As a part of the TOS Crew, I received The Eclectic Education Series from Dollar Homeschool to review. The Eclectic Education Series is a set of textbooks that were used in American schools in the late 1800's and early 1900's. The textbooks have now been put on CD's and Dollar Homeschool sells them for $159. The series includes the McGuffey Readers, Ray's Arithmetic, and books on science, history and grammar. There are also some teacher books.  One in particular is the Manual of Methods which helps teachers use all the text books.  If you are interested in seeing a complete list of the books, click here.

The amount of material in these books is overwhelming!  There is no way we could go through all of this material.  This is years and years of school work...from the elementary years through high school. So let me give you an overview of the what I would consider the positive and negative points of this curriculum.

POSITIVES

*It is for the most part a complete curriculum.

*For $159 you can have textbooks for many years to come for your child's schooling.

*There are helps (like the Manual of Methods) for the teacher.

*I like the style of writing...for example, reading through some of the first year science text, I found it to be enjoyable to read, easy to understand, and something that my boys are willing to listen to.

*Because the books come from the 1800's, I feel that they would give a solid education in the basics than some of the more modern textbooks.

NEGATIVES

*I found the quality of the pictures to be horrible in some of the books, especially the McGuffey Readers.

*You may become easily overwhelmed because there is so much material here, but like I said earlier this may be a positive for you.

*Being from the 1800's, these textbooks might not fit what you are comfortable with. Some of the methods may feel outdated.

*Some of these books are available free on the web, and I found that they were of better quality in regards to the pictures in the books.

*I found it hard to decipher what books would fit which grade levels best.  That is probably because the American school system has changed so drastically over the years.

If you would like to read what other TOS Crew members said about Dollar Homeschool and the Eclectic Education Series, click here.