First Australian Homeschooling Book 27 August, 2007
The first known book published in Australia on the subject of homeschooling was: A Mother’s Offering to her Children by Mrs Charlotte Barton in 1841. It contained 13 chapters of true instructive and moral stories. It found widespread use among homeschooling mothers of the time. Homeschooling in Australia has a long history!
If you click on the title in the above paragraph, you can download a pdf ebook of this text for free! If you click on the word ‘book’ you can see a photo of the original.
To learn more about the author, Charlotte Barton (1797-1862), click on her name. She was an amazing woman - widowed, solo-mum of four, homeschooling, artistic, talented and beautiful! A true pioneer. She went to court to sustain custody of her family after her first husband’s death.
Charlotte’s youngest child Louisa Atkinson was a famous early Australian writer, illustrator and botanist. Some of her natural history drawings can be viewed here. She died in 1872, 18 days after the birth of her daughter. She was thirty-eight years old.
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