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"For centuries
it was never discovered that education was a function of the
State, and the State never attempted to educate. But when modern
absolutism arose, it laid claim to everything on behalf of the
sovereign power...."
-- Lord Acton
"The more
subsidized it is, the less free it is. What is known as `free
education' is the least free of all, for it is a state-owned
institution; it is socialized education _ just like socialized
medicine or the socialized post office _ and cannot possibly be
separated from political control."
-- Frank Chodorov,
"Why Free Schools Are Not Free," 1948
"We are opposed
to state interference with parental rights and rights of
conscience in the education of children as an infringement of
the fundamental Democratic doctrine that the largest individual
liberty consistent with the rights of others insures the highest
type of American citizenship and the best government."
-- Democratic
National Platform (1892)
"Wherever is
found what is called a paternal government, there is found state
education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure
implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in nursery."
-- Benjamin Disraeli,
British Prime Minister
"If the only
motive was to help people who could not afford education,
advocates of government involvement would have simply proposed
tuition subsidies."
-- Milton Friedman -
Economist. Awarded 1976 Nobel Prize in economics.
"In all
countries, in all centuries, the primary reason for government
to set up schools is to undermine the politically weak by
convincing their children that the leaders are good and their
policies are wise. The core is religious intolerance. The sides
simply change between the Atheists, Catholics, Protestants,
Unitarians, etc., depending whether you are talking about the
Soviet Union, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, America, etc. A
common second reason is to prepare the boys to go to war and the
girls to cheer them on."
-- Marshall Fritz,
founder of the Separation of School & State Alliance.
Christian Education Symposium - Homeschool Christian.com on June
3, 1999.
"Government will
not fail to employ education, to strengthen its hands, and
perpetuate its institutions."
-- William Godwin, Enquiry
Concerning Political Justice (1793).
"Men had better
be without education than be educated by their rulers."
-- Thomas Hodgskin
"Historically,
much of the motivation for public schooling has been to stifle
variety and institute social control."
-- Jack Hugh
"it is better to
tolerate that rare instance of a parent's refusing to let his
child be educated, than to shock the common feelings by a
forcible transportation and education of the infant against the
will of his father."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"To compel a man
to furnish contributions of money for the propagation of
opinions which he disbelieves and abhors, is sinful and
tyrannical; even forcing him to support this or that teacher of
his own religious persuasion, is depriving him of the
comfortable liberty of giving his contributions to the
particular pastor whose morals he would make his pattern."
-- Thomas Jefferson
"The group
consisting of mother, father and child is the main educational
agency of mankind."
-- Rev. Martin Luther
King, Jr.
"The first goal
and primary function of the U.S. public school is not to educate
good people, but good citizens. It is the function which we call
- in enemy nations - ‘state indoctrination'."
-- Jonathan Kozol
(1990)
"The aim of
public education is not to spread enlightenment at all: it is
simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same
safe level, to breed a standard citizenry, to put down dissent
and originality."
-- H.L. Mencken
"State education
is a mere contrivance for molding people to be exactly alike one
another, ...in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it
establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural
tendency to one over the body."
-- John Stuart Mill
(1859)
"If it would be
wrong for the government to adopt an official religion, then,
for the same reasons, it would be wrong for the government to
adopt official education policies. The moral case for freedom of
religion stands or falls with that for freedom of education. A
society that champions freedom of religion but at the same time
countenances state regulation of education has a great deal of
explaining to do."
-- James R. Otteson,
professor of philosophy. - The Independent Review, Spring
2000, "Freedom of Religion and Public Schooling"
"Those in
society who are in charge of schools must never forget that the
parents have been appointed by God himself as the first and
principal educators of their children and that their right is
completely inalienable."
-- Pope John Paul II
"...the mass of
scholars who, ever mindful of tenure, promotion, grants, and
that last infirmity of ignoble minds, respectability, never
deviate from scholarly consensus."
--Joseph Sobran
"The school is a
political prize of the highest importance. It cannot be deprived
of its political character as long as it remains a public and
compulsory institution."
-- Ludwig von Mises,
Austrian free-market economist.
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