Dollar Homeschool desires to provide the opportunity for an old fashioned one-room schoolhouse to the homeschoolers of today. They believe that the education provided in this country prior to World War II was superior in emphasizing "patriotism, traditional values, and the Bible". To that end, they have collected the textbooks of old (most now in the public domain) in one place on CD.
They describe themselves thus;
"The Eclectic Education Series (EES) is a set of textbooks which from roughly 1865 to 1915 WAS education in the United States, almost exclusively. They were the standard textbooks in many states and were chosen independently by over 10,000 school boards as their standard textbooks."
As a member of the TOS Crew, I received this set via download and can attest to the fact that you do receive a large amount of books. These include math, science, history, grammar, and readers, with book titles such as Ray's Arithmetic, Thalheimer's Histories, Schulyer's Principles of Logic, McGuffey's Readers, Pinneo's Grammar, and much more. A full list of included books is available HERE and is quite impressive in scope. In theory, one could homeschool using only this CD set (and perhaps a library card).
I know there are homeschoolers who will really appreciate and enjoy this, just as there are people who enjoy hearkening back to the life of the pioneer and getting back to "our country's roots". The truth is, I'm not one of them. I am sure there is some great content in these books from years past, but I am such a visual person that I could not get past having to read old fashioned font on the computer screen (printing the books would not have solved this problem for me either). The company is proud of the fact that they have changed nothing from the originals, and for some that will be a huge bonus. For me, I would prefer taking the information, the critical thinking skills, the depth of the material, and updating the way it is presented to make it more appealing. Call me shallow if you like, but I have embraced the twenty-first century and technology and would enjoy the same patriotic, value driven, Biblically based material in a more modern format.
I can't see using this as a stand alone curriculum. Scientific breakthroughs since the 1800's are obviously not included, history past the 1800's had not happened yet. But I do believe it could be a great resource for those who enjoy this type of thing. So if it sounds intriguing to you, check out their website and see what they have to offer.
The Eclectic Education Series is available on CD for $159.
*Disclosure: I received this product via download at no cost, for review purposes. To read more reviews of this product, click HERE.*
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