The School Act of 1842, revised in 1882 and 1897, organized a decentralized national school system in Sweden, based on about 2,300 parishes. The role of this school act in the rise of schooling in Sweden is fundamental to the Swedish historiography of schooling. This paper examines the precondition, contents and consequences of the school act in order to examine whether it actually was a revolutionary event or merely a confirmation of already pending processes. This paper will thus be able to show how the school act was the result of a lengthy political debate, spanning decades, on popular education and whether it should the provide the population with an minimum of knowledge or form the basis of the knowledge necessary for Swedish citizenship. This tension was also apparent in the formulation of the school act which included formulations on a minimum of instruction. While the education promoted by the school act thus certainly was limited, and did not form a clear break from the previously dominating home instruction, the school act had major consequences in organizational terms, contributing to establishment of schools in the many regions of Sweden where schools previously had been uncommon.