Posted in Commonplace Book

Though some went to a university, the following great ones, with stimulation, of course, largely taught themselves at home: Michelangelo, Stonewall Jackson, Henry Ford, Robert E. Lee, Douglas MacArthur, George Patton, Alexander Graham Bell, Cyrus McCormick, Claude Monet, Leonardo da Vinci, Andrew Wyeth, John Wesley, John Quincy Adams, William Henry Harrison, Abraham Lincoln, James Madison, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George Washington, Woodrow Wilson, George Washington Carver, Pierre Curie, Benjamin Franklin, Patrick Henry, William Penn, Hans Christian Anderson, Pearl Buck, Agatha Christie, Charles Dickens, C.S. Lewis, George Bernard Shaw, Bret Harte, Charlie Chaplin, George Rogers Clark, Andrew Carnegie, Sandra Day O'Connor, John Burroughs, Albert Schweitzer, Noel Coward, Charles Steinmetz, John Paul Getty, Bill Gates, and Einstein who ''was slow to learn to speak, could not stomach organized learning, and loathed taking exams.

I'm also under the impression that John Hobbes, John Locke, John Stuart Mill, and Louis Pasteur did most of their learning on their own -- along with the average American child who spends 91 percent of his/her life outside of the school building.

And in all the history of the world through 1969, only three great creative thinkers, Edwin J. Land, Noa Chomsky, and J. Robert Oppenheimer have done well in school.

In addition, Thomas Alva Edison's mother pulled him out of school in the first grade when his teacher called him "addled; Winston Churchill was called "hyperactive with poor peer relationships and the naughtiest small boy in England;" Sarah Bernhardt was expelled from school three times, once for throwing stones at the Royal Dragoons; Will Rogers was incorrigible at school and ran away from home; Orville Wright was suspended from school because of his mischievous behavior; Pope John XXIII was sent home with a note saying he continually came to class unprepared; he did not deliver the note; Beethoven was rude towards his friends and subject to wild fits of rage; Toscanini was obstinate and disobedient; Louis Armstrong spent time in a home for delinquents; Paul Cezanne would stamp his feet in a hysterical rage whenever he felt thwarted; Wm. Wordsworth was a ''stubborn, wayward and intractable boy; N and Arthur Conan Doyle was aggressive and continually involved in fights; he would break rules deliberately so he could show how well he could take the punishment".

Other distinguished adults who were difficult or restless children include William Randolph Hearst, Enrico Fermi, Huey Long, Jan Paderewski, Vincent Van Gogh, John Keats, Charles Darwin, Mary Baker Eddy, Florence Nightingale, and Friedrich Nietzsche.

Meanwhile, the average child, rich or poor, learns like a genius for the first 3, 4, or 5 years -- until they go to school or daycare center. That is, they have (in addition to a zillion other things and despite TV, video games, and computers) taught themselves, without any formal teaching whatsoever, an extremely complicated language, the most difficult thing they'll ever learn no matter how long they should live. But between disconnected parents and addiction to the various screens most are learning how to hold a good conversation.

And now we also know why the home-schooled child, who is not only more confident and sociable, is eight times more likely to become a National Merit Scholar than is the one who goes to school.

March 2000 Robert /. Kay, M.D.