Yet, our ancestors understood the value of education, and less formal arrangements were frequently used; home-based schooling, private tutors, and church-sponsored Sunday schools are just a few examples. The one-room schoolhouse on the prairie still provokes a remarkable, though perhaps not wholly justified, degree of nostalgia. People felt that once a child learned how to read and write, an unlimited world opened up.
The focus in those early years was thus often on increasing literacy – beyond that, children were expected to read books to satisfy their interest in other subjects such as science or philosophy. In this sense, the inquisitive nature of the people of that time drove the need to know beyond the measures of formal education in those early years.