There is more and more discussion of home schooling. This should come as no surprise; it is at home that we learn most of what we know; and the best students have received their educational foundations at home. The strength of this approach is demonstrated by the rapid progress of many home-schooled children, even though they often spend much less time with textbooks than their peers.

Societies, unfortunately, have found it necessary to generate educational systems in order to address three situations: those in which parents do not have the necessary knowledge to educate their children; those in which they haven’t the time; and those in which they haven’t the interest.

In these three situations, it is in a society’s best interests to provide education for those children. And this appears to be a prudent decision for those societies who do so: there is a strong correlation between every desirable attribute of a citizen and a community, and institutional education. As one group put it succinctly, “If you think education is expensive, try ignorance.”

Few parents have all three requirements. And even those who do, almost always need some help. Few among us have mastery of visual and acoustic arts, mathematics, language, social studies, etc., that we can teach a child all the way through the high school requirements.

And for the handful of people who can do it all, everyone has limits: who has the mastery to educate a child through all the necessary college courses?

Should home schooling be the ultimate target of our educational systems? Should we begin designing a community wherein one parent stays at home, not so much as to cook, clean, and do housework, as to home-school future generations? Whereas the current trend is for educational systems to intervene earlier and earlier in our children’s education, perhaps as we become better educated, we should instead encourage parents to take over more of their children’s early education. Perhaps in some future day, we will have a situation in which the majority of our parents have the knowledge, time, and interest to educate their children all the way to adulthood.

So home-schooling is very attractive, and perhaps one day will be universal. But for the near future, brick-and-mortar schools are still necessary for most children.