ABSTRACT
In the same way that our definition of state-duty forbids the state to administer religion or charity, so likewise does it forbid the state to administer education. Fearing the unsettling effects of innovation, it allows nothing to be taught but what proceeds from itself. In that saying of the monks, We must put down printing, or printing will put down us, the universal motive was plainly expressed; as it was, again, through the mouth of that French bishop who denounced the Bell and Lancaster systems as inventions of the devil. So uniformly has it been the habit of these endowed institutions to close the door against innovations, that they are amongst the last places to which any one looks for improvements in the art of teaching, or a better choice of subjects to be taught. We have no evidence that education, as commonly understood, is a preventive of crime. Consider next how the power of self-restraint is to be increased.
