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It is a crime of crimes to
compel pupils to attend schools where the teacher dare not teach moral laws. It
is hard to conceive how anything can do more harm than the kind of "education"
we are getting in tax-run schools. Now, what are the things that government
schools dare not teach? They dare not teach the spirit of the Constitution as
set forth in the first official document of the
A man isn't free to pursue
happiness when the majority in any school district, state or nation can coerce
him to pay for a school that he believes violates the principles upon which
this government was formed. The school teachers dare not emphasize this part of
the Declaration of Independence. They dare not explain the true meaning of this
statement. If they were successful in explaining and teaching the true meaning
of these ideologies, there would be no gun-run schools.
Again, they dare not teach
that to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving
their just power from the consent of the governed. They have to completely
repudiate the ideas of the American way of life. They have to teach the
old-world philosophy of the divine right of governments, only now they call it
the divine right of the majority rather than the divine right of kings.
They dare not teach in
government schools the meaning of liberty. It is doubtful whether any teacher
in gun-run schools dares define the kind of liberty the Founding Fathers
mutually pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes and their sacred
honor to support. If the government schools successfully taught the meaning of
the liberty our Founding Fathers had in mind, there would be no government
schools that starve the intellects of our children.
The government schools dare
not teach the meaning of the Golden Rule. If they were successful in getting
their pupils to understand that they should not force other people to pay for
something they did not want, then they could see that it was a violation of the
Golden Rule to force others to pay for their schooling. They, of course, dare
not teach their pupils to believe that if it is wicked and a violation of the
Golden Rule for one man to do a thing, it is still wicked and a violation of
the Golden Rule if 49 per cent or 99 per cent of the people do the same thing.
They, thus, dare not teach the youth that the ideal government, the only kind
of government that can be of value to mankind, is one that is limited to the
use of defensive force and never has a right, under any circumstances, to
initiate force.
I want to continue
suggesting things that tax-run schools dare not teach. They dare not teach the
First Commandment: "Thou shalt have no other
Gods before me" because they are bowing down and worshipping the will of
the majority rather than the eternal laws of God that no man made and no man
can unmake.
They dare not teach
"Thou shalt not covet," because they are
violating the Coveting Commandment. They believe they do not need to teach well
enough that people will voluntarily pay their salaries. They get their pay by
violence rather than by rendering service well enough so that those who pay
them believe they are benefited by their employment.
They dare not teach
discipline and self-reliance because they are not disciplining themselves
enough to render such service that they can be paid voluntarily. The teachers
take the shortcut and use a police club to get their money. That certainly is
not discipline, nor is it self-reliance.
They dare not teach thrift
and the harm that comes from getting into debt. They dare not do this because
the government burdens every child and every person in the
They dare not teach respect
for individual initiative because government schools are based on lack of
respect for other people's initiative. They are based on the theory that
"We've got the power and the individual is helpless and we're going to
make him pay for anything our agents think is education."
They dare not teach humility
and meekness because the means used by government schools are the exact
opposite of humility and meekness. Are believers in tax-run schools so sure
they are right that they are willing to initiate force to make people support
their ideas of education? They see themselves as so exalted that they have lost
all humility and meekness. And remember, "He who exalts himself shall
become abased."
They dare not teach
children to reason. They have to teach them not to recognize a contradiction or
a dilemma. If the pupils were taught to reason, they would recognize the
tyranny that is bound to follow making people pay for things and ideas they
abhor.
They dare not teach the
harm that follows socialism, communism, collectivism
and fascism for to do so would let pupils realize that aggressive force is part
of socialism, communism, collectivism and fascism.
They dare not teach that
what man wants must be obtained on a voluntary basis. They dare not teach this
because they get what they want on an involuntary basis.
They dare not teach the
difference between socialism and private ownership of property. They dare not
explain that under socialism the only way a man can benefit is by injuring
another, as in the case in compelling people to pay for schools they think will
destroy the country. They dare not explain that in free enterprise, including
free enterprise in education, the gain of one is the gain of all.
Tax-run schools dare not
teach love and charity because they are using coercion. They seem to think that
force is better than persuasion by love and charity. "Hitherto the plans
of the educationalists have achieved very little of what they attempted, and
indeed we may well thank the beneficent obstinacy of real mothers, real nurses,
and (above all) real children for preserving the human race in such sanity as
it still posses." --C.S. Lewis
They cannot teach patience
because they are so impatient about getting what they seem
to believe is an education that they dare not wait to persuade those who should
employ them to pay their salaries.
They cannot teach peace and
goodwill because they are an example of the opposite of peace and goodwill.
They are an example of initiating force, of threatening to get from others by
aggressive force what they think they should get. They cannot teach that the
government is a servant of individuals because they believe it should be
supported by giving it a monopoly to use aggressive force to make people pay.
They can only teach that it is a master of the individual.
They cannot teach justice
because their method of supporting the schools is based on
injustice--arbitrary, initiated force.
They cannot teach that each
man is responsible for his own life because they deny that by using force to
take part of man's energy against his will, and man cannot be responsible for
his life unless he has the right to choose. There is nothing more important for
parents than their duty to see that their children are treated fairly and have
an opportunity to learn from schools that can teach these great moral
principles and axioms. It is not the money we're wasting in our tax-run schools
that is so important, but it is that our children are not being taught the
moral laws that tax-less schools can teach. It is because children can be
taught what is right in tax-less schools and they cannot be so taught in
tax-run schools that I am obliged to do what little I can to get parents to see
that they are not doing their duty to their children by sending them to tax-run
schools.
What we need above
everything else is more people devoting more time to seeing that the youth of
the land are instilled with belief in the great moral laws, the Golden Rule,
and the Declaration of Independence. Government schools cannot teach
successfully the will to learn. The best way to teach anything is by example.
But the superintendent and managers of the schools themselves are not enough
interested in the will to learn to be willing to answer questions as they would
before a court to determine whether what they are doing is in harmony with what
they profess to believe. If there is anything a man of integrity should want to
learn, it is whether what he is doing is in harmony and consistent with what he
says.
This article is copyrighted
by The Education Liberator, the monthly publication of the Alliance for the Separation of School &
State Alliance. Permission is granted to freely distribute this article as
long as this copyright notice is included in its entirety. The