NATIONAL EDUCATION.

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. Inasmuch as the taking away, by Government, of more of a man's property than is needful for maintaining his rights, is an infringement of his rights, and therefore a reversal of the Government's function towards him; and inasmuch as the taking away of his property to educate his own or other people's children is not needful for the maintaining of his rights; the taking away of his property for such a purpose is wrong.

Should it be said that the rights of the children are involved, and that State-interposition is required to maintain these, the reply is that no cause for such interposition can be shown until the children's rights have been violated, and that their rights are not violated by a neglect of their education. For, as repeatedly explained, 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 a 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 the 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; whilst every neglect, carelessness, omission, is as necessarily passive. Consequently, however wrong the nonperformance of a parental duty may be, it does not amount. to a breach of the law of equal freedom, and cannot therefore be taken cognizance of by the State.

Were there no direct disproof of the frequently-alleged right to education at the hands of the State, the absurdities. in which it entangles its assertors would sufficiently show its invalidity. Conceding for a moment that the Government is bound to educate a man's children, then, what kind of logic will demonstrate that it is not bound to feed and clothe them? If there should be an act-of-parliament provision for the development of their minds, why should there not be an act-of-parliament provision for the development of their bodies? The reasoning which is held to establish the right to intellectual food will equally well establish the right to material food: nay, will do more-will prove that children should be altogether cared for by Government. For if the benefit, importance, or necessity, of education, be assigned as a sufficient reason why Government should educate, then may the benefit, importance, or necessity, of food, clothing, shelter, and warmth be assigned as a sufficient reason why Government should administer these also. So that the alleged right cannot be established without annulling all parental responsibility whatever.

Should further refutation be needful, there is the ordeal of a definition. We lately found this ordeal fatal to the assumed right to a maintenance; we shall find it equally fatal to this assumed right to an education. For what is an education? Where, between the teaching of a dame-school and the most comprehensive university curriculum, can be drawn the line separating that portion of mental culture which may be justly claimed of the State, from that which may not be so claimed? What peculiar quality is there in reading, writing, and arithmetic which gives the embryo citizen the right to have them

imparted to him, but which quality is not shared in by geography, and history, and drawing, and the natural sciences? Must calculation be taught because it is useful? why so is geometry, as the carpenter and mason will tell us; so is chemistry, as we may gather from dyers and bleachers. Where is the unit of measure by which we may determine the respective values of different kinds of knowledge? Or, assuming them determined, how can it be shown that a child may claim from the civil power knowledge of such and such. values, but not knowledge of certain less values?

A sad snare would these advocates of legislative teaching betray themselves into, could they substantiate their doctrine. For what is meant by saying that a Government ought to educate the people? Why should they be educated? What is the education for? Clearly to fit the people for social life -to make them good citizens. And who is to say what are good citizens? The Government: there is no other judge. And who is to say how these good citizens may be made? The Government: there is no other judge. Hence the proposition is convertible into this-a Government ought to mould children into good citizens, using its own discretion in settling what a good citizen is, and how the child may be moulded into one. It must first form for itself a definite conception of a pattern citizen; and having done this, must elaborate a system of discipline which seems best calculated to produce citizens after that pattern. This system of discipline it is bound to enforce to the uttermost. For if it does otherwise, it allows men to become different from what in its judgment they should become, and therefore fails in that duty it is charged to fulfil. Being thus justified in carrying out rigidly such plans as it thinks best, every Government ought to do what the despotic Governments of the Continent and of China do. That regulation under which, in France, "private schools cannot be established without a licence from the minister, and can be shut up by a simple ministerial

order," is a step in the right direction, but does not go far enough; seeing that the State cannot permit its mission to be undertaken by others, without endangering the due performance of it. The forbidding of all private schools whatever, as until recently in Prussia, is nearer the mark. Austrian legislation, too, realizes with some consistency the State-education theory. By it a tolerably stringent control over the mental culture of the nation is exercised. Much thinking being held at variance with good citizenship, the teaching of metaphysics, political economy, and the like, is discouraged. Some scientific works are prohibited. And a reward is offered for the apprehension of those who circulate bibles the authorities in the discharge of their function preferring to entrust the interpretation of that book to their employés the Jesuits. But in China alone is the idea carried out with logical completeness. There the Government publishes a list of works which may be read; and, considering obedience the supreme virtue, authorizes such only as are 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 pattern-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. Scholars are prohibited from chess, football, flying kites, shuttlecock, playing on wind instruments, training beasts, birds, fishes, or insects -all which amusements, it is said, dissipate the mind and debase the heart."

Now a minute dictation like this, which extends to every action and will brook no nay, is the legitimate realization of this State-education theory. Whether the Government has erroneous conceptions of what citizens ought to be, or whether the methods of training it adopts are injudicious, is not the question. According to the hypothesis it is commissioned to discharge a specified function. It finds no ready-prescribed way of doing this. It has no alternative,

therefore, but to choose that way which seems to it most fit. And as there exists no higher authority, either to dispute or confirm its judgment, it is justified in the absolute enforcement of its plans, be they what they may. As from the proposition that Government ought to teach religion, there springs the other proposition, that Government must decide what is religious truth, and how it is to be taught; so, the assertion that Government ought to educate, necessitates the further assertion that it must say what education is, and how it shall be conducted. And the same rigid popery, which we found to be a logical consequence in the one case, follows in the other also.

There are few sayings more trite than this, that love of offspring is one of our most powerful passions. To become a parent is an almost universal wish. The intensity of affection exhibited in the glistening eye, the warm kiss, and the fondling caress-in the untiring patience, and the ever ready alarm of the mother, is a theme on which philosophers have written and poets have sung in all ages. Every one has remarked how commonly the feeling overmasters all others. Observe the self-gratulation with which maternity witnesses her first-born's unparalleled achievements. Mark the pride with which the performances of each little brat are exhibited to every visitor as indicating a precocious genius. Consider again the deep interest which in later days a father feels in his children's mental welfare, and the anxiety he manifests to get them on in life: the promptings of his natural affection being ofttimes sharpened by the reflection that the comfort of his old age may, perchance, be dependent upon their

success.

Now, "servants and interpreters of nature" have usually supposed these feelings to be of some use. Hitherto they have thought that the gratification a mother feels from the forwardness of her little ones serves as an educational stimu lus-that the honour which the father expects to derive from