title: Jan Smuts

text: In December 1894, Smuts passed the examinations for the Inns of Court, entering the Middle Temple. His old Cambridge college, Christ's College, offered him a fellowship in Law. Smuts turned his back on a potentially distinguished legal future. By June 1895, he had returned to the Cape Colony, determined to make his future there.


title: Jan Smuts

text: Smuts began to practise law in Cape Town, but his abrasive nature made him few friends. Finding little financial success in the law, he began to devote more and more of his time to politics and journalism, writing for the "Cape Times". Smuts was intrigued by the prospect of a united South Africa, and joined the Afrikaner Bond. By good fortune, Smuts' father knew the leader of the group, Jan Hofmeyr. Hofmeyr in turn recommended Jan to Cecil Rhodes, who owned the De Beers mining company. In 1895, Smuts became an advocate and supporter of Rhodes.


title: Jan Smuts

text: When Rhodes launched the Jameson Raid, in the summer of 1895–96, Smuts was outraged. Feeling betrayed by his employer, friend and political ally, he resigned from De Beers, and left political life. Instead he became state attorney in the capital of the South African Republic, Pretoria.


title: Jan Smuts

text: After the Jameson Raid, relations between the British and the Afrikaners had deteriorated steadily. By 1898, war seemed imminent. Orange Free State President Martinus Steyn called for a peace conference at Bloemfontein to settle each side's grievances. With an intimate knowledge of the British, Smuts took control of the Transvaal delegation. Sir Alfred Milner, head of the British delegation, took exception to his dominance, and conflict between the two led to the collapse of the conference, consigning South Africa to war.


title: Jan Smuts

text: Smuts was the first South African to be internationally regarded as an important psychologist. During Smuts’ undergraduate years at Cambridge University, he produced a manuscript in 1895 in which he analysed the personality of the famous American poet Walt Whitman. Due to his manuscript being considered unviable, it was only published 23 years after his death in 1973. Smuts went on to produce his next manuscript, which he completed in 1910, entitled "An Inquiry into the Whole". His manuscript was then revised in 1924 and published in 1926 with the title "Holism and Evolution".


title: Jan Smuts

text: Smuts had no interest in pursuing a career in psychology. He considered psychology as "too impersonal to study great personalities", and believed that the holistic tendency of the personality would be studied best through personology. Smuts, however, never inquired further into the idea of personology due to him wanting to continue laying the foundation of the concept of holism. He never returned to either of the topics.


title: Jan Smuts

text: Although the concept of holism has been discussed by many, the term holism in academic terminology was first introduced and publicly shared in print by Smuts in the early twentieth century. Smuts was acknowledged for his contribution by getting the honour to write the first entry about the concept for the Encyclopaedia Britannica 1929 edition. The Austrian medical doctor, founder of the school of Individual Psychology, and psychotherapist, Alfred Adler (1870-1937), also showed a great interest in Smuts' book. Adler requested permission from Smuts to have the book translated to German and published in Germany.


title: Jan Smuts

text: Although Smuts' concept of holism is grounded in the natural sciences, he claimed that it has a relevance in philosophy, ethics, sociology, and psychology. In "Holism and Evolution", he argued that the concept of holism is "grounded in evolution and is also an ideal that guides human development and one's level of personality actualization." Smuts stated in the book that "personality is the highest form of holism" (p. 292).


title: Jan Smuts

text: Adler later wrote a letter, dated 31 January 1931, where he stated that he recommended Smuts’ book to his students and followers. He referred to it as "the best preparation for the science of Individual Psychology". After Smuts gave permission for the translation and publication of his book in Germany, it was translated by H. Minkowski and eventually published in 1938. During the Second World War, the books were destroyed after the Nazi government had removed it from circulation. Adler and Smuts, however, continued their correspondence. In one of Adler’s letters dated 14 June 1931, he invited Smuts to be one of three judges of the best book on the history of wholeness with a reference to Individual Psychology.


title: Jan Smuts

text: On 11 October 1899 the Boer republics declared war and launched an offensive into the British-held Natal and Cape Colony areas, beginning the Second Boer War of 1899–1902. In the early stages of the conflict, Smuts served as Paul Kruger's eyes and ears in Pretoria, handling propaganda, logistics, communication with generals and diplomats, and anything else that was required. In the second phase of the war, from mid-1900, Smuts served under Koos de la Rey, who commanded 500 commandos in the Western Transvaal. Smuts excelled at hit-and-run warfare, and the unit evaded and harassed a British army forty times its size. President Paul Kruger and the deputation in Europe thought that there was good hope for their cause in the Cape Colony. They decided to send General de la Rey there to assume supreme command, but then decided to act more cautiously when they realised that General de la Rey could hardly be spared in the Western Transvaal. Consequently, Smuts was left with a small force of 300 men, while another 100 men followed him. By January 1902 the British scorched-earth policy left little grazing land. One hundred of the cavalry that had joined Smuts were therefore too weak to continue and so Smuts had to leave these men with General Kritzinger. Intelligence indicated that at this time Smuts had about 3,000 men.


title: Jan Smuts

text: To end the conflict, Smuts sought to take a major target, the copper-mining town of Okiep in the present-day Northern Cape Province (April–May 1902). With a full assault impossible, Smuts packed a train full of explosives, and tried to push it downhill, into the town, in order to bring the enemy garrison to its knees. Although this failed, Smuts had proved his point: that he would stop at nothing to defeat his enemies. Norman Kemp Smith wrote that General Smuts read from Immanuel Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" on the evening before the raid. Smith contended that this showed how Kant's critique can be a solace and a refuge, as well as a means to sharpen the wit. Combined with the British failure to pacify the Transvaal, Smuts' success left the United Kingdom with no choice but to offer a ceasefire and a peace conference, to be held at Vereeniging.


title: Jan Smuts

text: Before the conference, Smuts met Lord Kitchener at Kroonstad station, where they discussed the proposed terms of surrender. Smuts then took a leading role in the negotiations between the representatives from all of the commandos from the Orange Free State and the South African Republic (15–31 May 1902). Although he admitted that, from a purely military perspective, the war could continue, he stressed the importance of not sacrificing the Afrikaner people for that independence. He was very conscious that "more than 20,000 women and children have already died in the concentration camps of the enemy". He felt it would have been a crime to continue the war without the assurance of help from elsewhere and declared, "Comrades, we decided to stand to the bitter end. Let us now, like men, admit that that end has come for us, come in a more bitter shape than we ever thought." His opinions were representative of the conference, which then voted by 54 to 6 in favour of peace. Representatives of the Governments met Lord Kitchener and at five minutes past eleven on 31 May 1902, the Acting State President of the South African Republic, Schalk Willem Burger signed the Treaty of Vereeniging, followed by the members of his government, Acting State President of the Orange Free State, Christiaan De Wet, and the members of his government.


title: Jan Smuts

text: For all Smuts' exploits as a general and a negotiator, nothing could mask the fact that the Boers had been defeated. Lord Milner had full control of all South African affairs, and established an Anglophone elite, known as Milner's Kindergarten. As an Afrikaner, Smuts was excluded. Defeated but not deterred, in January 1905, he decided to join with the other former Transvaal generals to form a political party, "Het Volk" ('The People'), to fight for the Afrikaner cause. Louis Botha was elected leader, and Smuts his deputy.


title: Jan Smuts

text: When his term of office expired, Milner was replaced as High Commissioner by the more conciliatory Lord Selborne. Smuts saw an opportunity and pounced, urging Botha to persuade the Liberals to support "Het Volk's" cause. When the Conservative government under Arthur Balfour collapsed, in December 1905, the decision paid off. Smuts joined Botha in London, and sought to negotiate full self-government for the Transvaal within British South Africa. Using the thorny political issue of South Asian labourers ('coolies'), the South Africans convinced Prime Minister Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman and, with him, the cabinet and Parliament.


title: Jan Smuts

text: Through 1906, Smuts worked on the new constitution for the Transvaal, and, in December 1906, elections were held for the Transvaal parliament. Despite being shy and reserved, unlike the showman Botha, Smuts won a comfortable victory in the Wonderboom constituency, near Pretoria. His victory was one of many, with "Het Volk" winning in a landslide and Botha forming the government. To reward his loyalty and efforts, Smuts was given two key cabinet positions: Colonial Secretary and Education Secretary.


title: Jan Smuts

text: Smuts proved to be an effective leader, if unpopular. As Education Secretary, he had fights with the Dutch Reformed Church, of which he had once been a dedicated member, which demanded Calvinist teachings in schools. As Colonial Secretary, he opposed a movement for equal rights for South Asian workers, led by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi.


title: Jan Smuts

text: During the years of Transvaal self-government, nobody could avoid the predominant political debate of the day: South African unification. Ever since the British victory in the war, it was an inevitability, but it remained up to the South Africans to decide what sort of country would be formed, and how it would be formed. Smuts favoured a unitary state, with power centralised in Pretoria, with English as the only official language, and with a more inclusive electorate. To impress upon his compatriots his vision, he called a constitutional convention in Durban, in October 1908.


title: Jan Smuts

text: There, Smuts was up against a hard-talking Orange River Colony delegation, who refused every one of Smuts' demands. Smuts had successfully predicted this opposition, and their objections, and tailored his own ambitions appropriately. He allowed compromise on the location of the capital, on the official language, and on suffrage, but he refused to budge on the fundamental structure of government. As the convention drew into autumn, the Orange leaders began to see a final compromise as necessary to secure the concessions that Smuts had already made. They agreed to Smuts' draft South African constitution, which was duly ratified by the South African colonies. Smuts and Botha took the constitution to London, where it was passed by Parliament and given Royal Assent by King Edward VII in December 1909.


title: Jan Smuts

text: The Union of South Africa was born, and the Afrikaners held the key to political power, as the majority of the increasingly whites-only electorate. Although Botha was appointed prime minister of the new country, Smuts was given three key ministries: Interior, Mines, and Defence. Undeniably, Smuts was the second most powerful man in South Africa. To solidify their dominance of South African politics, the Afrikaners united to form the South African Party, a new pan-South African Afrikaner party.


title: Jan Smuts

text: The harmony and co-operation soon ended. Smuts was criticised for his overarching powers, and the cabinet was reshuffled. Smuts lost Interior and Mines, but gained control of Finance. That was still too much for Smuts' opponents, who decried his possession of both Defence and Finance, two departments that were usually at loggerheads. At the 1913 South African Party conference, the Old Boers (Hertzog, Steyn, De Wet), called for Botha and Smuts to step down. The two narrowly survived a confidence vote, and the troublesome triumvirate stormed out, leaving the party for good.


title: Jan Smuts

text: With the schism in internal party politics came a new threat to the mines that brought South Africa its wealth. A small-scale miners' dispute flared into a full-blown strike, and rioting broke out in Johannesburg after Smuts intervened heavy-handedly. After police shot dead twenty-one strikers, Smuts and Botha headed unaccompanied to Johannesburg to resolve the situation personally. Facing down threats to their own lives, they negotiated a cease-fire. But the cease-fire did not hold, and in 1914, a railway strike turned into a general strike. Threats of a revolution caused Smuts to declare martial law. He acted ruthlessly, deporting union leaders without trial and using Parliament to absolve him and the government of any blame retroactively. That was too much for the Old Boers, who set up their own National Party to fight the all-powerful Botha-Smuts partnership.


title: Jan Smuts

text: During the First World War, Smuts formed the Union Defence Force. His first task was to suppress the Maritz Rebellion, which was accomplished by November 1914. Next he and Louis Botha led the South African army into German South-West Africa and conquered it (see the South-West Africa Campaign for details). In 1916 General Smuts was put in charge of the conquest of German East Africa. Col (later BGen) J.H.V. Crowe commanded the artillery in East Africa under General Smuts and published an account of the campaign, "General Smuts' Campaign in East Africa" in 1918. Smuts was promoted to temporary lieutenant general on 18 February 1916, and to honorary lieutenant general for distinguished service in the field on 1 January 1917.


title: Jan Smuts

text: Smuts' chief Intelligence officer, Colonel Richard Meinertzhagen, wrote very critically of his conduct of the campaign. He believed Horace Smith-Dorrien (who had saved the British Army during the retreat from Mons and was the original choice as commander in 1916) would have quickly defeated the Germans. In particular, Meinertzhagen thought that frontal attacks would have been decisive, and less costly than the flanking movements preferred by Smuts, which took longer, so that thousands of Imperial troops died of disease in the field. He wrote: "Smuts has cost Britain many hundreds of lives and many millions of pounds by his caution... Smuts was not an astute soldier; a brilliant statesman and politician but no soldier." Meinertzhagen wrote these comments in October/November 1916, in the weeks after being relieved by Smuts due to symptoms of depression, and he was invalided back to England shortly thereafter.


title: Jan Smuts

text: Early in 1917, Smuts left Africa and went to London, as he had been invited to join the Imperial War Cabinet and the War Policy Committee by David Lloyd George. Smuts initially recommended renewed Western Front attacks and a policy of attrition, lest with Russian commitment to the war wavering, France or Italy would be tempted to make a separate peace. Lloyd George wanted a commander "of the dashing type" for the Middle East in succession to Murray, but Smuts refused the command (late May) unless promised resources for a decisive victory, and he agreed with Robertson that Western Front commitments did not justify a serious attempt to capture Jerusalem. Allenby was appointed instead. Like other members of the War Cabinet, Smuts' commitment to Western Front efforts was shaken by Third Ypres.


title: Jan Smuts

text: In 1917, following the German Gotha Raids, and lobbying by Viscount French, Smuts wrote a review of the British Air Services, which came to be called the Smuts Report. He was helped in large part in this by General Sir David Henderson who was seconded to him. This report led to the treatment of air as a separate force, which eventually became the Royal Air Force.


title: Jan Smuts

text: By mid-January 1918, Lloyd George was toying with the idea of appointing Smuts Commander-in-Chief of all land and sea forces facing the Ottoman Empire, reporting directly to the War Cabinet rather than to Robertson. Early in 1918, Smuts was sent to Egypt to confer with Allenby and Marshall, and prepare for major efforts in that theatre. Before his departure, alienated by Robertson's exaggerated estimates of the required reinforcements, he urged Robertson's removal. Allenby told Smuts of Robertson's private instructions (sent by hand of Walter Kirke, appointed by Robertson as Smuts' adviser) that there was no merit in any further advance. He worked with Smuts to draw up plans, using three reinforcement divisions from Mesopotamia, to reach Haifa by June and Damascus by the autumn, the speed of the advance limited by the need to lay fresh rail track. This was the foundation of Allenby's successful offensive later in the year.


title: Jan Smuts

text: Like most British Empire political and military leaders in the First World War, Smuts thought the American Expeditionary Forces lacked the proper leadership and experience to be effective quickly. He supported the Anglo-French amalgamation policy towards the Americans. In particular, he had a low opinion of General John J. Pershing's leadership skills, so much so that he proposed to Lloyd George that Pershing be relieved of command and US forces be placed "under someone more confident, like [himself]". This did not endear him to the Americans once it was leaked.


title: Jan Smuts

text: Smuts and Botha were key negotiators at the Paris Peace Conference. Both were in favour of reconciliation with Germany and limited reparations. Smuts was a key architect of the League of Nations through his correspondences with Woodrow Wilson, his work with the Imperial War Cabinet during the First World War and his book "League of Nations: A Practical Suggestion". According to Jacob Kripp, Smuts saw the League as necessary in unifying white internationalists and pacifying a race war through indirect rule by Europeans over non-whites and segregation. Kripp states that the League of Nations mandates system reflected a compromise between Smuts's desire to annex non-white territories and Woodrow Wilson's principles of trusteeship.


title: Jan Smuts

text: He was sent to Budapest to negotiate with Béla Kun's Hungarian Soviet Republic to withdraw from unrecognized territory, and the Hungarian Communist Party's refusal to meet him led to the conference's approval of a Czechoslovak-Romanian invasion and harsher terms in the Treaty of Trianon. The Treaty of Versailles gave South Africa a Class C mandate over German South-West Africa (which later became Namibia), which was occupied from 1919 until withdrawal in 1990. At the same time, Australia was given a similar mandate over German New Guinea, which it held until 1975. Both Smuts and the Australian Prime Minister Billy Hughes feared the rising power of Japan in the post First World War world. When former German East Africa was divided into three mandated territories (Rwanda, Burundi, and Tanganyika) "Smutsland" was one of the proposed names for what became Tanganyika. Smuts, who had called for South African territorial expansion all the way to the River Zambesi since the late 19th century, was ultimately disappointed with the League awarding South-West Africa only a mandate status, as he had looked forward to formally incorporating the territory to South Africa.


title: Jan Smuts

text: Smuts returned to South African politics after the conference. When Botha died in 1919, Smuts was elected prime minister, serving until a shocking defeat in 1924 at the hands of the National Party. After the death of the former American President Woodrow Wilson, Smuts was quoted as saying that: "Not Wilson, but humanity failed at Paris."


title: Jan Smuts

text: While in Britain for an Imperial Conference in June 1921, Smuts went to Ireland and met Éamon de Valera to help broker an armistice and peace deal between the warring British and Irish nationalists. Smuts attempted to sell the concept of Ireland receiving Dominion status similar to that of Australia and South Africa.


title: Jan Smuts

text: During his first premiership Smuts was involved in a number of controversies. The first was the Rand Revolt of March 1921, where aeroplanes were used to bomb white miners who were striking in opposition to proposals to allow non-whites to do more skilled and semi-skilled work previously reserved to whites only. Smuts was accused of siding with the Rand Lords who wanted the removal of the colour bar in the hope that it would lower wage costs. The white miners perpetrated acts of violence across the Rand, including murderous attacks on non-Europeans, conspicuously on African miners in their compounds, and this culminated in a general assault on the police. Smuts declared martial law and suppressed the insurrection in three days – at a cost of 291 police and army deaths, and 396 civilians killed. A Martial Law Commission was established which found that Smuts used larger forces than were strictly required, but had saved lives by doing so.


title: Jan Smuts

text: The second was the Bulhoek Massacre of 24 May 1921, when at Bulhoek in the eastern Cape eight hundred South African policemen and soldiers armed with maxim machine guns and two field artillery guns killed 163 and wounded 129 members of an indigenous religious sect known as "Israelites" who had been armed with knobkerries, assegais and swords and who had refused to vacate land they regarded as holy to them. Casualties on the government side at Bulhoek amounted to one trooper wounded and one horse killed. Once again, there were charges of the unnecessary use of overwhelming force. However, no commission of enquiry was appointed.


title: Jan Smuts

text: The third was the Bondelswarts Rebellion, in which Smuts supported the actions of the South African Administration in attacking the Bondelswarts in South West Africa. The mandatory administration moved to crush what they called a rebellion of 500 to 600 people, of which 200 were said to be armed (although only about 40 weapons were captured after the Bondelswarts were crushed). Gysbert Hofmeyr, the Mandatory Administrator, organised 400 armed men, and sent in aircraft to bomb the Bondelswarts. Casualties included 100 Bondelswart deaths, including a few women and children. A further 468 men were either wounded or taken prisoner. South Africa's international reputation was tarnished. Ruth First, a South African anti-apartheid activist and scholar, describes the Bondelswarts shooting as "the Sharpeville of the 1920s".


title: Jan Smuts

text: As a botanist, Smuts collected plants extensively over southern Africa. He went on several botanical expeditions in the 1920s and 1930s with John Hutchinson, former botanist-in-charge of the African section of the Herbarium of the Royal Botanic Gardens and taxonomist of note. Smuts was a keen mountaineer and supporter of mountaineering. One of his favourite rambles was up Table Mountain along a route now known as Smuts' Track. In February 1923 he unveiled a memorial to members of the Mountain Club who had been killed in the First World War.


title: Jan Smuts

text: In 1925, assessing Smuts's role in international affairs, African-American historian and Pan-Africanist W. E. B. Du Bois wrote in an article which would be incorporated into the pivotal Harlem Renaissance text "The New Negro",Jan Smuts is today, in his world aspects, the greatest protagonist of the white race. He is fighting to take control of Laurenço Marques from a nation that recognizes, even though it does not realize, the equality of black folk; he is fighting to keep India from political and social equality in the empire; he is fighting to insure the continued and eternal subordination of black to white in Africa; and he is fighting for peace and good will in a white Europe which can by union present a united front to the yellow, brown and black worlds. In all this he expresses bluntly, and yet not without finesse, what a powerful host of white folk believe but do not plainly say in Melbourne, New Orleans, San Francisco, Hongkong, Berlin, and London.


title: Jan Smuts

text: In December 1934, Smuts told an audience at the Royal Institute of International Affairs that:How can the inferiority complex which is obsessing and, I fear, poisoning the mind, and indeed the very soul of Germany, be removed? There is only one way and that is to recognise her complete equality of status with her fellows and to do so frankly, freely and unreservedly ... While one understands and sympathises with French fears, one cannot, but feel for Germany in the prison of inferiority in which she still remains sixteen years after the conclusion of the war. The continuance of the Versailles status is becoming an offence to the conscience of Europe and a danger to future peace ... Fair play, sportsmanship—indeed every standard of private and public life—calls for frank revision of the situation. Indeed ordinary prudence makes it imperative. Let us break these bonds and set the complexed-obsessed soul free in a decent human way and Europe will reap a rich reward in tranquility, security and returning prosperity.


title: Jan Smuts

text: Though in his Rectorial Address delivered on 17 October 1934 at St Andrews University he states that:The new Tyranny, disguised in attractive patriotic colours, is enticing youth everywhere into its service. Freedom must make a great counterstroke to save itself and our fair western civilisation. Once more the heroic call is coming to our youth. The fight for human freedom is indeed the supreme issue of the future, as it has always been.


title: Jan Smuts

text: After nine years in opposition and academia, Smuts returned as deputy prime minister in a 'grand coalition' government under J. B. M. Hertzog. When Hertzog advocated neutrality towards Nazi Germany in 1939, the coalition split and Hertzog's motion to remain out of the war was defeated in Parliament by a vote of 80 to 67. Governor-General Sir Patrick Duncan refused Hertzog's request to dissolve parliament for a general election on the issue. Hertzog resigned and Duncan invited Smuts, Hertzog's coalition partner, to form a government and become prime minister for the second time in order to lead the country into the Second World War on the side of the Allies.


title: Jan Smuts

text: Smuts' importance to the Imperial war effort was emphasised by a quite audacious plan, proposed as early as 1940, to appoint Smuts as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, should Churchill die or otherwise become incapacitated during the war. This idea was put forward by Sir John Colville, Churchill's private secretary, to Queen Mary and then to George VI, both of whom warmed to the idea.


title: Jan Smuts

text: In May 1945, he represented South Africa in San Francisco at the drafting of the United Nations Charter. According to historian Mark Mazower, Smuts "did more than anyone to argue for, and help draft, the UN's stirring preamble." Smuts saw the UN as key to protecting white imperial rule over Africa. Also in 1945, he was mentioned by Halvdan Koht among seven candidates that were qualified for the Nobel Prize in Peace. However, he did not explicitly nominate any of them. The person actually nominated was Cordell Hull.


title: Jan Smuts

text: In domestic policy, a number of social security reforms were carried out during Smuts' second period in office as Prime Minister. Old-age pensions and disability grants were extended to 'Indians' and 'Africans' in 1944 and 1947 respectively, although there were differences in the level of grants paid out based on race. The Workmen's Compensation Act of 1941 "insured all employees irrespective of payment of the levy by employers and increased the number of diseases covered by the law," and the Unemployment Insurance Act of 1946 introduced unemployment insurance on a national scale, albeit with exclusions.


title: Jan Smuts

text: Smuts continued to represent his country abroad. He was a leading guest at the 1947 wedding of Princess Elizabeth and Philip, Duke of Edinburgh.


title: Jan Smuts

text: In 1948, he was elected Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, becoming the first person from outside the United Kingdom to hold that position. He held the position until his death two years later.


title: Jan Smuts

text: He accepted the appointment as Colonel-in-Chief of Regiment Westelike Provinsie as from 17 September 1948.


title: Jan Smuts

text: In 1949, Smuts was bitterly opposed to the London Declaration which transformed British Commonwealth into the Commonwealth of Nations and made it possible for Republics (such as the newly independent India) to remain its members. In the South African context, republicanism was mainly identified with Afrikaner Conservatism and with tighter racial segregation.


title: Jan Smuts

text: On 29 May 1950, a week after the public celebration of his eightieth birthday in Johannesburg and Pretoria, Jan Smuts suffered a coronary thrombosis. He died of a subsequent heart attack on his family farm of Doornkloof, Irene, near Pretoria, on 11 September 1950.


title: Jan Smuts

text: In 1899, Smuts interrogated the young Winston Churchill, who had been captured by Afrikaners during the Boer War, which was the first time they met. The next time was in 1906, while Smuts was leading a mission about South Africa's future to London before Churchill, then Under-Secretary of State for the Colonies. The British Cabinet shared Churchill's sympathetic view, which led to self-government within the year, followed by dominion status for the Union of South Africa in 1910. Their association continued in the First World War, when Lloyd George appointed Smuts, in 1917, to the war cabinet in which Churchill served as Munitions Minister. By then, both had formed a fast friendship that continued through Churchill's "wilderness years" and the Second World War, to Smuts's death. Lord Moran, Churchill's personal physician, wrote in his diary: Smuts is the only man who has any influence with the PM; indeed, he is the only ally I have in pressing counsels of common sense on the PM. Smuts sees so clearly that Winston is irreplaceable, that he may make an effort to persuade him to be sensible.


title: Jan Smuts

text: Churchill:Smuts and I are like two old love-birds moulting together on a perch, but still able to peck.


title: Jan Smuts

text: When Eden said at a meeting of the Chiefs of Staff (29 October 1942) that Montgomery's Middle East offensive was "petering out", after having some late night drinks with Churchill the previous night, Alanbrooke had told Churchill "fairly plainly" what he thought of Eden's ability to judge the tactical situation from a distance (Churchill was always impatient for his generals to attack at once). He was supported at the Chiefs of Staff meeting by Smuts. Alanbrooke said he was fortunate to be supported by:


title: Jan Smuts

text: a flow of words from the mouth of that wonderful statesman. It was as if oil had been poured on the troubled waters. The temperamental film-stars returned to their tasks - peace reigned in the dove cot!


title: Jan Smuts

text: Smuts and his parties supported existing policies of racial discrimination in South Africa, taking a more moderate and ambiguous stance than the rival National Party, and he later endorsed the relatively liberal proposals of the Fagan Commission.


title: Jan Smuts

text: Smuts was, for most of his political life, a vocal supporter of segregation of the races, and in 1929 he justified the erection of separate institutions for blacks and whites in tones prescient of the later practice of apartheid:


title: Jan Smuts

text: In general, Smuts' view of black Africans was patronising: he saw them as immature human beings who needed the guidance of whites, an attitude that reflected the common perceptions of most non-blacks in his lifetime. Of black Africans he stated that:


title: Jan Smuts

text: Although Gandhi and Smuts were adversaries in many ways, they had a mutual respect and even admiration for each other. Before Gandhi returned to India in 1914, he presented General Smuts with a pair of sandals (now held by Ditsong National Museum of Cultural History) made by Gandhi himself. In 1939, Smuts, then prime minister, wrote an essay for a commemorative work compiled for Gandhi's 70th birthday and returned the sandals with the following message: "I have worn these sandals for many a summer, even though I may feel that I am not worthy to stand in the shoes of so great a man."


title: Jan Smuts

text: Smuts is often accused of being a politician who extolled the virtues of humanitarianism and liberalism abroad while failing to practise what he preached at home in South Africa. This was most clearly illustrated when India, in 1946, made a formal complaint in the UN concerning the legalised racial discrimination against Indians in South Africa. Appearing personally before the United Nations General Assembly, Smuts defended the policies of his government by fervently pleading that India's complaint was a matter of domestic jurisdiction. However, the General Assembly censured South Africa for its racial policies and called upon the Smuts government to bring its treatment of the South African Indians in conformity with the basic principles of the United Nations Charter.


title: Jan Smuts

text: At the same conference, the African National Congress President General Alfred Bitini Xuma along with delegates of the South African Indian Congress brought up the issue of the brutality of Smuts' police regime against the African Mine Workers' Strike earlier that year as well as the wider struggle for equality in South Africa.


title: Jan Smuts

text: In 1948, he went further away from his previous views on segregation when supporting the recommendations of the Fagan Commission that Africans should be recognised as permanent residents of White South Africa, and not merely as temporary workers who belonged in the reserves. This was in direct opposition to the policies of the National Party that wished to extend segregation and formalise it into apartheid. There is, however, no evidence that Smuts ever supported the idea of equal political rights for blacks and whites. Despite this, he did say: The Fagan Commission did not advocate the establishment of a non-racial democracy in South Africa, but rather wanted to liberalise influx controls of blacks into urban areas in order to facilitate the supply of black African labour to the South African industry. It also envisaged a relaxation of the pass laws that had restricted the movement of blacks in general.


title: Jan Smuts

text: In the assessment of South African Cambridge professor Saul Dubow, "Smuts's views of freedom were always geared to securing the values of western Christian civilization. He was consistent, albeit more flexible than his political contemporaries, in his espousal of white supremacy."


title: Jan Smuts

text: While in academia, Smuts pioneered the concept of holism, which he defined as "[the] fundamental factor operative towards the creation of wholes in the universe" in his 1926 book, "Holism and Evolution". Smuts' formulation of holism has been linked with his political-military activity, especially his aspiration to create a league of nations. As one biographer said:


title: Jan Smuts

text: It had very much in common with his philosophy of life as subsequently developed and embodied in his Holism and Evolution. Small units must develop into bigger wholes, and they in their turn again must grow into larger and ever-larger structures without cessation. Advancement lay along that path. Thus the unification of the four provinces in the Union of South Africa, the idea of the British Commonwealth of Nations, and, finally, the great whole resulting from the combination of the peoples of the earth in a great league of nations were but a logical progression consistent with his philosophical tenets.


title: Jan Smuts

text: In 1943 Chaim Weizmann wrote to Smuts, detailing a plan to develop Britain's African colonies to compete with the United States. During his service as Premier, Smuts personally fundraised for multiple Zionist organisations. His government granted "de facto" recognition to Israel on 24 May 1948. However, Smuts was deputy prime minister when the Hertzog government in 1937 passed the Aliens Act that was aimed at preventing Jewish immigration to South Africa. The act was seen as a response to growing anti-Semitic sentiments among Afrikaners.


title: Jan Smuts

text: Smuts lobbied against the White Paper of 1939, and several streets and a kibbutz, Ramat Yohanan, in Israel are named after him. He also wrote an epitaph for Weizmann, describing him as "the greatest Jew since Moses." Smuts once said:


title: Jan Smuts

text: One of his greatest international accomplishments was the establishment of the League of Nations, the exact design and implementation of which relied upon Smuts. He later urged the formation of a new international organisation for peace – the United Nations. Smuts wrote the first draft of the preamble to the United Nations Charter, and was the only person to sign the charters of both the League of Nations and the UN. He sought to redefine the relationship between the United Kingdom and her colonies, helping to establish the British Commonwealth, as it was known at the time. This proved to be a two-way street; in 1946 the General Assembly requested the Smuts government to take measures to bring the treatment of Indians in South Africa into line with the provisions of the United Nations Charter.


title: Jan Smuts

text: In 1932, the kibbutz Ramat Yohanan in Israel was named after him. Smuts was a vocal proponent of the creation of a Jewish state, and spoke out against the rising antisemitism of the 1930s. A street in the Jerusalem suburb of German Colony and a boulevard in Tel Aviv are named in his honour.


title: Jan Smuts

text: The international airport serving Johannesburg was known as Jan Smuts Airport from its construction in 1952 until 1994. In 1994, it was renamed to Johannesburg International Airport to remove any political connotations. In 2006, it was renamed again to its current name, OR Tambo International Airport, for the ANC politician Oliver Tambo.


title: Jan Smuts

text: In 2004, Smuts was named by voters in a poll held by the South African Broadcasting Corporation (SABC) as one of the top ten Greatest South Africans of all time. The final positions of the top ten were to be decided by a second round of voting but the programme was taken off the air owing to political controversy and Nelson Mandela was given the number one spot based on the first round of voting. In the first round, Field Marshal Smuts came ninth.


title: Jan Smuts

text: In August 2019, the South African Army Regiment Westelike Provinsie was renamed after Smuts as the General Jan Smuts Regiment.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Red vs. Blue, often abbreviated as RvB, is an American web series created by Burnie Burns with his production company Rooster Teeth. The show is based on the setting of the military science fiction first-person shooter series and media franchise "Halo". It is distributed through Rooster Teeth's website, as well as on DVD, Blu-ray, and formerly on the El Rey Network and Netflix. The series initially centers on two opposite teams fighting in an ostensible civil war—shown to actually be a live fire exercise for elite soldiers—in the middle of Blood Gulch, a desolate box canyon, in a parody of first-person shooter video games, military life, and science fiction films. Initially intended to be a short series of six to eight episodes, the project quickly and unexpectedly achieved significant popularity following its premiere on April 1, 2003. The series consists of eighteen seasons and five mini-series. "Red vs. Blue" is the third longest-running animated webseries of all time, behind "Homestar Runner" and "Neurotically Yours".


title: Red vs. Blue

text: "Red vs. Blue" emerged from Burnie Burns' voice-over gameplay videos of Bungie's FPS video game "". The series is primarily produced using the machinima technique of synchronizing video footage from a game to pre-recorded dialogue and other audio. Footage is mostly from the multiplayer modes of "" and its followups on the Xbox consoles.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: The series has been generally well-received. Praised for its originality, the series has won four awards at film festivals held by the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences. It has also won the award for "Best Animated Web Series" from the International Academy of Web Television (IAWTV). It also won a 2013 Webby Award for Animation, as well as nominated in 2014. It has been credited with bringing new popularity to Machinima, helping it to gain more mainstream exposure, and attracting more people to the art form. Graham Leggat, former director of communications for Lincoln Center's film society, described "Red vs. Blue" as "truly as sophisticated as Samuel Beckett". Rooster Teeth has created episodes, some under commission from Microsoft, for special events. The voice actors from "Red vs. Blue" appear in cameos for "Halo 3" and "Halo 4". The webseries is also referenced in a secret room from "".


title: Red vs. Blue

text: The "Red vs. Blue" storyline so far spans eighteen full-length seasons and five mini-series. Rooster Teeth periodically releases self-referential public service announcements and holiday-themed videos, which are generally unrelated to the main storyline and not considered canon. In these videos, the members of both teams are actors who claim to be from "Red vs. Blue".


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Although the visual background of "Red vs. Blue" was primarily taken from the "Halo" series, Rooster Teeth consciously limits connections to the "Halo" fictional universe. A special video made for E3 2003 portrays Master Chief, "Halo"'s protagonist, as a larger-than-life member of the army, and the "Red vs. Blue" trailer and first episode establish that the series is set between the events of the first two games. Beyond these references, the storyline is independent, a decision that, according to Burns, is intended to increase accessibility to those unfamiliar with the games. For example, even though the cast of the fourth and fifth seasons include characters from the Covenant Elite alien race, Rooster Teeth never portrays those characters in their original "Halo" context. Beginning with the , titled "Reconstruction", the series begins to follow "Halo" more closely. It is established that onwards takes place one year after "Halo 3" and several characters indirectly reference Smart AI, the Human-Covenant War, and Forerunners. Also at several points it is noted that Project Freelancer is under the jurisdiction of the United Nations Space Command.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: During its first seventeen seasons, "Red vs. Blue" centered on the Red and Blue Teams, two groups of soldiers engaged in a supposed civil war. Originally, each team occupies a small base in a box canyon known as Blood Gulch. According to , one of the Red Team soldiers, each team's base exists only in response to the other team's base. It is later revealed that there is no actual civil war; both the Red and Blue armies are under the same command, Project Freelancer, and only exist as training simulations for Freelancer Agents. Although both teams generally dislike each other and have standing orders to defeat their opponents and capture their flag, neither team is usually motivated to fight the other, with the exception of Sarge, the leader of Red Team.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Throughout "The Chorus Trilogy" arc, the UNSC's role in the series was greatly expanded in explaining the abandonment of the planet Chorus. This is primarily due to the arc's antagonist, Malcolm Hargrove, working for both the UNSC and his own company, Charon Industries, with the intent to wipe out all life on Chorus with the help of hired space pirates led by mercenaries Locus and Felix. Hargrove's crimes are exposed when he is apprehended offscreen by the Reds and Blues ten months before the events of "The Shisno Paradox" arc.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Starting with its eighteenth season, referred to as "Zero", "Red vs. Blue" now centers on an elite team of special operations soldiers, known as Shatter Squad, as they try to stop another group of soldiers, known as Viper, from getting the keys to a powerful suit of armor known as the Ultimate Power. Unlike the original series, the current "Red vs. Blue" instead parodies action movies. While certain character, vehicle, and weapon models are carried over from "", the series appears to now distance itself from the "Halo" universe, instead introducing a new military force known as the Alliance of Defense in place of the UNSC. While featuring a brand new cast, three members of the original cast appear in the new series in mostly cameo roles, these being Carolina and Washington, two Freelancers who joined the Reds and Blues later in the original series, and Tucker, a member of the Blue Team, though the three are established to have left their now former friends to join the Alliance of Defense and, in Tucker's case, another unnamed military organization. Rather than being a machinima produced in the "Halo" engine, the series is now fully animated in Unreal Engine 4, the same engine used for the menu UI and armor customization in "", and uses assets from the Unreal Engine Marketplace that are unrelated to the "Halo" franchise, although there are moments that scenes are animated to mimic machinima limitations.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: During its original run, "Red vs. Blue" featured characters whose personalities are skewed in different ways and to varying degrees. Character interaction and dialogue, instead of action, would drive the story. The original series centered on eleven main characters. Other characters, both team-affiliated and unaffiliated, human and non-human, have played significant roles throughout the story. Notable later additions to the cast include The Director and The Chairman, as well as the Freelancers, which are named after U.S. states. AIs are also important characters, and are named after Greek letters. As is a common habit in most forms of military, the soldiers usually refer to each other by their last names.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Throughout the original series, the Red Team primarily consists of their hotheaded leader Super Colonel Sarge (Matt Hullum), his attentive second-in-command Captain Richard "Dick" Simmons (Gus Sorola), the lazy Captain Dexter Grif (Geoff Ramsey), the oblivious/effeminate Private Franklin Delano Donut (Dan Godwin), and their apathetic Spanish-speaking robot mechanic Lopez the Heavy (Burnie Burns). For the majority of the series, the Blue Team consisted of their condecending defacto leader Private Leonard L. Church (Burns), the self-described ladies man Captain Lavernius Tucker (Jason Saldaña), the dimwitted Captain Michael J. Caboose (Joel Heyman), and the no-nonsense Freelancer Agent Texas/"Tex" (Kathleen Zuelch). They are joined by Private Kaikaina "Sister" Grif (Becca Frasier), Grif's promiscuous sister, in "Season 5". However, Blue Team's roster (with the exception of Tucker and Caboose) became mixed with every passing season after the deaths of the original Church and Tex at the end of "Reconstruction", being joined by Epsilon (Burns), who would go onto take Church's identity and Tex II (Zuelch) during "Recreation" and "Revelation" respectively until their deaths in "Season 13" and "Season 9". The team was later joined by the emotionally scarred Freelancer Agent Washington/"Wash" (Shannon McCormick) at the end of "Revelation" after first meeting the Reds and Blues during "Reconstruction". Blue Team currently consists of Tucker, Caboose, Wash, and Sister, the latter of whom rejoined the team during "The Shisno Paradox". Also part of the Reds and Blues are the somewhat incompetent Medical Officer Frank "Doc" DuFresne (Hullum), who first appeared in "Season 2", and the impatient and competitive Freelancer Agent Carolina (Jen Brown), who first appeared in "Season 9", both of whom are unaffiliated with a specific team and instead just act as members of both groups.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Over the years, "Red vs. Blue" has attracted numerous notable guest stars, namely Ed Robertson, Elijah Wood, Christopher Sabat, Amber Benson, Dan Avidan, Arin Hanson, SungWon Cho, Ricco Fajardo, Anthony Padilla, and Ian Hecox.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: "Red vs. Blue" emerged from Burnie Burns's voiceover-enhanced gameplay videos that he created for a website called drunkgamers.com, which was run by Geoff Fink (later Geoff Ramsey) and Gustavo Sorola. Having played "Halo: Combat Evolved" extensively, the "drunkgamers" crew discussed one day whether the Warthog, an automobile in the game, looks like a puma. This discussion, re-created in , was "the spark for the whole series". Seeing potential for a full story, Burns created a which was released September 5, 2002 on the Drunkgamers website, but it was largely ignored, and, for unrelated reasons, "drunkgamers" soon closed. Four months later, "Computer Gaming World" contacted Ramsey for permission to include a different "drunkgamers" video in a CD to be distributed with the magazine. Ramsey granted permission, but he and Burns felt that they needed a website to take advantage of the exposure from "Computer Gaming World". They therefore resurrected "Red vs. Blue" and re-released the trailer to coincide with the "Computer Gaming World" issue. The was released on April 1, 2003.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Rooster Teeth was initially unaware of the broader machinima movement. In 2004, Co-producer Matt Hullum stated in an interview with "GameSpy", "When we first started "Red vs. Blue" we thought we were completely original. We never imagined that there were other people out there using video games to make movies, much less that it was a new art form with a hard to pronounce name and an official organization."


title: Red vs. Blue

text: The nature of "Red vs. Blue" was different from Burns's initial expectation. A partial character introduction released between the original trailer and the first episode featured extensive action and violence, set to Limp Bizkit's song "Break Stuff". However, as work continued, the focus shifted to situation comedy rather than the heavy action initially implied. Although the series parodies video games, Ramsey noted, "We try not to make it too much of an inside joke. And I think we use more bureaucracy and military humor than anything else, which everybody working in an office can identify with." Rooster Teeth has stated that "Red vs. Blue" was influenced by "Homestar Runner", "Penny Arcade", and possibly "Mystery Science Theater 3000".


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Rooster Teeth initially envisioned "Red vs. Blue" to be short, but the series grew beyond their expectations. Burns and Ramsey had preconceived a list of jokes for which they allocated six to eight episodes. By , however, they realized that the series had fleshed out more than expected; they had covered only about one third of their original list. Later in , Burns estimated a series of 22 episodes; however, driven by the series' popularity, he realized that there was more potential story than could be covered in that length, and was able to conceive an extension of the season 1 plot. The whole production team eventually quit their jobs and began to work full-time on the series; to generate revenue they created an online store to sell T-shirts.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: On June 16, 2006, Burns announced a five-part mini-series, "", which chronicles the adventures of the mercenary Tex after her disappearance in . The mini-series premiered exclusively on the Xbox Live Marketplace, but Rooster Teeth later made it available on their official site.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: The original series, "The Blood Gulch Chronicles", ended on June 28, 2007, with the release of episode 100. On April 4, 2008, Burns announced a new series, "Red vs. Blue: Reconstruction", the group's first "Halo 3" series and the beginning of the new "Recollection" story arc. Several voice actors returned in "Reconstruction", which ran from April 5 to October 30, 2008. Rooster Teeth announced plans for a sequel "Red vs. Blue" series, each separated by a few weeks' break. The mini-series "Red vs. Blue: Relocated" bridged the gap between "Red vs. Blue: Recreation" and the previous season. During a Late Nite Jenga Jam podcast, Burnie Burns officially confirmed that the working title of the eighth Red vs. Blue series was ""Red vs. Blue: Resolution"". The title was later finalized as ""Red vs. Blue: Revelation"". The first four episodes were previewed at PAX East in March. After five seasons, Rooster Teeth expanded the scope and animation of the show, hiring renowned animator Monty Oum for action scenes, starting with . On April 1, 2010 the premiere of "Revelation" attracted such a large audience that both roosterteeth.com and Blip.tv (who formerly hosted Rooster Teeth's videos) crashed.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: On March 28, 2011, Rooster Teeth presented the first trailer for "Season 9" of Red vs Blue which aired on June 14, 2011, during which time Miles Luna officially joined the company. Season 9 acted as a semi-prequel, fleshing out the event surrounding "Project Freelancer", one of the key elements of the plot in previous seasons, while continuing the events left off in "Revelation". "Season 10", which continued Season 9's pattern of showing both stories simultaneously, began on May 28, 2012 and ended on November 5, 2012. The season concluded the Freelancer backstory while setting up the events of Season 11. The first "RWBY" trailer was shown following the conclusion of the season's credits.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: On September 7, 2012, Burnie Burns appeared on "What's Trending" and confirmed that there would be a "Season 11", which premiered on June 14, 2013 and started the Chorus Trilogy. The trilogy picked up where Season 10 left off and returned to a format similar to that of The Blood Gulch Chronicles, having no pre-rendered CGI. The season ended on November 11, 2013. On February 3, 2014, Miles Luna announced "Season 12" on Rooster Teeth's website. The season premiered on April 28, 2014 and concluded on September 29, 2014. The final season of the Chorus Trilogy, "Season 13", was announced on March 4, 2015, with a release date of April 1, 2015. The season brought back a handful of characters from the series, including Sharkface, the Counselor, Junior, and Sister, and ended with a cliffhanger on September 7, 2015.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: On April 1, 2016, a trailer for "Season 14" was released, with its first episode airing on May 8, 2016. Breaking from the format of the previous seasons, Season 14 was instead an anthology season, featuring various backstories, such as the trilogy of episodes starring Locus and Felix, and/or non-canon "PSA-type" episodes, such as the third Sarge movie trailer. The season ended on October 16, 2016.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: On February 24, 2017, it was announced that Joe Nicolosi, writer and director of the Season 14 episode "The Brick Gulch Chronicles" would be writing and directing Season 15. Its trailer was released on March 30, 2017, and the season itself premiered on April 2, 2017.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Nicolosi returned for Season 16, "", where he also had the help of writer Jason Weight. The season premiered on April 15, 2018. While Nicolosi could not return for the seventeenth season due to other commitments within Rooster Teeth, he co-wrote the story with Weight, who was promoted to head writer, and Miles Luna, who penned one of the season's episodes. Machinima animators Josh Ornelas and Austin Clark took over as directors of "", which premiered on March 9, 2019.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: On January 15, 2020, Season 18 was confirmed to be in development with a brief 3 second clip being shown in a promo trailer for upcoming Rooster Teeth releases. The season, Red vs. Blue: Zero, was scheduled to premiere on October 19, 2020, but was delayed to November 9, 2020. Director Torrian Crawford referred to the season as a “restart” for the series, as it follows a mostly new cast, has cleaner humor, and is more action focused than previous iterations.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: The process by which the show is written has changed as the show progressed. In the first season, Burnie Burns would typically write an episode script on a Sunday afternoon before the episode was to be released on Friday. Scripts were written with minimal planning as the storyline grew beyond the 6 to 8 episodes originally expected. Church's death, as well as the revelation of Tex as a female character, both of which drove most of the season 1 plot, were conceived shortly before their respective episodes began production.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: In January 2005, Burnie Burns and Kathleen Zuelch were interviewed in an episode of "The Screen Savers" on G4. In response to a question regarding any drawbacks to using machinima techniques, Burns responded "There are drawbacks, like it's a very limited world". PC games often allow for the addition and integration of new game assets, such as new levels and textures; console games are much more limited in this respect. "But really what you end up doing is you end up writing around what's in that world, that limited world ... sometimes we sit around and we think 'what can we possibly do with stuff that's in the game?'". As an example, the skull from the Oddball multiplayer mode of "Halo" was used for the flashback scene in episode 10, in which Tex beats Private Jimmy to death with his own skull.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: After the first season, the writing process changed. Matt Hullum was added as a main writer in the next season, and plot events were planned much more in advance. Approximately 40 to 80 pages of rough plot and dialogue are now written out before production on a season begins. In describing the writing process, Burns has said that main plot points are assigned to occur at certain points in a season, and that they would begin writing each episode by asking how much they wanted to advance towards the next plot point.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Burns has said multiple times in DVD audio commentary and in public journal entries that he had minor issues writing towards large events in season 3, in terms of scheduling and pacing. The first problem was in compacting the plot from episode 39 to where the characters are sent into the future in episode 43, to mark the release of and the transfer of filming to "Halo 2". The second issue involved the pacing of events leading up to those planned for the special 50th episode. The events initially envisioned for the episode were then deemed too many for a single episode, and were instead spread over episodes 50 to 52. In turn, this led to new hardships when events had to be compacted once more to meet the tradition of ending a season on its 19th episode, episode 57.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Dialogue for an entire episode is typically recorded over one or two days and cut together for filming the day after. Until midway through season 3, audio for the voice actors living in Texas had been recorded in a makeshift soundproof booth in Burns' guest room closet. Currently, however, audio is recorded in a professional recording booth in the Rooster Teeth offices in Austin, Texas, with the recordings later being compressed to a slightly lower quality. During season 1, dialogue for the voice actors living in Los Angeles, California — Joel Heyman, Kathleen Zuelch, and Matt Hullum — was recorded over the phone. Afterwards, a second recording studio was set up in Hullum's Los Angeles home. As Hullum moved back to Texas in season 3, Heyman and Zuelch now record their own dialogue. Jason Saldaña and Gus Sorola also recorded audio by phone while temporarily residing in New York State and Puerto Rico respectively.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Initially, the first several episodes of the series did not include any music. In May 2003, Nico Audy-Rowland, the bandleader of Trocadero, was introduced to Red vs. Blue and enjoyed the series enough to submit a song about it to Burns, who liked the piece and promptly requested more music for Red vs. Blue. Episode 8, "Don't Ph34r The Reaper", was the first to include music. However, for the release of the season 1 DVD, music was retrofitted into earlier episodes, often during transitions.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Trocadero's "Blood Gulch Blues", whose last few measures are now heard during each episode's title sequence, is used as background music for the character introductions on the Red vs. Blue season DVDs. According to Trocadero's website, the song's lyrics are intended to highlight episode 2's joke about the Warthog and the notion that there is as much bickering and fighting within each team as there is conflict between the two sides. In fact, "Blood Gulch Blues" never mentions Red vs. Blue. The song is from the band's debut full-length album "Roses Are Red, Violets Are Blue" which was released in 2004. The band's style is alternative rock, taking influence from elements of blues, alternative rock, and western types of music. Trocadero continued to provide music for the show from their second and third albums, "Ghosts That Linger" and "Flying by Wire".


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Beginning with "", the main score for each season has been crafted by Jeff Williams, the former keyboardist of Trocadero, in addition to many of Trocadero's songs being reused. Williams's soundtracks have genres containing mixed elements of score music, hard rock, and sometimes electronic and rap. Williams often features others on vocals including Lamar Hall, Red Rapper, Barbara La Ronga, Nicole D'Andrea, his daughter Casey Lee Williams, Sandy Lee Casey, and some members of the cast, and collaborates with Steve Goldshein on some tracks. The soundtracks also feature several parody songs, and some songs included are heard in PSAs and Rooster Teeth shorts. With the release of , Williams moved away from providing music for Red vs. Blue to work on Rooster Teeth's new series, "RWBY". Trocadero returned as the sole-provider of "Red vs. Blue"'s score for the first time since season seven, also providing a new theme song "Contact" effectively replacing "Blood Gulch Blues". David Levy joined the music team alongside Trocadero in season 13 and has continued to write music for the show since.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: "Red vs. Blue" is mostly recorded using a number of networked Xbox consoles. As the games evolved and Rooster Teeth grew, consoles were changed to eight connected Xbox 360s and later sixteen Xbox Ones. Within a multiplayer game session, the people controlling the avatars "puppet" their characters, moving them around, firing weapons, and performing other actions as dictated by the script, and in synchronization with the prerecorded dialogue. The camera is simply another player, whose first-person perspective is recorded raw to a computer. The Apple Macintosh games "Marathon" and "" were also used in Season 3 for scenes that occur in the distant past; this has the effect of making the graphical quality of the series an indication of time's progression throughout the story. The first five seasons of "Red vs. Blue" were later reshot in high definition using the PC ports of "Halo: Combat Evolved" and "Halo 2", which have also been featured in later seasons whenever those games were required.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: In the interview on "The Screen Savers", Burns described the use of machinima techniques to record the show thus: "It's like normal animation but instead of, y'know, sitting down, drawing everything by hand, we just use controllers." During the earlier seasons, Ramsey developed a technique to handle the gamepad with his foot in case more than four characters were in the scene.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: In scenes using the original "Halo", a bug was exploited that made it so that by holding a pistol and looking down, the character would appear to be holding the pistol down but looking up, as if more relaxed. At the same time, changing the perspective the head would bob, giving the impression that the character was talking. The glitch also either made vertical movement limited or returned the character's appearance to normal, so characters would have to estimate movements, since they were always looking down.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Bungie eliminated the bug in "Halo 2", so that the on-screen characters appear to look up or down correctly. However, Bungie also implemented a new feature that made it possible for Rooster Teeth and others to achieve the same effect as the original bug. In "Halo 2", pressing down on the D-Pad of the Xbox controller makes the player character appear to hold his or her weapon in a neutral position, without aiming it at anyone, while looking straight ahead. This also allowed them to move the heads up and down to achieve a more dynamic appearance for some scenes.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: In footage made using "Halo", a weapon aiming reticle appears in the center of the screen. This reticle appears because, as with most machinima, the camera's view is from the perspective of a weapon-wielding player. The exception to this is footage recorded by killing the camera player's avatar. Footage made using "Halo: Custom Edition" allowed for a player to act as a free roaming camera, and thus contained no reticle. In "Halo 2", a bug in the Oddball multiplayer mode allows the player to drop all weapons, causing the weapon reticle to disappear. This bug has been used in all "Halo 2" footage from episode 46 onwards.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: To gain unique angles in the series, Rooster Teeth first used a tank in the game to emulate crane shots by standing the cameraman on the turret while it was raised. Later, they found it more practical to stand the cameraman on other characters in the game. This trick has also been used for other purposes, such as standing Donut on two characters to create the illusion that he could jump higher than is possible in the game.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: For scenes which include the flag (CTF), only two colors could be used (Sarge's and early Donut's red, and Caboose's blue) as CTF is a team game and only red and blue colors could be used. When the flag used among different colored characters, it is only shown with a standard red or blue character, mixed with scenes with other characters behaving as if it is present.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: During recording, there was an issue with the Blue Team's deceased leader, Church. Church appears as a ghost for some parts of the show, and he needed to appear transparent to the viewer. To achieve this, all scenes with ghost-Church had to be recorded twice, once with Church in them and once without him. After the switch to Halo 2, Church's ghost form was portrayed using the "Poor Camo" Armor enhancement.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Another difficulty when recording in "Halo 2" was the enormous shadow over Red Base in the map Coagulation. This shadow had a detrimental effect on the appearance of the characters. To avoid this, late in Season 4 a glitch was discovered that allowed a character to appear lit even in a dark area. Burnie Burns stated in the Season 4 audio commentary that the glitch was something they kept noticing a lot while recording the episodes, and when they discovered how to replicate it they utilized it extensively. During the first five seasons, the videos were mostly recorded on the "Halo" map Blood Gulch and its "Halo 2" counterpart, Coagulation, although later episodes have increasingly been recorded on other maps.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Episodes that have been made with the games starting with "Halo 3" have used the theater mode camera. The Forge Mode from "Halo 4" onward also helped by providing a green screen and the creation of entire areas for certain scenes.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Starting in season 8, action sequences have been made with dedicated animation that involve stunts not possible with the previous game engine. For this, they teamed up with animator Monty Oum, a fan of the series. Making the show more ambitious and reliant on computer animation led to extensive planning – fight choreography, storyboards, animatics – for episodes that take months to be completed, in contrast to machinima ones that are done in just a week.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Adobe Premiere Pro is used to edit the audio and video together, add the titles, and create some of the special effects not normally possible on the console or in the games used. Adobe After Effects is also used, typically by Hullum, to create animated props not found in the regular game engine. Examples of these extra props include tombstones in and ornaments, presents, and lights in the Christmas 2004 video.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: As the camera player's view has a heads-up display (HUD), black bars are added in post-production to hide the top and bottom portions containing irrelevant in-game information, creating a letterbox effect. Most machinima is made with computer games, which often have HUDs that can be easily disabled in one way or another. Console games such as "Halo" and "Halo 2" are often more limited in this respect. In 2010, Rooster Teeth Productions released a remastered edition of "The Blood Gulch Chronicles" that removed the black bars and aiming reticle existent in previous versions of the series, which was done by re-shooting the first four seasons in the PC versions of "Halo" and "Halo 2".


title: Red vs. Blue

text: A book based on the series, titled "Red vs. Blue: The Ultimate Fan Guide", was published November 17, 2015. Written by Eddy Rivas and Burnie Burns, it collects information about the series over its first twelve seasons and most of its thirteenth season.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Due to the popularity and success of "Red vs. Blue", Rooster Teeth has created dozens of "Red vs. Blue"-themed merchandise available for sale on the website's store. Rooster Teeth has released several posters featuring major characters accompanied by their most popular quotes, dubbed "-isms posters". Several t-shirts based on quotes from the show have also been created.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: "Red vs. Blue" attracted interest immediately; the first episode was featured on Slashdot, Penny Arcade, and Fark on the same day, and had 20,000 downloads within a day. The following episodes wound up downloaded hundreds of thousands of times, forcing a change on the distribution to peer-to-peer file sharing to cut the increasing server costs. Ramsey noted "Red vs. Blue" also "had a broader appeal than we anticipated", gathering a female following along with the expected demographic of young adult males. Shortly after episode 2, Bungie contacted Rooster Teeth. Although the crew had feared that any contact would be to force an end to the project, Bungie enjoyed the videos and was supportive; one staff member called the production "kind of brilliant". A deal was arranged to ensure that the series could continue to use Bungie's game properties without license fees. The relationship has continued with Bungie's successor in the "Halo" series, 343 Industries. "Red vs. Blue" continued to attract more attention, and by April 2004, Kevin J. Delaney of "The Wall Street Journal" estimated that weekly viewership was between 650,000 and 1,000,000. In a 2006 interview, Strange Company founder Hugh Hancock called the series probably "the most successful machinima productions " and estimated that it was generating almost US$200,000 annually. "Red vs. Blue" content was also included with a premium "Legendary" edition of "Halo 3".


title: Red vs. Blue

text: "Red vs. Blue" was widely acclaimed within the machinima industry. The first season won awards for Best Picture, Best Independent Machinima Film, and Best Writing at the Academy of Machinima Arts & Sciences' 2003 Machinima Film Festival. Two years later, at the 2005 festival, the won an award for Best Independent Machinima and was nominated for five others. At the 2006 Machinima Festival, the series was nominated for awards in voice acting and writing, but won neither.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Among film critics, the response was generally positive. Darren Waters of "BBC News Online" called "Red vs. Blue" "riotously funny" and "reminiscent of the anarchic energy of "South Park"". Reviewing the three season DVDs for "Cinema Strikes Back", Charlie Prince wrote, ""Red vs. Blue" is hysterical in large part because all the characters are morons, and so the seemingly intense conflict with the opposing base doesn't exactly work the way you'd think it would." Leggat described the series as "[p]art locker-room humor, part Beckett-like absurdist tragicomedy, part wicked vivisection of game culture and sci-fi action films and games". Ed Halter of "The Village Voice" dismissed the humor as shallow and described the first season as ""Clerks"-meets-"Star Wars"". Leggat defended the humor, arguing, "The literary analog is absurdist drama." It has also been critiqued by academic D. Bruno Starrs as an anti-war film.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Another common criticism of "Red vs. Blue" was that its season 3 plot was too far-fetched and out-of-character. Charlie Prince wrote, "By the third season, however, the "Red vs. Blue" idea seems to be running out of steam ... It's not funny so much as just odd." Writing for the "Honolulu Star-Bulletin", Wilma Jandoc agreed that the first part of "season 3 ... throws the teams into a ridiculous situation and has limited member interactions, leading to a lack of witty dialogue". In an "about.com" review of the season 4 DVD, writer Eric Qualls thought that season 3 was "a little too long, and too complicated, and the jokes were a bit too far apart". Nevertheless, both Prince and Jandoc were optimistic that the series would improve, and Qualls stated that the fourth season had "returned to the series' roots" as "some of the funniest stuff you'll ever see".


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Rooster Teeth Productions has created special "Red vs. Blue" videos for various events. For example, Microsoft has commissioned "Red vs. Blue" videos for Xbox demo kiosks found in game stores and for a developer conference. Barenaked Ladies has also commissioned videos for their concerts, as frontman Ed Robertson was a fan of the series, and would later voice a character, Captain Butch Flowers. Other videos have been specifically created for gaming magazines, including "Electronic Gaming Monthly" and "Computer Gaming World"; gaming conventions, including E3 and the Penny Arcade Expo; and the Sundance Film Festival.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: "Red vs. Blue" has also received praise from soldiers stationed in the Middle East. An August 2005 blog entry by Kimi Matsuzaki of 1UP.com displays photographs of soldiers holding various weapons, as well as copies of the first and second season "Red vs. Blue" DVDs. Geoff Ramsey later stated in an interview, "We get a lot of merchandise and DVDs out to Iraq and get a lot of great e-mails back."


title: Red vs. Blue

text: "Red vs. Blue" has been acknowledged by Xbox Live through Grifball, a game variant which is featured on the Halo 3 multiplayer; Grifball originated as a joke by Sarge in the 4th season that alluded to inflicting pain on Grif. The notability and impact of "Red vs. Blue" extends to video games outside the "Halo" series as well. The developers of the Xbox 360 video game "Gears of War", Epic Games, made a reference to a "Red vs. Blue" gag through an in-game achievement called, "Is it a spider?"; the award is earned for tagging opponents with grenades. Another reference to the series appears on Bungie's website. On a player's "Halo 3" profile screen the description of a kill or death with a flag is "Right next to the headlight fluid". In "Halo 3" itself, the second campaign scenario features a "Red vs. Blue" skit, wherein two cast members voice over a soldier attempting to bypass a locked door. Different skits are seen on each difficulty level. In "Halo: Reach", Dr. Halsey's office contains a data-file detailing the UNSC's "reaction" to the films. In the expansion pack for "", there is an achievement called "Chupathingy," when killing a Chupacabra.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: "Red vs. Blue" is widely credited with attracting public attention to machinima and web-series. The first instance of machinima dates back to the 1990s in the first-person shooter game "Quake". A group that called themselves "The Rangers" created a software mod of them typing in the chat box and putting lines of dialogue on the screen. This group named these "videos" "Diary of a Camper." Even though Rooster Teeth is not the first to produce machinima, Clive Thompson credited "Red vs. Blue" as "the first to break out of the underground". Tavares, Gil, and Roque called it machinima's "first big success", and Paul Marino noted that "the series proved so popular that it not only transcended the typical gamer, it also claimed fans outside the gaming world". In 2005, Thompson wrote that "Microsoft has been so strangely solicitous that when it was developing the sequel to Halo last year [2004], the designers actually inserted a special command—a joystick button that makes a soldier lower his weapon—designed solely to make it easier for Rooster Teeth to do dialogue".


title: Red vs. Blue

text: "Red vs. Blue" has motivated the fan base to create the machinima ""Sponsors vs. Freeloaders"". This series lived on the forums of roosterteeth.com. The series has inspired other machinima productions, including "The Codex." Other "Halo" machinimas that are not necessarily related to, or influenced by, "Red vs. Blue" are: "Arby 'n' the Chief", "The Forgotten Spartans", "Matchmaking", "Spriggs", "Rise of the Spartans", "Playtime", "C n' P", and "Sandguardians".


title: Red vs. Blue

text: In machinima, "Red vs. Blue" has been mentioned as the most successful example of the trend toward serial distribution. According to Hugh Hancock, this format allows for gradual improvement as a result of viewer feedback, and gives viewers a reason to return for future videos. Hancock argues that this model was necessary for "Red vs. Blue"s success: "Sunday night is Red vs. Blue night, just as (in the UK) Thursday used to be Buffy. Had RvB released their films as single downloads of an hour and a half, they'd have had nowhere near the success they currently enjoy." Karen Moltenbrey explains that, machinima films were quite lengthy and were typically not episodic. Rooster Teeth was able to combine these aspects by compiling the episodic adventures into a feature-length film and selling DVDs.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: "Red vs. Blue" episodes were originally available in QuickTime (QT) and Windows Media Video (WMV) formats, with the most recent season available at the time in full and episodes from the previous seasons available in a rolling archive, cycling on a weekly basis. This original setup was intended to help to control bandwidth costs; as of September 2005, the official Rooster Teeth website was serving 400 terabytes of data monthly. Video content has now moved to streaming, with initial releases occurring through the website directly, followed by YouTube later on. Red vs. Blue Season 16 was not released to YouTube until March 19, 2019, unlike previous seasons which released on YouTube a week after being made available to FIRST members on the site. Previously it was hosted by "Blip", though has switched over to being hosted directly on the website with Jwplayer acting as its video player, after Blip was shut down. All freely released episodes are currently available and the rolling archive has been retired. "Out of Mind" was initially a free download on the Xbox Live Marketplace, along with some "Red vs. Blue" episodes being available purchased. More recently, episodes became available to be streamed on "Halo Waypoint".


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Members of the official website can become FIRST members, originally referred to as sponsors, for a fee of US$5 every month or US$20 every six months. FIRST members formerly could access videos a day before members can view them and a week before a general public release, but now get to view them a full week before both free members and non-members can view them, as well as the ability to access special content released only to FIRST members. For example, before the premiere of , Rooster Teeth released exclusive audio logs featuring some of the main characters exclusively for FIRST members.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Episodes were originally released in different resolutions; higher resolutions were reserved for FIRST members. Beginning with the "Red vs. Blue: Out of Mind" mini-series, Rooster Teeth began to film and edit videos in 720p high-definition, and release episodes in widescreen format, instead of hiding the game HUD through the letterboxing seen in releases. On January 8, 2007, the release of episode 87, Matt Hullum announced that videos would be viewable using Adobe Flash. He stated that the change allowed Rooster Teeth to release public videos in a higher resolution "while keeping the file size low", and that the entire video archive would be updated. Code to embed the Flash video on other websites was also distributed. In a site journal entry, Burns clarified that downloadable versions would continue to be released, but after their Flash counterparts. Eventually, during Season 10, downloadable episodes ceased to be posted. This was likely to prevent re-uploading episodes onto YouTube ahead of public release.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Although it is distributed serially over the internet, "Red vs. Blue" is also one of the first commercially released products made using machinima, as opposed to a product merely containing machinima. DVDs (and later Blu-rays) of every completed seasons are sold through Rooster Teeth's official website, as well as at several retailers in the United States, such as Target and Wal-Mart. Rooster Teeth claimed in 2017 that "Red vs. Blue" has sold more than 1 million DVDs of individual seasons and box sets. Initially each season's episodes were edited together in the DVD releases to play continuously as full-length films, though later seasons were written as singular films with episodes being split up later during production. Because some episodes contain dialogue that continues into or past the episode credits, Rooster Teeth either removes that dialogue entirely or films extra footage to replace the original fade to black. On April 1, 2008, Rooster Teeth released a box set of all five seasons, including a DVD of new bonus content. In 2010, a remastered box set of the first five seasons was released, with the first four seasons being completely reshot, featuring a proper aspect ratio instead of the highly letterboxed look of the original episodes, and a much higher resolution. On November 6, 2012, to celebrate ten years, Rooster Teeth released a DVD and Blu-ray box set, titled "RVBX", comprising the first ten seasons and five discs worth of bonus content, two of which are almost entirely newly released material.


title: Red vs. Blue

text: Theatrical presentations of "Red vs. Blue" seasons at the Lincoln Center and at other film festivals are cut (sometimes extensively) for time. In a 2005 interview, Burns noted that the first season, normally 75 minutes in length, was cut to 55 minutes for these venues, with an entire episode omitted. Burns stated in a journal entry that the 134-minute season 3 DVD version had to be shortened to "a watchable-in-a-theater runtime of 100 minutes".


title: Red vs. Blue

text: The first 5 seasons were made available on Netflix in July 2014, with Seasons 6–12 debuting on the streaming service in April 2015. On March 4, 2015, Rooster Teeth debuted a new YouTube channel dedicated entirely to "Red vs. Blue", where the first twelve seasons were uploaded to between March 6–29 in anticipation for the release of the thirteenth season's premiere on April 1, 2015. The channel has over 886 thousand subscribers, and over 268 million video views, as of July 2019. The channel has since been renamed to "Rooster Teeth Animation" and features other original animated Rooster Teeth productions such as "RWBY" and "Camp Camp".


title: Red vs. Blue

text: El Rey Network syndicated the series in its entirety in November 2015, with the series premiering on December 5, 2015. Founder Robert Rodriguez called the series a "truly groundbreaking machinima series, with a strong focus on quality writing and pioneering motion capture techniques".


title: Red vs. Blue

text: In May 2022 it was announced that FilmRise had acquired streaming rights for "Nomad of Nowhere", "Camp Camp", and "Red vs. Blue", grouping episodes from each series into "traditional half-hour formats and seasons for streaming."


title: Simon Woods

text: Simon Woods (born 7 January 1980) is an English actor and playwright best known for his role as Octavian in Season 2 of the British-American television series "Rome" and the 2005 "Pride & Prejudice" as Charles Bingley.


title: Simon Woods

text: Woods attended Eton College, then read English at Magdalen College, Oxford. While at Oxford, he became friends with Chelsea Clinton. After graduating from Oxford, Woods worked briefly at "The Guardian" before becoming an actor.


title: Simon Woods

text: While at Oxford in 2000, he was in a relationship with Rosamund Pike that lasted two years. The two later played lovers Jane Bennet and Charles Bingley in "Pride & Prejudice".


title: Simon Woods

text: Since 2009, Woods has been in a relationship with Christopher Bailey, the former chief executive of the British fashion house, Burberry. They married in 2012. They have two daughters, Iris and Nell.


title: Simon Woods

text: Woods's stage play "Hansard" was presented at the Lyttelton Theatre, London, in September 2019. The work, named after the official record of proceedings in the British parliament, was directed by Simon Godwin.


title: Homeschooling

text: Homeschooling or home schooling, also known as home education or elective home education (EHE), is the education of school-aged children at home or a variety of places other than a school. Usually conducted by a parent, tutor, or an online teacher, many homeschool families use less formal, more personalized and individualized methods of learning that are not always found in schools. The actual practice of homeschooling can vary. The spectrum ranges from highly structured forms based on traditional school lessons to more open, free forms such as unschooling, which is a lesson- and curriculum-free implementation of homeschooling. Some families who initially attended a school go through a deschool phase to break away from school habits and prepare for homeschooling. While "homeschooling" is the term commonly used in North America, "home education" is primarily used in Europe and many Commonwealth countries. Homeschooling should not be confused with distance education, which generally refers to the arrangement where the student is educated by and conforms to the requirements of an online school, rather than being educated independently and unrestrictedly by their parents or by themselves.


title: Homeschooling

text: Before the introduction of compulsory school attendance laws, most childhood education was done by families and local communities. By the early 19th century, attending a school became the most common means of education in the developed world. In the mid to late 20th century, more people began questioning the efficiency and sustainability of school learning, which again led to an increase in the number of homeschoolers, especially in the Americas and some European countries. Today, homeschooling is a relatively widespread form of education and a legal alternative to public and private schools in many countries, which many people believe is due to the rise of the Internet, which enables people to obtain information very quickly. There are also nations in which homeschooling is regulated or illegal, as recorded in the article Homeschooling international status and statistics. During the COVID-19 pandemic, many students from all over the world had to study from home due to the danger posed by the virus. However, this was mostly implemented in the form of distance education rather than traditional homeschooling.


title: Homeschooling

text: There are many different reasons for homeschooling, ranging from personal interests to dissatisfaction with the public school system. Some parents see better educational opportunities for their child in homeschooling, for example because they know their child more accurately than a teacher and can concentrate fully on educating usually one to a few persons and therefore can respond more precisely to their individual strengths and weaknesses, or because they think that they can better prepare their children for the life outside of school. Some children can also learn better at home, for example, because they are not held back, disturbed or distracted from school matters, do not feel underchallenged or overwhelmed with certain topics, find that certain temperaments are encouraged in school, while others are inhibited, do not cope well with the often predetermined structure or are bullied there. Homeschooling is also an option for families living in remote rural areas, those temporarily abroad and those who travel frequently and therefore face the physical impossibility or difficulty of getting their children into school and families who want to spend more and better time with their children. Health reasons and special needs can also play a role in why children cannot attend a school regularly and are at least partially homeschooled.


title: Homeschooling

text: Critics of homeschooling argue that children may lack adequate socialization and therefore have poorer social skills. Some are also concerned that parents may be unqualified to guide and advise their children in life skills. Critics also say that a child might not encounter people of other cultures, worldviews, and socioeconomic groups if they are not enrolled in a school. Therefore, these critics believe that homeschooling cannot guarantee a comprehensive and neutral education if educational standards are not prescribed. Homeschooled children sometimes score higher on standardized tests and their parents reported via survey that their children have equally or better developed social skills and participate more in cultural and family activities on average than public school students. In addition, studies suggest that homeschoolers are generally more likely to have higher self-esteem, deeper friendships, and better relationships with adults, and are less susceptible to peer pressure.


title: Homeschooling

text: For most of history and in different cultures, homeschooling was a common practice by family members and local communities. Enlisting professional tutors was an option available only to the wealthy. Homeschooling declined in the 19th and 20th centuries with the enactment of compulsory school attendance laws. However, it continued to be practised in isolated communities. Homeschooling began a resurgence in the 1960s and 1970s with educational reformists dissatisfied with industrialized education.


title: Homeschooling

text: The earliest public schools in modern Western culture were established during the reformation with the encouragement of Martin Luther in the German states of Gotha and Thuringia in 1524 and 1527. From the 1500s to 1800s the literacy rate increased until a majority of adults were literate, but development of the literacy rate occurred before the implementation of compulsory attendance and universal education.


title: Homeschooling

text: Home education and apprenticeship continued to remain the main form of education until the 1830s. However, in the 18th century, the majority of people in Europe lacked formal education. Since the early 19th century, formal classroom schooling became the most common means of schooling throughout the developed countries.


title: Homeschooling

text: In 1647, New England provided compulsory elementary education. Regional differences in schooling existed in colonial America. In the south, farms and plantations were so widely dispersed that community schools such as those in the more compact settlements of the north were impossible. In the middle colonies, the educational situation varied when comparing New York with New England.


title: Homeschooling

text: Most Native American tribal cultures traditionally used homeschooling and apprenticeship to pass knowledge to children. Parents were supported by extended relatives and tribal leaders in the education of their children. The Native Americans vigorously resisted compulsory education in the United States.


title: Homeschooling

text: In the 1960s, Rousas John Rushdoony began to advocate homeschooling, which he saw as a way to combat the secular nature of the public school system in the United States. He vigorously attacked progressive school reformers such as Horace Mann and John Dewey, and argued for the dismantling of the state's influence in education in three works: "Intellectual Schizophrenia", "The Messianic Character of American Education", and "The Philosophy of the Christian Curriculum". Rushdoony was frequently called as an expert witness by the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) in court cases. He frequently advocated the use of private schools.


title: Homeschooling

text: During this time, American educational professionals Raymond and Dorothy Moore began to research the academic validity of the rapidly growing Early Childhood Education movement. This research included independent studies by other researchers and a review of over 8,000 studies bearing on early childhood education and the physical and mental development of children.


title: Homeschooling

text: They asserted that formal schooling before ages 8–12 not only lacked the anticipated effectiveness but also harmed children. The Moores published their view that formal schooling was damaging young children academically, socially, mentally, and even physiologically. The Moores presented evidence that childhood problems such as juvenile delinquency, nearsightedness, increased enrollment of students in special education classes and behavioral problems were the results of increasingly earlier enrollment of students. The Moores cited studies demonstrating that orphans who were given surrogate mothers were measurably more intelligent, with superior long-term effects – even though the mothers were "mentally retarded teenagers" – and that illiterate tribal mothers in Africa produced children who were socially and emotionally more advanced than typical western children, "by western standards of measurement".


title: Homeschooling

text: Their primary assertion was that the bonds and emotional development made at home with parents during these years produced critical long-term results that were cut short by enrollment in schools, and could neither be replaced nor corrected in an institutional setting afterwards. Recognizing a necessity for early out-of-home care for some children, particularly special needs and impoverished children and children from exceptionally inferior homes, they maintained that the vast majority of children were far better situated at home, even with mediocre parents, than with the most gifted and motivated teachers in a school setting. They described the difference as follows: "This is like saying, if you can help a child by taking him off the cold street and housing him in a warm tent, then warm tents should be provided for "all" children – when obviously most children already have even more secure housing."


title: Homeschooling

text: The Moores embraced homeschooling after the publication of their first work, "Better Late Than Early", in 1975, and became important homeschool advocates and consultants with the publication of books such as "Home Grown Kids" (1981), and "Homeschool Burnout".


title: Homeschooling

text: Simultaneously, other authors published books questioning the premises and efficacy of compulsory schooling, including "Deschooling Society" by Ivan Illich in 1970 and "No More Public School" by Harold Bennet in 1972.


title: Homeschooling

text: In 1976, educator John Holt published "Instead of Education: Ways to Help People Do Things Better". In its conclusion, he called for a "Children's Underground Railroad" to help children escape compulsory schooling. In response, Holt was contacted by families from around the U.S. to tell him that they were educating their children at home. In 1977, after corresponding with a number of these families, Holt began producing the magazine "Growing Without Schooling" ("GSW"), a newsletter dedicated to home education. Holt was nicknamed the "father of homeschooling." Holt later wrote a book about homeschooling, "Teach Your Own", in 1981.


title: Homeschooling

text: I want to make it clear that I don't see homeschooling as some kind of answer to badness of schools. I think that the home is the proper base for the exploration of the world which we call learning or education. The home would be the best base no matter how good the schools were.


title: Homeschooling

text: One common theme in the homeschool philosophies of both Holt and that of the Moores is that home education should not attempt to bring the school to construct into the home, or a view of education as an academic preliminary to life. They viewed home education as a natural, experiential aspect of life that occurs as the members of the family are involved with one another in daily living.