[Question]{.underline}: Ought traditional parents to home school their children?
[Answer]{.underline}: The role of the family in the education of children cannot and must not be underestimated. As Pope Pius XI points in his encyclical On the Christian Education of Youth: “The first and necessary element in this environment, as regards education, is the family, and this precisely because so ordained by the Creator Himself. Accordingly that education, as a rule, will be more effective and lasting which is received in a well-ordered and well-disciplined Christian family; and more efficacious in proportion to the clear and constant good example set, first by the parents, and then by the other members of the household” (Dec. 31, 1929). Home schooling is consequently of divine institution, of the natural law, nor can there be any substitute for it. The pope goes on to deplore the immorality of the totalitarian, communistic regime in Russia, that, breaking the natural law, steals children from their parents to pervert them with atheism, godlessness, and hatred.
Second in the responsibility to educate is the Church, based upon its authority to teach supernatural truth and to sanctify through the sacraments. Pope Pius XI teaches: “The Church therefore is the educational environment most intimately and harmoniously associated with the Christian family…So admirable too is the harmony which she maintains with the Christian family, that the Church and the family may be said to constitute together one and the same temple of Christian education” (ibid.). Consequently, the Church cannot possibly be opposed to home schooling. Its role is to complete, in the supernatural order, by the innumerable resources at its disposition, the work of the parents, nor can it be an effective educator of children without the support of their parents. Likewise parents must acknowledge that they need the Church’s help, that all the circumstances in a child’s life might work together to create a real and supernatural world view, form true morality, and promote submission to the truth. Parents who belittle the role of the Church, who think that they can teach religion by themselves, who refuse to ask the religious, the priests, or the Church to teach their children catechism, miss out on a great asset. The limitation of the teaching of religion to the parents alone has not infrequently provoked a narrow-minded view of religion, and sometimes even rebellion against what is seen to be simply a parental choice. It is consequently within the parents’ best interests to appreciate the educational environment of the Church, in which there is an “inexhaustible fecundity of educational works [;] how marvelous, how incomparable is the Church’s maternal providence!” (ibid.)
The school comes third in the order of educators, being a complement to the family and to the Church. The necessity of such a social institution for education arises from the fact that “the younger generations must be trained in the arts and sciences for the advantage and prosperity of civil society” and that “the family is of itself unequal to this task” (ibid.). Hence the school “owes its existence to the initiative of the family and of the Church” and “is by its very nature an institution subsidiary and complementary to the family and to the Church. It follows logically and necessarily that it must not be in opposition to, but in positive accord with, those other two elements, and form with them a perfect moral union, constituting one sanctuary of education, as it were, with the family and the Church” (ibid.).
These are the principles that will enable us to understand the role of home schooling. The immediate consequence of them is that the pope condemns categorically any parents who would dare send their children to non-Catholic schools, whether they be neutral in matters of religion (such as our modern public schools) or whether they simply be open to Catholic and non-Catholics alike, providing separate religious instruction for each. His attention to home schooling is exactly the contrary. Far from condemning it, he deplores “the present day lamentable decline in family education” (ibid.).
Consequently, there can be no doubt that whenever a true, traditional Catholic school is not a possibility, the parents have the obligation, under pain of grave sin, of seeing to the Catholic education of their children themselves, in the home. They do not have the right to send them to public schools, and even less to Novus Ordo schools, where they will be given a false, liberal, watered-down view of religion in contradiction to that received from their parents and traditional priests, causing confusion and ultimately abandonment of all faith. Better that children have no religion at school than that they receive a subjectivistic, sentimental, relativist view of religion, leading them to believe that a person can choose the religion he feels comfortable in observing.
However, there are many limitations of home schooling, as Pius XI points out. For the family is not a perfect society, and as a social institution it does not have the ability to teach the arts and sciences necessary for the functioning of society. There comes a time when children, with sufficient precaution, must seek instruction outside the family. This time will vary greatly from familiy to family. Some families are not capable of providing an elementary school education for their children. Others can provide for a high school education. Some can provide formation in arts and trades. The key element for parents in discerning the right thing to do is to have the humility to know their limitations, and to ask others’ help to become aware of this. It is for this reason that Catholic families will not belittle or refuse to take advantage of traditional schools when available nor will they hesitate to send them away to boarding schools, despite the sacrifices involved. They will furthermore prepare their children to be strong in the Faith so as to be able to safely receive a technical tertiary education in due time. They will desire to see their children enlarge their experience of Catholic life and culture by contact with as many truly educational Catholic institutions as possible. They will long to see the religious, who make profession of perfection, involved in the education of their children.
This being granted, it is nevertheless of the greatest importance not to condemn home-schooling families who feel that they are better equipped than others to give a complete and balanced education. Such families are in general very strong in their convictions about the interior life, very attached to their priests and sacraments, quite detached from the spirit of the world, and very determined to avoid the corruption of liberalism. In such a case their home-schooled children often have a simplicity of soul, a refreshing openness and docility, an unusual lack of sophistication. All of this makes them a delight to teach in high school, even if there are not infrequently lacunas in some areas of their education, for example in math or spelling or English comprehension or literature. With such a good attitude, provided that the basic 3R’s are solid, defects can be made good. This has certainly been my own personal experience, and it has made home-schooled boys a delight to teach as boarders in high school.
Answered by Father Peter Scott, SSPX.