Thomistic arguments for homeschooling

[Geremia]

Divini Illius Magistri §73:

73. Nevertheless, Venerable Brethren and beloved children, We wish to call your attention in a special manner to the present-day lamentable decline in family education (domesticam institutionem). The offices and professions of a transitory and earthly life, which are certainly of far less importance, are prepared for by long and careful study; whereas for the fundamental duty and obligation of educating their children, many parents have little or no preparation, immersed as they are in temporal cares. The declining influence of domestic environment is further weakened by another tendency, prevalent almost everywhere today, which, under one pretext or another, for economic reasons, or for reasons of industry, trade or politics, causes children to be more and more frequently sent away from home even in their tenderest years. And there is a country where the children are actually being torn from the bosom of the family, to be formed (or, to speak more accurately, to be deformed and depraved) in godless schools and associations, to irreligion and hatred, according to the theories of advanced socialism; and thus is renewed in a real and more terrible manner the slaughter of the Innocents.

Even the 1983 Code of Canon Law, can. 798 is very pro-homeschooling:

Parents are to entrust their children to those schools which provide a Catholic education. If they are unable to do this [which is certainly true today!], they are obliged to take care that suitable Catholic education is provided for their children outside the schools [viz., homeschooling!].

Also, coed (especially during adolescence) is anti-Catholic; Divini Illius Magistri:

68. False also and harmful to Christian education is the so-called method of "coeducation." This too, by many of its supporters, is founded upon naturalism and the denial of original sin; but by all, upon a deplorable confusion of ideas that mistakes a leveling promiscuity and equality, for the legitimate association of the sexes. The Creator has ordained and disposed perfect union of the sexes only in matrimony, and, with varying degrees of contact, in the family and in society. Besides there is not in nature itself, which fashions the two quite different in organism, in temperament, in abilities, anything to suggest that there can be or ought to be promiscuity, and much less equality, in the training of the two sexes. These, in keeping with the wonderful designs of the Creator, are destined to complement each other in the family and in society, precisely because of their differences, which therefore ought to be maintained and encouraged during their years of formation, with the necessary distinction and corresponding separation, according to age and circumstances. These principles, with due regard to time and place, must, in accordance with Christian prudence, be applied to all schools, particularly in the most delicate and decisive period of formation, that, namely, of adolescence; and in gymnastic exercises and deportment, special care must be had of Christian modesty in young women and girls, which is so gravely impaired by any kind of exhibition in public.

What St. Thomas says in De Regno lib. 2 cap. 3 about the perils of commerce applies also to the "promiscuity" of a school classroom environment:

intercourse with foreigners, according to Aristotle's Politics [V, 3: 1303^a27; VII, 6: 1327^a13-15], is particularly harmful to civic customs. For it is inevitable that strangers, brought up under other laws and customs, will in many cases act as the citizens are not wont to act and thus, since the citizens are drawn by their example to act likewise, their own civic life is upset.

Classrooms are thus a training ground for "free trade" commercialists.
Émile Keller advocated that the sexes be separated as far as possible in workplaces, so a fortiori why not also in schools?
Catholic Home Schooling: A Handbook for Parents by Seton Homeschool director Dr. Mary Kay Clark gives some excellent arguments for homeschooling:
Thomas Nelson's preface lists 8 advantages of homeschooling (pp. xvii-xx):

• "You do not waste the students' time."
• "You do not re-teach what the student already knows."
• "You can give your own children more individualized attention."
• "You can gear the work to a pace your children can handle and that will keep them interested."
• "You can (and should) eliminate the option to fail!"
• "You can build in automatic consequences for failure to perform."
• "You can emphasize reading."
• "Home schooling eliminates the silliness and nonsense picked up from peers."

Dr. Clark's ch. 1 (pp. 1-22) argues homeschooling's advantages:

• no sex-ed (indoctrination into homosexuality; cf. Fr. John F. O'Connor, O.P., "The State of [']Catholic['] Education"; he told parents not to send their children to "Catholic" schools)
• character formation
• academics
• public (& "Catholic") schools "the training camps of the enemies of Jesus Christ and His Church." (p. 9)
• raising "cradle Catholics"
• benefits for the
  
  • student: socialization
  • mother
  • father
  • family
  • community
  • Church
  • nation

[Geremia]

This interview is spot-on:

Ministers of state came from other nations of Europe to visit his [St. John Bosco's] schools to ask how he did what he did, and he would simply tell them you cannot do what we do here because your governments will not let you. He said we base our educational system on the pillars of reason, religion, and kindness, and you are not allowed to do that. You are forced to use the repressive system, you cannot teach the children about God, and you are condemned to breed a kind of tribe of, well, monsters.

Little children who are are respectful and obedient are a delight. Everybody loves a little humble child. This is the great attraction of the little baby of Bethlehem, but when a child grows up to be something that is completely unbridled, 'fresh', and disrespectful to adults and does anything he wants and then wears his hair in weird ways and does a lot of strange and ugly things, of course who wants to live with that? Who wants to have that around the house? An obnoxious child is like a curse upon the family.