 compulsory education in Europe The record of the development of compulsory education is a record of state usurpation of parental control over children on behalf of its own, an imposition of uniformity and equality to oppress individual growth, and the development of techniques to hinder the growth of reasoning power and independent thought among the children. Origins We need not linger long over the status of education in ancient Greece or Rome. In Athens, the original practice of compulsory state education later gave way to a voluntary system. In Sparta, on the other hand, an ancient model for modern totalitarianism, the state was organised as one vast military camp, and the children were seized by the state and educated in barracks to the ideal of state obedience. Sparta realised the full logical conclusion of the compulsory system, absolute state control over the whole child, uniformity, and education in passive obedience to state orders. The most important consequence of this system was that it provided the ideal for Plato, who made this educational system the basis of his ideal state, as set forth in the republic and the laws. Plato's utopia was the first model for later despotisms. Compulsory education and obedience were stressed. There was communism of children among the elite guardians, who also had no private property. And lying was considered a proper instrument for the state to use in its indoctrination of the people. In the Middle Ages, the problem of compulsory state education did not present itself in Europe. Instruction was carried on in church schools and universities, in private schools, and in private schools for occupational training. The first modern movement for compulsory state education stemmed directly from the Reformation. A prime force was Martin Luther. Luther repeatedly called for communities to establish public schools and to make attendance in them compulsory. In his famous letter to the German rulers in 1524, Luther used statist premises to reach statist conclusions. Quote, Dear rulers, I maintain that the civil authorities are under obligation to compel the people to send their children to school. If the government can compel such citizens as are fit for military service to bear spear and rifle, to mount ramparts, and perform other martial duties in time of war, how much more has it a right to compel the people to send their children to school? Because in this case, we are warring with the devil, whose object it is secretly to exhaust our cities and principalities of their strong men. In this spiritual warfare, Luther of course was not speaking idly of the devil and the war against him. To him, the war was a very real one. As a result of Luther's urgings, the German state of Gotha founded the first modern public schools in 1524, and Therungier followed in 1527. Luther himself founded the Saxony School Plan, which later became, in essence, the state education system for most of the Protestant states of Germany. This plan was put into effect first in Saxony in 1528, through an edict drawn up by Luther's important disciple, Melanchthon, setting up state schools in every town and village. The first compulsory state system in the modern world was established in 1559 by Duke Christopher, Elector of Württemberg. Attendance was compulsory, attendance records were kept, and fines were levied on truants. Other German states soon followed this example. What was the spirit behind Luther's call for compulsory state education? A common view is that it reflected the reformer's democratic spirit, and the desire to have everyone read the Bible, the presumption being that they wish to encourage each one to interpret the Bible for himself. The truth is quite otherwise. The reformers advocated compulsory education for all as a means of inculcating the entire population with their particular religious views, as an indispensable aid in effective war with the devil and the devil's agents. For Luther these agents constituted a numerous legion, not only Jews, Catholics and infidels, but also all other Protestant sects. Luther's political ideal was an absolute state guided by Lutheran principles and ministers. The fundamental principle was that the Bible, as interpreted by Luther, was the sole guide in all things. He argued that the Mosaic Code awarded to false prophets the death penalty, and that it is the duty of the state to carry out the will of God. The state's duty is to force those whom the Lutheran Church excommunicates to be converted back into the fold. There is no salvation outside the Lutheran Church, and it is not only the duty of the state to compel all to be Lutherans, but its sole object. As the great historian Lord Acton stated of Luther, the defense of religion became not only the duty of the civil power, but the object of its institution. Its business was solely the coercion of those who were out of the Lutheran Church. Luther stressed the theory of passive obedience, according to which no motives or provocation can justify a revolt against the state. In 1530 he declared, it was the duty of a Christian to suffer wrong, and no breach of oath or of duty could deprive the emperor of his right to the unconditional obedience of his subjects. In this way, he hoped to induce the princes to adopt and compel Lutheranism in their domains. Luther was expressly adamant that the state power be used with utmost severity against people who refused to be converted to Lutheranism. He required that all crimes should be punished with the utmost cruelty. The chief object of this severity was to be, of course, against the chief crime, refusal to adopt Lutheranism. The state must exterminate error and could not tolerate heresy or heretics, for no secular prince can permit his subjects to be divided by the preaching of opposite doctrines. In sum, heretics are not to be disputed with, but to be condemned, unheard, and whilst they perish by fire. Such was the goal of the initial force behind the first compulsory state school system in the western world, and such was the spirit that was to animate the system. No less ardent a despot was Melanchthon, Luther's principal aide in the drive for compulsory state schools in Germany. Melanchthon taught firmly that all sects must be put down with the sword, and that any individual who originated new religious opinions should be punished with death. This punishment must be levied against any difference, however slight, in Protestant teachings. All others than Lutherans, Catholics, Anabaptists, Servetians, Zvinglians, etc, were to be persecuted with the utmost zeal. The Lutheran influence on the political and educational life of the West, and particularly Germany, has been enormous. He was the first advocate of compulsory schooling, and his plans were the pattern for the first German schools. Furthermore, he inculcated Lutherans with the ideals of obedience to the state and persecution of all dissenters. As Acton states, he impressed on his party that character of political dependence, and that habit of passive obedience to the state, which it has ever since retained. A succinct estimate of Luther's influence on politics and compulsory education by an admirer follows. The permanent and positive value of Luther's pronouncement of 1524 lies not so much in its direct effects, as in the hallowed associations which it established for Protestant Germany between the national religion and the educational duties of the individual and the state. Thus, doubtless was created that healthy public opinion which rendered the principle of compulsory school attendance easy of acceptance in Prussia, at a much later date than in England. Aside from Luther, the other leading influence toward the establishment of compulsory education in the modern world was the other great reformer, John Calvin. Calvin went to Geneva in 1536, while the town was successfully revolting against the Duke of Savoy and the Catholic Church, and was appointed chief pastor and ruler of the city, which position he held until 1564. In Geneva, Calvin established a number of public schools, at which attendance was compulsory. What was the spirit that animated Calvin's establishment of the state school system? The spirit was the inculcation of the message of Calvinism, and obedience to the theocratic despotism which he had established. Calvin combined within himself political dictator and religious teacher. To Calvin nothing mattered, no liberty or right was important, except his doctrine and its supremacy. Calvin's doctrine held that the support of Calvinism is the end and object of the state, and that this involves maintaining purity of doctrine and strict austerity in the behaviour of the people. Only a small minority on earth are the elect, chief of whom is Calvin, and the rest are a mass of sinners who must be coerced by the sword, with the conquerors imposing Calvinist faith on the subjects. He did not favour killing all heretics. Catholics and Jews would be allowed to live, but all Protestants other than Calvinists must be killed. In some cases however, he changed his position and advocated the severest punishment for Catholics as well. Calvin too was adamant in asserting the duty of obedience to rulers regardless of their form of government. Government has divine sanction, and as long as it was Calvinist it could pursue any course without deserving protest. Not only must all heretics be killed, but the same punishment should be meted out to those who deny the justice of such punishment. Calvin's leading disciples, such as Bezza, were at least as ardent in promoting the extermination of heretics. Calvin's influence on the western world was wider than Luther's, because with diligent propaganda efforts he made Geneva the European centre for the widespread diffusion of his principles. Men from all over Europe came to study at Calvin's schools and read his tracts, and the result was Calvinist influence throughout Europe. As the Calvinists became important throughout Europe, they agitated for the establishment of compulsory state schools. In 1560 the French Calvinists, the Huguenots, sent a memorandum to the king, requesting the establishment of universal compulsory education, but were turned down. In 1571 however, Queen Jean d'Albret of the Estates of Navarre, under Calvinist influence, made primary education compulsory throughout that part of France. Calvinist Holland established compulsory public schools in 1609. John Knox, who conquered Scotland for his Presbyterian church, was a Calvinist, although he had arrived at many of the principles independently. He established the church along Calvinist lines and proclaimed the death penalty for Catholics. Knox attempted to establish universal compulsory education in Scotland in the 1560s, but failed in the attempt. He advocated it in his Book of Discipline, which called for public schools in every Scottish town. One of the most far-reaching effects of the Calvinist tradition is its influence on American educational history. Calvinist influence was strong among the English Puritans, and it was the Puritan influence that inaugurated public schools and compulsory education in New England, from whence it finally conquered the whole United States. The history of American compulsory education will be treated in the next section. Prussia It is hardly coincidence that the most notoriously despotic state in Europe, Prussia, was the first to have a national system of compulsory education, nor that the original inspiration, as we have seen, was Luther and his doctrine of obedience to state absolutism. As Mr. Twentiment put it, state interference in education was almost coincident with the rise of the Prussian state. German education, as well as most of its other institutions and civilisation, was completely disrupted by the Thirty Years' War in the first half of the 17th century. At the close of the conflict, however, the various state governments moved to make attendance of children at school compulsory upon penalty of fine and imprisonment of the children. The first step was taken by Gotha in 1643, followed by such states as Heldersheim in 1663, Prussia in 1669 and Kallenberg in 1681. The state of Prussia began to rise in power and dominance at the beginning of the 18th century, led by its first king, Frederick William I. Frederick William believed fervently in paternal despotism and in the virtues of monarchial absolutism. One of his first measures was to affect a huge increase in the Prussian army, founded on an iron discipline which became famous throughout Europe. In civil administration, King Frederick William forged the centralising engine of the civil service, which grew into the famous autocratic Prussian bureaucracy. In the commercial world, the king imposed restrictions, regulations and subsidies on trade and business. It was King Frederick William I who inaugurated the Prussian compulsory school system, the first national system in Europe. In 1717, he ordered compulsory attendance of all children at the state schools, and in later acts, he followed with the provision for the construction of more such schools. It is perhaps appropriate that the king's personal attitudes were quite in keeping with his ardent promotion of despotism and militarism. As Caliphon Hayes states, he treated his kingdom as a schoolroom and like a zealous schoolmaster, flogged his naughty subjects unmercifully. These beginnings were carried forward by his son, Frederick the Great, who vigorously reasserted the principle of compulsory attendance in the state schools, and established the flourishing national system, particularly in his land shall regiment of 1763. What were the goals that animated Frederick the Great? Again, a fervent belief in absolute despotism, although this was supposed to be enlightened. The prince, he declared, is to the nation he governs what the head is to the man. It is his duty to see, think and act for the whole community. He was particularly fond of the army, spent public funds freely upon it, and inculcated a specially constant drill and the strictest discipline. Modern Prussian despotism emerged as a direct result of the disastrous defeat inflicted by Napoleon. In 1807 the Prussian nation began to reorganize and gird itself for future victories. Under King Frederick William the Third, the absolute state was greatly strengthened. His famous minister, Von Stein, began by abolishing the semi-religious private schools and placing all education directly under the minister of the interior. In 1810 the ministry decreed the necessity of state examination and certification of all teachers. In 1812 the school graduation examination was revived as a necessary requirement for the child's departure from the state school, and an elaborate system of bureaucrats to supervise the schools was established in the country and the towns. It is also interesting that it was this reorganized system that first began to promote the new teaching philosophy of Pestilossi, who was one of the early proponents of progressive education. Hand in hand with the compulsory school system went a revival and great extension of the army, and in particular the institution of universal compulsory military service. Frederick William the Third continued the reorganization after the wars, and strengthened the compulsory state school system in 1834 by making it necessary for young entrants into the learned professions, as well as all candidates for the civil service and for university students, to pass the high school graduation examinations. In this way the Prussian state had effective control over all the rising generations of scholars and other professionals. We will see in detail below that this despotic Prussian system formed an inspiring model for the leading professional educationists in the United States, who ruled the public school systems here and were largely responsible for its extension. For example Calvin E. Stowe, one of the prominent American educators of the day, wrote a report on the Prussian system and praised it as worthy of imitation here. Stowe lauded Prussia, although under the absolute monarchy of Frederick William the Third, it was the best educated country in the world. Not only were there public schools in the elementary and higher grades for pre-university and pre-business students, but also 1,700 teachers' seminaries for the training of future state teachers. Furthermore there were stringent laws obliging parents to send their children to the schools. Children had to attend the schools between the ages of 7 and 14 and no excuses were permitted except physical inability or absolute idiocy. Parents of truants were warned and finally punished by fines or by civil disabilities and as a last resort the child was taken from its parents and educated and reared by the local authorities. Religious instruction was given in the schools in accordance with the religion of the locality but the children were not obliged to attend these. However it was compulsory for them to receive religious instruction in the home or from the church in that case. Furthermore the Minister of Education had to be a Protestant. Private schools began to be permitted but they were obliged to have the same standards of instruction as the state schools and through these and the graduation examination requirements the state was able to impose its control on all of the schools in the country. Stowe felt that the Prussian methods of securing universality and uniformity of attendance were admirable. Another principle that he admired was that the Prussian state thereby imposed uniformity of language. Stowe asserted that the parents had no right to deprive their children of the unifying influence of the national language thus depriving them of the power of doing all the service to the state which they are capable of rendering. The system of compulsory state education has been used as a terrible weapon in the hands of governments to impose certain languages and to destroy the languages of various national and linguistic groups within their borders. This was a particular problem in Central and Eastern Europe. The ruling state imposes its official language and culture on subject peoples with languages and cultures of their own, and the result has been incalculable bitterness. If the education were voluntary such a problem would not have arisen. The importance of this aspect of compulsory education has been emphasised by economist Ludwig von Mises. The main tool of compulsory denationalisation and assimilation is education. In the linguistically mixed territories it turned into a dreadful weapon in the hands of governments determined to change the linguistic allegiance of their subjects. The philanthropists and pedagogues who advocated public education did not foresee what waves of hatred and resentment would rise out of this institution. The Prussian educational system was extended to the rest of Germany upon the formation of Germany as a national state. Furthermore, a decree in 1872 strengthened the absolute control of the state over the schools against any possible incursions by the Catholic Church. The spirit that animated the German compulsory state was well expressed in a laudatory work. Quote, The prime fundamental of German education is that it is based on a national principle. Culture is the great capital of the German nation, a fundamental feature of German education. Education to the state, education for the state, education by the state. The Volksschule is a direct result of a national principle aimed at national unity. The state is the supreme end in view. End quote. Another indication of the course that was set in the earliest and most eminent of the compulsory school systems, Prussia and Germany, is revealed in a book of essays by leading German professors, setting forth the official German position in the First World War. In this work, Ernst Trollsch characterised Germany as being essentially a militaristic nation, greatly devoted to the army and to the monarchy. As for education, quote, The school organisation parallels that of the army. The public school corresponds to the popular army. The latter as well as the former was called into being during the first great rise of the coming German state in opposition to Napoleon. When Ficht considered the ways and means of resurrecting the German state, while the country was groaning under the Napoleonic yoke, he advised the infusion of German culture into the mass of the people, through the creation of national primary schools along the lines laid down by Pestilosi. The programme was actually adopted by the different German states and developed during the last century into a comprehensive school system. This has become the real formative factor of the German spirit. There is in this school system a democratic and state socialist element such as Ficht intended. End quote. France Universal compulsory education, like compulsory military service, was ushered into France by the French Revolution. The revolutionary constitution of 1791 decreed compulsory primary instruction for all. The government could not do much to put these principles into effect at first, but it tried its best. In 1793 the convention prescribed that the French language be the sole language of the Republic, one and indivisible. Little was done until the advent of Napoleon who established a comprehensive state education. All schools, whether public or nominally private, were subject to the strict control of the national government. Dominating the entire system was the University of France, which was established to ensure uniformity and control throughout the entire French educational system. Its chief officials were appointed by Napoleon and no one could open a new school or teach in public unless he was licensed by the official university. Thus in this law of 1806 Napoleon acted to secure a monopoly of teaching to the state. The teaching staff of the public schools was to be routed through a normal school operated by the state. All these schools were directed to take as the basis of their teaching the principles of loyalty to the head of the state and obedience to the statutes of the university. Due to lack of funds the system of public schools could not then be imposed on all. By the end of the Napoleonic era slightly less than half of French children attended public schools, the rest largely in Catholic schools. The private schools however were now under the regulation of the state and were obliged to teach patriotism on behalf of the rulers. With the restoration the Napoleonic system was largely dismantled and education in France became predominantly a Catholic church affair. After the revolution of 1830 however minister Gizot began to renew state power in his act of 1833. Attendance was not made compulsory and the private schools were left intact except for the significant requirement that all educational institutions must teach internal and social peace. Complete liberty for private schools was restored however by the Fallot law passed in 1850 by Louis Napoleon. With the exception then of the revolutionary and Napoleonic periods French education remained free until the latter part of the 19th century. Just as Prussian compulsion and absolutism had received a great impetus from the defeat at the hands of Napoleon so did French compulsion and dictation receive its inspiration from the victory of Prussia in 1871. The Prussian victories were considered the victories of the Prussian army and the Prussian schoolmaster and France, driven by the desire for revenge set about to Prussianize its own institutions. In acts of 1882 and 1889 it inaugurated universal military conscription on the Prussian model. Leader in the new policy was minister Jules Ferry. Ferry was the main champion of a new policy of aggressive imperialism and colonial conquest. Aggressions were carried on in North Africa in lower Africa and in Indochina. Demands for compulsory education arose from the goal of military revenge. As a leading politician Gambetta put it, the Prussian schoolmaster had won the last war and the French schoolmaster must win the next. To this end a clamour arose for extension of the school system to every French child for training in citizenship. Also there were demands for compulsory education so that every French child would be inoculated in republicanism and immune to the lures of monarchial restoration. As a result Faye in a series of laws in 1881 and 1882 made French education compulsory. Private schools were nominally left free but actually were greatly restricted by the compulsory dissolution of the Jesuit order and its expulsion from France. Many of the private schools in France had been run by Jesuits. Moreover the laws abolished many monastic orders which had not been formally authorised by the state and forbade their members to conduct schools. Attendance at some school was compulsory for all children between six and thirteen years of age. The effect of the new regime was to dominate the private schools completely since those that were not affected by the anti-catholic laws had to subsist under the decree that private schools cannot be established without a licence from the minister and can be shut up by a simple ministerial order. Private secondary schools were severely crippled by the Wallach Rousseau and Combes Acts of 1901 and 1904 which suppressed all private religious secondary schools in France. Other Countries. The story of compulsory education in the other countries of Europe is quite similar with the added element of compulsory languages in most of them. The Austro-Hungarian Empire strove for a uniform, centralised absolute monarchy with the language to be solely German while the Hungarian segment of the empire attempted to magyarise its minority nationalities and abolish all languages except Hungarian within its borders. Spain has used its compulsory school acts to suppress the Catalan language and to impose Castilian. Switzerland has a system of compulsory schooling ingrained into its constitution. In general every country in Europe had established compulsory education by 1900 with the exception of Belgium which followed by 1920. To Herbert Spencer China carried out the idea of compulsory education to its logical conclusion. Quote. There the government publishes a list of works which may be read and considering obedience the supreme virtue authorises such only as our friendly to despotism. Fearing the unsettling effects of innovation it allows nothing to be taught but what proceeds from itself. To the end of producing patterned citizens it exerts a stringent discipline over all conduct. There are rules for sitting, standing, walking, talking and bowing laid down with the greatest precision. End quote. The imperial Japanese system of compulsory state education is worth noting carefully because of the many similarities which it displays with modern progressive education. As Lafcadio Hearn observed quote. The object has never been to train the individual for independent action but to train him for cooperative action. Constraint among us begins with childhood and gradually relaxes which would be the best for the child as his reasoning powers develop and he could be allowed more freedom and less guidance. Constraint in far eastern training begins later and thereafter gradually tightens. Not merely up to the age of school life but considerably beyond it a Japanese child enjoys a degree of liberty far greater than is allowed to occidental children. The child is permitted to do as he pleases. At school the discipline begins but there is no punishment beyond public admonition. Whatever restraint exists is chiefly exerted on the child by the common opinion of his class and a skillful teacher is able to direct that opinion. The ruling power is always the class sentiment. It is always the rule of the many over the one and the power is formidable. End quote. The spirit inculcated is always the sacrifice of the individual to the community and a crushing of any individual independence. In adult life any deviation from the minutiae of state regulation was instantly and severely punished. England. The tradition of volunteerism was at its strongest in England. So strong was it that not only was there no compulsory education in England until the late 19th century but there was not even a public school system. Before the 1830s the state did not interfere in education at all. After 1833 the state began to make ever increasing grants to promote indirectly the education of the poor in private schools. This was strictly philanthropic and there was no trace of compulsion. Finally compulsion was introduced into English education in the famous Education Act of 1870. This act permitted county boards to make attendance compulsory. London County immediately did so for children between five and thirteen and other large towns followed suit. The rural counties however were reluctant to impose compulsory attendance. By 1876 50% of the school population was under compulsion in Britain and 84% of the city children. The act of 1876 set up school attendance boards in those areas where there were no school boards and attendance was compulsory in all of those remote areas except where children lived more than two miles from school. Finally the Act of 1880 compelled all the county school boards to decree and enforce compulsory attendance. Thus in a decade compulsory education had conquered England. The great legal historian A. V. Dicey analysed this development in no uncertain terms as part of the movement toward collectivism. Quote It means in the first place that A. who educates his children at his own expense or has no children to educate is compelled to pay for the education of the children of S. Who though may be having means to pay for it prefers that the payment should come from the pockets of his neighbours. It tends in the second place as far as elementary education goes to place the children of the rich and of the poor of the provident and the improvident on something like an equal footing. It aims in short at the equalisation of advantage. End quote Quote The compulsory collectivist principle represented quite a clash with the individualist tradition in England. The notable Newcastle Commission in 1861 rejected the idea of compulsory education on the grounds of individualistic principle. Trenchant criticism of the compulsory state education plan as a capstone of growing state tyranny was levelled by Herbert Spencer and by the eminent historian and jurist Sir Henry Main. In recent years Arnold Toinby has pointed out how compulsory state education stifles independent thought. The movement for compulsory education in England and Europe in the late 19th century was bolstered by trade unionists who wanted more popular education and upper classes who wished to instruct the masses in the proper exercise of their voting rights. Each group in society characteristically wished to add to state power, with their particular policies hopefully prevailing in the use of that power. The change of opinion in England was particularly swift on this issue. When Dicey wrote in 1905, he declared that scarcely anyone could be found to attack compulsory education. Yet when John Stuart Mill wrote his On Liberty in 1859, he declared that scarcely anyone could be found who would not strenuously oppose compulsory education. Mill curiously enough supported compulsory education but opposed the erection of any public schools, and indeed it turned out that in England compulsion came before public schools in many areas. Mill however at least recognised that compulsory state schooling would abolish individuality on behalf of state uniformity and would naturally make for obedience to the state. Mill's argument for compelling education was successfully refuted by Spencer in social statics. Mill had asserted that in education the consumer does not know what is best for him, and that therefore the government is justified in intervening. Yet as Spencer points out, this has been the excuse for almost every exercise in state tyranny. The only proper test of worth is the judgment of the consumer who actually uses the product, and the state's judgment is bound to be governed by its own despotic interests. Another common argument in England for compulsory education was also prevalent in the United States. This was Macaulay's argument. Education would eliminate crime, and since it is the duty of the state to repress crime, the state should institute compulsory education. Spencer showed the speciousness of his argument, demonstrating that crime has little to do with education. This has become all too evident now. A glance at our growing juvenile delinquency rate in compulsorily educated America is proof enough of that. Spencer investigated the statistics of his day, and demonstrated that there was no correlation between ill-educated areas and criminal areas. Indeed, in many cases, the correlation was the reverse. The more education, the more crime. Fascism, Nazism, and Communism. It is a grave and unanswerable indictment of compulsory state education that these modern totalitarianisms were eager to institute compulsory state schooling in their regimes. Indeed, the indoctrination of the youth in their schools was one of the chief mainstays of these slave states. As a matter of fact, the chief difference between the 20th century horrors and the older despotisms is that the present ones have had to rest on mass support more directly, and that therefore compulsory literacy and indoctrination have been crucial. The compulsory state system already developed was grist for the totalitarian mill. At the base of totalitarianism and compulsory education is the idea that children belong to the state rather than to their parents. One of the leading promoters of that idea in Europe was the famous Marquis de Sard, who insisted that children are the property of the state. There is no need to dwell on education in communist countries. Communist countries impose compulsory state schooling and enforce rigid indoctrination of obedience to the rulers. The compulsory schooling is supplemented by state monopolies on other propaganda and educational fields. Similarly, national socialist education subordinated the individual to the state and enforced obedience. Education belonged exclusively to the national socialist state for indoctrination in its principles. A similar use of state schools and indoctrination for obedience to the absolute state was employed in Fascist Italy. Italy is particularly interesting for the activities of the first Fascist Minister of Education Giovanni Gentile. For in lax old Italy, education had stressed the intellectual development of the individual child and his learning of subjects. Gentile's Fascist regime instituted the methods of modern progressive education. He introduced and emphasised manual work, singing, drawing and games. Attendance was enforced by fines. Significantly, Gentile taught that education must be achieved through experience. It must be achieved through action. The children were free to learn through their own experiences, of course, within the limits necessary for development of culture. Curricula were therefore not proscribed, but children were free to do as they wanted, with the only emphasis of study placed on the study of heroes, such as Mussolini, as symbols of the national spirit.