they decided to leave such decisions to individual families and local and state governments. The words "education" and "school" appear in none of our founding documents, such as the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, or the Bill of Rights. Some of our most famous inventors, writers, and politicians were self-taught, learning through mentoring or apprenticeships, conversation and reading, and this route to adulthood continues today (Plent, 1999 & Gordon, 1990). But by 1850, when Massachusetts became the first state to institute a compulsory schooling law, attitudes towards children and their place in society began to change. Children are forced to attend schools for many reasons, but in this early period it was largely to keep them out of the work force and to teach them to become "good citizens" (Katz, 2001 & Gatto, 2000). Nonetheless, one can easily find examples not just of the wealthy people, but of common people, opting out of mass schooling in order to home school.