A major assumption underlying our school chinuch structure is that homes provide some knowledge of religious customs mores and procedures.
Such information is imparted in an informal process without specific goals and methods and it varies from home to home from community to community and from (for lack of a better term) sect to sect: From yeshivish to litvish and from one chassidishe court to another.
This idea has surfaced in the Talmud (Sotah 21; see Tosafos) and even in the late 20th century chassidic writing as – perhaps paradoxically – a rational for both limiting girls chinuch and for expanding the scope of their education.
In the past the home and a child’s parents – or more commonly the father – had such a strong religious presence that children naturally absorbed a lot of information. In eras when the religious level of the home was weaker less was passed onto children and yeshivas began to augment their curriculum to fill the gaps.
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