 the parent or the state the key issue in the entire discussion is simply this shall the parent or the state be the overseer of the child an essential feature of human life is that for many years the child is relatively helpless that is powers of providing for himself mature late until these powers are fully developed he cannot act completely for himself as a responsible individual he must be under tutelage this tutelage is a complex and difficult task from an infancy of complete dependence on subjection to adults the child must grow up gradually to the status of an independent adult the question is under whose guidance and virtual ownership the child should be his parents or the states there is no third or middle ground in this issue some party must control and no one suggests that some individual third party have authority to seize the child and rear it it is obvious that the natural state of affairs is for the parents to have charge of the child the parents are the literal producers of the child and the child is in the most intimate relationship to them that any people can be to one another the parents have ties of family affection to the child the parents are interested in the child as an individual and are the most likely to be interested and familiar with his requirements and personality finally if one believes at all in a free society where each one owns himself and his own products it is obvious that his own child one of his most precious products also comes under his charge the only logical alternative to parental ownership of the child is for the state to seize the infant from the parents and to rear it completely itself to any believer in freedom this must seem a monstrous step indeed in the first place the rights of the parents are completely violated their own loving product sees from them to be subjected to the will of strangers in the second place the rights of the child are violated for he grows up in subjection to the unloving hands of the state with little regard for his individual personality furthermore and this is a most important consideration for each person to be educated to develop his faculties to the fullest he needs freedom for this development we have seen above that freedom from violence is essential to the development of a man's reason and personality but the state the state's very being rests on violence compulsion as a matter of fact the very feature that distinguishes the state from other individuals and groups is that the state has the only legal power to use violence in contrast to all other individuals and organizations the state issues decrees which must be obeyed at the risk of suffering prison or the electric chair the child would have to grow up under the wings of an institution resting on violence and restriction what sort of peaceful development could take place under such auspices furthermore it is inevitable that the state will impose uniformity on the teaching of charges not only is uniformity more congenial to the bureaucratic temper and easier to enforce this would be almost inevitable where collectivism has supplanted individualism with collective state ownership of the children replacing individual ownership and rights it is clear that the collective principle would be enforced in teaching as well above all what would be taught is the doctrine of obedience to the state itself for tyranny is not really congenial to the spirit of man who requires freedom for his full development therefore techniques of inculcating reverence for despotism and other types of thought control are bound to emerge instead of spontaneity diversity and independent men there would emerge a race of passive sheep like followers of the state since they would be only in completely developed they would be only half alive it might be said that no one is contemplating such monstrous measures even communist russia did not go so far as to impose a communism of children even though it did almost everything else to eliminate freedom the point is however that this is the logical goal of the statists in education the issue which has been joined in the past and in the present is shall there be a free society with parental control or a despotism with state control we shall see the logical development of the idea of state encroachment and control america for example began for the most part with a system of either completely private or with philanthropic schools then in the 19th century the concept of public education changed subtly until everybody was urged to go to the public school and private schools were accused of being divisive finally the state imposed compulsory education on the people either forcing children to go to public schools or else setting up arbitrary standards for private schools parental instruction was frowned on thus the state has been warring with parents for control over their children not only has there been a trend towards increased state control but the effects of this have been worsened by the very system of equality before the law that applies in political life there has been the growth of a passion for equality in general the result has been a tendency to regard every child as equal to every other child as deserving equal treatment and to impose complete uniformity in the classroom formally this has tended to be set at the average level of the class but this being frustrating to the dullest who however must be kept at the same level as the others in the name of equality and democracy the teaching tends more and more to be set at the lowest levels we shall see that since the state began to control education its evident tendency has been more and more to act in such a manner as to promote repression and hindrance of education rather than the true development of the individual its tendency has been for compulsion for enforced equality at the lowest level for the watering down of the subject and even the abandonment of all formal teaching for the inculcation of obedience to the state and to the group rather than the development of self-independence for the depreciation of intellectual subjects and finally it is the drive of the state and its minions for power that explains the modern education creed of education of the whole child and making the school a slice of life where the individual plays adjusts to the group etc the effect of this as well as all the other measures is to repress any tendency for the development of reasoning powers and individual independence to try to usurp in various ways the educational function apart from formal instruction of the home and friends and to try to mold the whole child in the desired paths thus modern education has abandoned the school functions of formal instruction in favor of molding the total personality both to enforce equality of learning at the level of the least educable and to usurp the general educational role of home and other influences as much as possible since no one will accept outright state communisation of children even in communist Russia it is obvious that state control has to be achieved more silently and subtly for anyone who is interested in the dignity of human life in the progress and development of the individual in a free society the choice between parental and state control over the children is clear is there then to be no state interference whatever in the relations between parent and child suppose that the parents aggress upon and mutilate the child are we to permit this if not where are we to draw the line the line can be simply drawn the state can adhere strictly to the function of defending everyone from the aggressive violence of everyone else this will include children as well as adults since children are potential adults and future free men simple failure to educate or rather instruct is no grounds whatever for interference the difference between these cases was succinctly put by Herbert Spencer no cause for such state interposition can be shown until the children's rights have been violated and that their rights are not violated by neglect of their education actually instruction for what we call rights are merely arbitrary subdivisions of the general liberty to exercise the faculties and that only can be called an infringement of rights which actually diminishes this liberty cuts off for previously existing power to pursue the objects of desire now the parent who is careless of a child's education does not do this the liberty to exercise faculties is left intact omitting instruction in no way takes from a child's freedom to do whatsoever it wills in the best way it can and this freedom is all that equity demands every aggression be it remembered every infraction of rights is necessarily active while every neglect carelessness omission is as necessarily passive consequently however wrong the non-performance of a parental duty may be it does not amount to a breach of the law of equal freedom and cannot therefore be taken cognisance of by the state