I felt I had something to live for , someone I must not disappoint . '' Mental Floss : Jefferson vs. Adams and the birth of negative campaigning Ansel Adams was homeschooled at the age of 12 after his `` wild laughter and undisguised contempt for the inept ramblings of his teachers '' disrupted the classroom . His father took on his education from that point forward . Robert Frost hated school so much he would get physically ill at the thought of going . He was homeschooled until his high school years . Woodrow Wilson studied under his dad , one of the founders of the Southern Presbyterian Church in the United States -LRB- PCUS -RRB- . He did n't learn to read until he was about 12 . He took a few classes at a school in Augusta , Georgia , to supplement his father 's teachings , and ended up spending a year at Davidson College before transferring to Princeton . Mental Floss : 8 tuition-free colleges Mozart was educated by his dad as the Mozart family toured Europe from 1763-1766 . Laura Ingalls Wilder was homeschooled until her parents finally settled in De Smet in what
-LRB- Mental Floss -RRB- -- Agatha Christie was a painfully shy girl , so her mom homeschooled her even though her two older siblings attended private school . President Woodrow Wilson did n't learn to read until age 12 . Pearl S. Buck was born in West Virginia , but her family moved to China when she was just three months old . She was homeschooled by a Confucian scholar and learned English as a second language from her mom . Alexander Graham Bell was homeschooled by his mother until he was about 10 . It was at this point that she started to go deaf and did n't feel she could properly educate him any more . Her deafness inspired Bell to study acoustics and sound later in life . If Thomas Edison were around today , he would probably be diagnosed with ADD -- he left public school after only three months because his mind would n't stop wandering . His mom homeschooled him after that , and he credited her with the success of his education : `` My mother was the making of me . She was so true , so sure of me ; and