Hi Dave, and other interested readers! I enjoyed working my way through your comment, and ended up taking what I wrote out of the "comments" section and pasting it here in an entry for itself. Thank you for challenging me!

>>I am not the same as your earlier anonymous critic. I'm a homeschooling dad and a pro-homeschooling blogger who ran across your site through the WorldNetDaily article. <<

I'm glad to hear that--thank you! It was pretty interesting to me to see my blog, which is certainly not official and could easily contain mistakes (and does, at times!) quoted at WorldNetDaily. They didn't do anything to check on the source (didn't contact me), which makes me wonder about their other sources, too...

>>I simply wanted to point out that Kraft disavows the use of his scholarly opinion to justify a critique of the current law. Claiming that his opinion "supports" that critique is not merely a statement of fact. This is a subtle point that many non-academics don't grasp: Whereas scholarly opinions may be more rational and objective than the average superficial treatment of a subject, they are still just opinions, and the weight of their persuasiveness is primarily derived from the authoritativeness of the source. <<

I think I understand what you are saying, but still don't think that I quoted his "opinion" (such as HIS conclusions drawn from his research), but just the data of school laws: which laws in which places in which years, how many children attended school in which places, etc. Of course, he could have errors, but I'm daring to make the assumption (yes, I know what "assume" means...) that his research was as accurate as he could make it, or if anything, could have been biased in the opposite direction of what interested me. What particularly intrigued me is that the research paper in no way appeared to intend to "support" homeschooling (and the comments you forwarded me certainly strengthen that appearance--if anything, Dr. Kraft appears to be quite against homeschooling!) Arguments from the "other side" that, in my opinion, support "my side", are often much more convincing to me than arguments from "my side".

One example: homeschooling parents will tell you from morning to night, day in and day out, forever and on every webpage about homeschooling that exists, that homeschooled children are sufficiently, possibly or even probably better than their public-schooled peers, "socialized." I happen to have that opinion myself. But when the principal of the school that my children attended for six months, without being asked and without having any reason to volunteer her opinion, told me that my daughter, who was in the principal's class, had laid flat all of her (the principal's) previous opinions about how isolated and unsocialized homeschooled children must be, I have to admit that that statement carried more weight with me. It was not to her advantage to think so and even less so for her to say so.

So if a pro-homeschooler researches and finds that in year X only X percentage of children actually attended school in Germany, although there was a law saying that ALL children must attend school, I can't help but wonder if that researcher only looked for the cases that would support his/her point, for example only "sampling" the nobility. But when someone wants to show how long Germany has had a compulsory school attendance law says the same thing, I'm more likely to believe it, or even think that he may have purposely looked for evidence of a higher percentage than might have been reality! Does that make sense?

>>Is that not, in fact, why you are citing his report rather than simply stating the result of your own research?<<

Perhaps I was citing his report because of the "authority" it may have carried, being a research paper by a university professor. But if so, that wasn't intentional: the fact is that finding his report WAS a result of our own (mainly my husband's, and his opinion does carry a great deal of weight with me!!) research, in which lots of data was conveniently in one place. Wikipedia and the like can be extremely misleading, as can newspaper articles.

There was an article recently (within the last couple of months) that said that a particular family in Hamburg was believed to be "one of the last hold-outs" (of homeschooling families) in all Germany!! Considering that I personally know at least 10 families and trust those families when they say they know others, I know that that's not true. So other people can choose to believe me when I say that there are at least, say, 20 families homeschooling in Germany (I think it's more like at least 500--but I haven't researched it personally, just believe a friend who has, or at least told me he has), or for example that a year and a half ago 26 homeschooling families just in our state received identical letters from the ministry of education, who claimed to have written to every homeschooling family in our state, yet I knew three homeschooling families in our state who did NOT receive the letter!! Or they can try to research it themselves, which could be difficult, considering that, for example, those three families were, reasonably enough, lying low, and certainly can't be found with any google or otherwise search!

My husband does have a lot of information from secondary sources (i.e., via the internet--he hasn't seen any original documents in person) about when which laws were in place where, and nothing in Dr. Kraft's report conflicted with the other information. (Perhaps it's also of interest to someone that my husband enjoys researching his geneology and knows of several ancestors who were educated at least part of the time at home--in Germany.) What neither my husband nor I have much of is time--we do have four children, he has two jobs, and life is very busy. My husband would like to do more research personally, but simply can't, neither can I. It's 12 minutes past midnight right now and I'm nursing (feeding, for non-Americans!) my youngest at the moment.

What I still want to know is, why would the results of my husband's or my own research be more valuable than Dr. Kraft's? Especially since my husband and I are definitely biased in FAVOR of finding proof that school attendance was never universally enforced in Germany until 1938!

>>If the conclusion is transparently objective, surely evidence for it can be found elsewhere.<<

Again, I don't think I cited any of Dr. Kraft's conclusions: the conclusions were my own. And they definitely were not objective! :-)

>> If the conclusion requires interpretation, and all the reputable German scholars are too intimidated to speak up, then you should submit the topic for analysis by historians from other countries. There is no shortage of scholars from neighboring countries who love to deconstruct German legal history and vilify the Nazis. <<

Of course, the current tendency to point out that Germany is attempting to enforce a law that was instigated by the Nazis doesn't help much, really. When the Germans hear that, they simply write off the rest of the discussion, because they don't want to be reminded--OR, they're neo-Nazis and think that's wonderful anyway! As for the rest of the world, they either see using phrases like "Nazi law still on the books in Germany" as unnecessary sensationalism and take the rest of the information with a grain of salt, or they get all worked up and send a bunch of e-mails, although they don't have any real evidence. I tried very hard, with my limited time and my limited information, to present a clearer picture.

>>Personally, I think the conclusion is objectively attainable. I am persuaded by the distinction between Schulpflicht and Bildungspflicht. It is quite clear that the modern German authorities are not concerned with the personal development of any particular child but rather they are focused on controlling the the location, content, and method of instruction for all children. If the comparison with the Nazis makes them uncomfortable, well, too bad. Maybe they should try harder to differentiate themselves from the Nazis instead of puffing up with righteous indignation.<<

I can only agree whole-heartedly with all of that. So, are you a "historian from (an)other country" to whom I can "submit the topic for analysis"? I look forward to hearing about your results!

And now it is 12:34 a.m. and somewhere between one and four children will be up in seven hours or less, so I'm going to bed. :-)