Slide presentation of quotes regarding education and freedom.

1. EDUCATION and FREEDOM Josef Stalin: Education is a weapon, whose effect depends on who holds it in his hands and at whom it is aimed.

2. Education creates freedom John Adams: Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom. Frederick Douglass: To educate a man is to unfit him to be a slave. Thomas Jefferson: If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, in a state of civilization, it expects what never was and never will be. James Monroe: Let us by wise and constitutional measures promote intelligence among the people as the best means of preserving our liberties. Dr. Benjamin Rush: Freedom can exist only in the society of knowledge. Without learning, men are incapable of knowing their rights.

3. Education creates freedom Epictetus: We must not believe the many, who say that only free people ought to be educated, but we should rather believe the philosophers who say that only the educated are free. James A. Garfield: Next in importance to freedom and justice is popular education, without which neither freedom nor justice can be permanently maintained. James Madison,: A popular government without popular information or the means of acquiring it is but a prologue to a farce or a tragedy, or perhaps both. Knowledge will forever govern ignorance: And a people who mean to be their own Governors, must arm themselves with the power which knowledge gives. William Godwin: Make men wise, and by that very operation you make them free. Civil liberty follows as a consequence of this; no usurped power can stand against the artillery of opinion.

4. Control of education means control of people, minds, opinions, and society Diogenes: The foundation of every state is the education of its youth. William Godwin: Government will not fail to employ education to strengthen its hands and perpetuate its institutions. Francisco Ferrer: Governments have ever been known to hold a high hand over the education of the people. They know, better than anyone else, that their power is based almost entirely on the school. Hence, they monopolize it more and more. Eric Schaub: Can we truly expect those who aim to exploit us to be trusted to educate us?

5. Control of education means control of people, minds, opinions, and society Thomas Hodgskin: Men had better be without education than be educated by their rulers; for their education is but the mere breaking in of the steer to the yoke; the mere discipline of the hunting dog, which, by dint of severity, is made to forego the strongest impulse of his nature, and instead of devouring his prey, to hasten with it to the feet of his master. Helen Hegener: Our tightly controlled educational system mocks the promise of democracy. With a closed educational system we simply cannot have an open political system. The current situation allows the government and big business to manufacture and maintain our culture for us, and in turn, control remains in the hands of the experts and institutions. The ability to change this situation is in the hands of the individuals and families who understand why change is necessary.

6. Control of education means control of people, minds, opinions, and society Frank Chodorov: The more subsidized it is, the less free it is. What is known as "free education" is the least free of all, for it is a state-owned institution; it is socialized education - just like socialized medicine or the socialized post office - and cannot possibly be separated from political control. Neal Boortz: How many Catholic schools do you think teach the students to question the authority of the Pope? Do you believe Christian schools teach students to question or challenge the authority of Jesus Christ? Do military schools teach the cadets to challenge the authority of superior officers? Well, why should we then expect government schools to teach children to question the authority of government? Abraham Lincoln: The philosophy of the classroom today will be the philosophy of government tomorrow.

7. The purpose of “public” education? Jack Hugh: Historically, much of the motivation for public schooling has been to stifle variety and institute social control. Marshall Fritz: In all countries, in all centuries, the primary reason for government to set up schools is to undermine the politically weak by convincing their children that the leaders are good and their policies are wise. The core is religious intolerance. The sides simply change between the Atheists, Catholics, Protestants, Unitarians, etc., depending whether you are talking about the Soviet Union, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, America, etc. A common second reason is to prepare the boys to go to war and the girls to cheer them on. Edward Zehr: I wouldn't call it fascism exactly, but a political system nominally controlled by an irresponsible, dumbed down electorate who are manipulated by dishonest, cynical, controlled mass media that dispense the propaganda of a corrupt political establishment can hardly be described as democracy either.

8. The purpose of “public” education? Sir Winston Churchill: Schools have not necessarily much to do with education... they are mainly institutions of control, where basic habits must be inculcated in the young. Education is quite different and has little place in school. Benjamin Disraeli: Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been discovered that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery. Jonathan Kozol: The first goal and primary function of the U.S. public school is not to educate good people, but good citizens. It is the function which we call - in enemy nations - 'state indoctrination.'

9. The purpose of “public” education? Albert Einstein: The ruling class has the schools and press under its thumb. This enables it to sway the emotions of the masses. Richard Mitchell: Where once a tyrant had to wish that his subjects had but one common neck that he might strangle them all at once, all he has to do now is to 'educate the people' so that they will have but one common mind to delude. John Holt: People who make careers out of helping others -- sometimes at great sacrifice, often not -- usually don't like to hear that those others might get along fine, might even get along better, without their help.

10. Making a case for homeschooling Max Victor Belz: I don't want my children fed or clothed by the state, but if I had to choose, I would prefer that to their being educated by the state. Stephen Arons: Why is it that millions of children who are pushouts or dropouts amount to business as usual in the public schools, while one family educating a child at home becomes a major threat to universal public education and the survival of democracy? George Bernard Shaw: The only time my education was interrupted was when I was in school. My schooling not only failed to teach me what it professed to be teaching, but prevented me from being educated to an extent which infuriates me when I think of all I might have learned at home by myself. Mark Twain: I have never let my schooling interfere with my education.

11. Making a case for homeschooling Margaret Mead: My grandmother wanted me to have an education, so she kept me out of school. Manfred B. Zysk: A family member asked my wife, "Aren't you concerned about his (our son's) socialization with other kids?" My wife gave this response: "Go to your local middle school, junior high, or high school, walk down the hallways, and tell me which behavior you see that you think our son should emulate.“ Joseph Sobran: In 100 years we have gone from teaching Latin and Greek in high school to teaching Remedial English in college. Steve Dasbach: Government schools can't teach reading, writing, and arithmetic -- why should we trust them to teach morality, respect, and character? If public education does for ethics what it's done for learning, we'll end up with a generation of immoral, disrespectful, and characterless students.

12. Self-sufficiency, not dependence on government, creates freedom Mark Twain: The mania for giving the Government power to meddle with the private affairs of cities or citizens is likely to cause endless trouble, through the rivaly of schools and creeds that are anxious to obtain official recognition, and there is great danger that our people will lose our independence of thought and action which is the cause of much of our greatness, and sink into the helplessness of the Frenchman or German who expects his government to feed him when hungry, clothe him when naked, to prescribe when his child may be born and when he may die, and, in time, to regulate every act of humanity from the cradle to the tomb, including the manner in which he may seek future admission to paradise.

13. Self-sufficiency, not dependence on government, creates freedom James Madison: If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their own hands; they may appoint teachers in every State, county and parish and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision of the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, every thing, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress... Were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America. Walter E. Williams, quotes about Education: Experts and the educated elite have replaced what worked with what sounded good. Society was far more civilized before they took over our schools, prisons, welfare programs, police departments and courts. It's high time we ran these people out of our lives and went back to common sense.