills, Gary. ''Lincoln at Gettysburg: the Words that Remade America'', Simon and Schuster, New York (1992)
*White, Ronald C. Jr. ''The Eloquent President: A [[portraits|Portrait]] of Lincoln Through His Words'', Random House, New York (2005)
*Carwardine, Richard. ''Lincoln: A Life of Purpose and Power'', Alfred A. Knopf, New York (2003)
*Time-Life Books ''The Civil War'', vol. 1 (''Brother Against Brother''), Time Inc, New York (1983)

==Links==
*[http://quod.lib.umich.edu/l/lincoln/ Collected Works of Abraham Lincoln]
*[http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln.html Abraham Lincoln Online]
*[http://www.abrahamlincolnarchive.com/Home.aspx Lincoln Archive of original newspaper articles]
*[http://www.historyplace.com/lincoln/ History Place: Lincoln timeline]
*[http://www.nps.gov/liho/index.htm Lincoln's Home National Historic Site]
*[http://www.whitehouse.gov/history/presidents/al16.html White House site; short bio on Lincoln]
*[http://www.mrlincolnandfriends.org/inside.asp?pageID=112&subjectID=1 Mr. Lincoln and Friends]
*[http://www.nps.gov/archive/liho/slavery/al02.htm Declaration against slavery, Illinois State Legislature, March 3, 1837]
*[http://www.nps.gov/archive/liho/slavery/al03.htm Lincoln's letter to Joshua Speed, August 24, 1855]
*[http://www.nps.gov/archive/liho/slavery/al05.htm Speech in Peoria, Illinois, October 16, 1854]
*[http://quod.lib.umich.edu/cgi/t/text/pageviewer-idx?c=lincoln;cc=lincoln;q1=erastus;q2=corning;op2=and;op3=and;rgn=works;idno=ACK7441.0001.001;didno=ACK7441.0001.001;view=image;seq=00000227 Letter to Erastus Corning and Others, June 13, 1863, in which Lincoln explains his suspention of ''habeas corpus'']
*[http://www.sonshi.com/sherman.html Memoirs of William T. Sherman ]

[[Image:DcLincMor.JPG|right|thumb]]

== See also ==

*[[Democracy]]
*[[John F. Kennedy]]
*[[Andrew Jackson]]

{{USPresidents}}
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lincoln, Abraham}}

[[Category:Presidents of the United States]]
[[Category:People who were Educated at Home]]

Family Guy

2008-11-01T14:38:08Z

Bush43:

'''Family Guy''' is an animated television program created by Seth MacFarlane set about the life of "the Griffins," a fictional family who live in Quahog, [[Rhode Island]]. Its content is marked by profanity and obscentity, and disrespet for religion and conservative values. The Parents' Television Council has named it one of the worst programs on television.<ref>[http://www.parentstv.org/PTC/publications/reports/top10bestandworst/main.asp Parents' Television Council]</ref> The show also has pervasive liberal themes. It also often takes demeaning treatment of [[creationists]].<ref>[http://www.answersingenesis.org/us/newsletters/0107lead.asp Answers in Genesis]</ref>

==References==
<References />

[[Category:Television Shows]]

South Park

2008-11-01T14:34:42Z

Bush43:

[[Image:Southparkseason10opening.png|right|thumb|300px]]
'''''South Park''''' is an Emmy and Peabody award-winning animated cartoon series created by Trey Parker and Matt Stone that is controversial due to its use of vulgar and obscene language, biting humor, and questionable depictions of religion and other institutions. Shows have touched on [[Catholic|Catholicism]], [[Islam]], [[Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints|Mormonism]], [[Judaism]], [[Scientology]], and made jokes about [[Jesus]], [[Moses]], [[Muhammad]] and other religious leaders. Parker and Stone describe themselves as "equal opportunity offenders" and some episodes have made fun of liberal causes, particularly environmentalism. Other episodes have ridiculed the anti-immigration movement and other conservative causes. Despite this, the show usually does not outrightly condemn any social group; to date, only [[Atheism|atheists]], [[terrorism|terrorists]] and pedophiles have been given such treatment by the show (while Scientology itself has been heavily mocked, the creators have expressed sympathy for those who have been drawn into it).

Of the 1999 ''South Park'' movie, movie reviewer [[Roger Ebert]] said "The film is rated R instead of NC-17 only because it's a cartoon, I suspect; even so, the MPAA has a lot of 'splaining to do," meaning presumably that Ebert believes it should have been rated NC-17. "Waves of four-letter words roll out over the audience," he says.

A frequent criticism of ''South Park'' is that it indulges in shock for shock's sake. Ebert says of the film, "All it lacks is a point to its message. What is it saying? That movies have gone too far, or that protests against movies have gone too far? It is a sign of our times that I cannot tell. Perhaps it's simply anarchistic, and feels that if it throws enough shocking material at the wall, some of it will stick. A lot of the movie offended me." However, he acknowledges, "I laughed. I did not always feel proud of myself while I was laughing, however.... No target is too low, no attitude too mean or hurtful, no image too unthinkable."<ref>http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19990630/REVIEWS/906300301/1023</ref>

A month later, Ebert modified his opinion: "I gave 'South Park' a marginal thumbs down (2.5 stars) because of what I called the movie's mean spirit, but I did like its intelligence and energy, and as the smoke clears from the summer of 1999 it's clear to me that this was a movie that took chances and made scathing criticisms of the broken-down [[MPAA rating system]]. I got carried away by my immediate reaction; but at least I was right when I called it 'the most slashing political commentary of the year'."<ref>http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/19990829/ANSWERMAN/908290306</ref>

''South Park'' has been praised for its often blunt [[Libertarianism|libertarian]] viewpoints on many political, moral, and social issues of the day. For example, in "Chinpokomon" (a satire of the Pokemon craze,) the boys learn that blindly following a trend can be dangerous, and that it's best to just be yourself. In "Super Best Friends," we discover that [[Jesus]], [[Mohammad]], [[Buddha]], [[Moses]], [[Joseph Smith]], and [[Krishna]] are all friends, even though countries have gone to war over them.

There is a form of anti-censorship conservatives known as "South Park Republicans" and "South Park Conservatives".

==References==

<references/>

== External Links ==

* [http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0121955/ IMDB Website]
[[Category: Television Shows]]

Oliver North

2008-11-01T14:32:49Z

Bush43:

'''Oliver "Ollie" North''' (born October 7, 1943) is a former [[US Marine Corps|marine]] [[lieutenant colonel]] who was the primary coordinator on the American end of what became known as the "arms for hostages" policy of selling weapons to [[Iran]] during its [[Iran-Iraq War|war with Iraq]] and diverting the proceeds to the Nicaraguan [[Contras]]. The resulting controversy came to be known as the [[Iran-Contra Affair]].

After a long lead-in during the Congressional inquiries, Oliver North was called to testify before [[Congress]] in July 1987. North became a controversial fixture in American culture based upon his handling of the Congressional inquiry, and his ability to make the committee that was questioning him seem smug and overblown in the eyes of American conservatives. Although originally guaranteed immunity in exchange for Congressional testimony, a Special Council reneged on the agreement and prosecuted him anyway. North faced sixteen felony indictment counts, he was convicted of three, and those three were overturned on appeal because of the violation of [[Fifth Amendment]] rights. North's Congressional testimony had been used to prosecute him.

North ran for the [[Senate]] in 1994 in [[Virginia]], but was defeated by the Democratic incumbent in a tight race.

Today North is a political commentator on [[Fox News]] and host of ''War Stories'', a Fox News show which documents famous battles. In 2003, North was an embedded reporter with the [[United States military]] in their initial entering of [[Iraq]].

==External Links==
*[http://www.foxnews.com/warstories/ War Stories - FOXNews.com]

{{DEFAULTSORT:North, Oliver}}

[[Category: Conservative Commentators]]
[[Category:Military Personnel]]