I would just like to mention that we need to remember how intense the curriculum was in the past. Long division was done in ones head for example. Long passages of classics were memorized where maybe now it seems to be skimmed over. Readers did not have the variety of reading material as now and from what I have surmised, most was more difficult than now. Writings by Ben Franklin and others were far more difficult than what the average person reads today. Aren't our newspapers and pamphlets written at an 8th grade level even now? Maybe it is 6th? One or the other..just cannot remember now. I am a RNBSN and have homeschooled for 7 years. I have come to the conclusion that children who were able to go to school in the "olden" days received a great education in comparison to what many children receive today. Mcguffey readers were not easy. Education was very important to parents and children..it was a great privilege to be able to read and write and parents enforced children to learn and behave. Now sadly, children are so undisciplined that many..not all of course are not concerned about learning...and those children in turn ruin it for the rest of them by being disruptive. You cannot teach children who don't want to learn. Just my opinion but a one room school house full of children who wanted to learn would surpass an elaborate building full of children who "have to go to school." Kudos to our past teachers regardless of their official education. I bet they were some pretty intelligent teachers...