ABSTRACT
The underlying theme of the discussion so far has been the conflict in various areas of education between the demands or wishes of the individual and the claims of the state. It is now time to bring this fundamental problem to the surface and to attempt to uncover the basic ideological conflict which is its source. Ultimately, of course, compromise is required between the pressing claims of state and individual: complete individual freedom is anarchy and, as such, self-defeating, since no individual - even the strongest, as Hobbes pointed out - can enjoy freedom without the security provided by a framework of law; similarly, but less commonly recognised, even absolute state power involves the freedom of individuals at the top of the hierarchy or bureaucracy to impose their conception of what the state requires. But within these limits, which illustrate the inherently contradictory nature of the notions of either total individual freedom or total state control, the difference between those who would prefer to see the balance of decision-making power in the hands of the individual and those who would prefer to see it in the hands of the state is of crucial significance, nowhere more so than in the area of education. But since education is primarily concerned with the young and politically impotent, and since even without the additional factor of youth the individual wields little power against the organised might of the state, the contrast in the special case of education must be drawn in terms of the family rather than the individual. Subject to this qualification, however, it may be said that the ideological difference in question can be explained in terms of two traditions in political thought, which are represented by the continuing influence of the two thinkers who, in popular understanding, represent these contrasting viewpoints: John Stuart Mill and Karl Marx.
