704 



THE POPULjiR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



has been attained by former raetliods. 

 Mr. Bryant argues for tlie state com- 

 pulsory system as against the volunta- 

 ry system, but the great advancements 

 of civilization have been incontestably 

 made by private enterprise, and spon- 

 taneous cooperation among the mem- 

 bers of the community, and with these 

 things the state has only meddled to 

 hinder. The state originates nothing; 

 its highest office is simply to secure the 

 conditions under which the voluntary 

 combinations of individuals for desir- 

 able objects shall have the fullest and 

 fresst play. Nor is the progress of 

 education any exception to this law. 

 The work of originating and extending 

 knowledge, and of diffusing it by the 

 formation of schools, the organization of 

 societies, the institution of academies, 

 and the establishment of colleges, has 

 always been mainly done by the indi- 

 vidual forces of society working under 

 voluntary cooperation and independent 

 of government. Besides, all the ten- 

 dencies of modern progress are to give 

 larger scope to private enterprise, and 

 to rehnquish to the people prerogatives 

 that formerly belonged to government. 

 It is now proposed to contradict this 

 law of advancement by surrendering to 

 the state' the whole duty of directing 

 the mental development of its citizens. 

 Mr. Bryant maintains that the right 

 of state control in the matter of educa- 

 ion is a necessary consequence of state 

 sovereignty, and he argues that, in the 

 course of political development, the 

 family is superseded, the state assum- 

 ing the parental functions. lie says: 

 " The child passes, in any organized so- 

 ciety, through all the grades in the re- 

 lated social state. In the same order, 

 also, government passes on, until it 

 rests in the control of sovereignty, the 

 state. And the right of the state to 

 the custody and control of tlie citizen 

 is as complete as the right of the parent 

 to the control of the infant child. These 

 are only the natural laws belonging to 

 the several relations in the growth of 



society in all artificial conditions, un- 

 der all governments. State control, 

 therefore, comes into rightful exercise 

 of authority over the education of every 

 human being entitled to the privileges 

 and protection of government. The 

 particular age at which state* authority 

 may rightfully interfere in this relation 

 is a matter of state policy and sovereign 

 discretion." 



Here, again, the law of progress is 

 misread. Nothing is more certain than 

 that it has resulted in cutting down 

 state sovereignty to make room for in- 

 dividual rights. Man's development 

 has ever been an acquirement of rights 

 against the state, and, in all political ad- 

 vancement, the state has consequently 

 become less and less, and the citizen 

 more and more. The progress of civil 

 liberty has been from the beginning a 

 wresting of power from despotic state 

 sovereignty. Men fought early and des- 

 perately for the right of life that is, 

 that they should not have their heads 

 cut off at the caprice of a sovereign 

 will. They wrung from the state the 

 right of the individual ownership of 

 property. They reduced the functions 

 of the state w^ien it repressed free 

 speech for its own sovereign purposes. 

 They stripped the state of its power 

 of determining what religion it thinks 

 best for the community, and thus se- 

 cured the rights of conscience. In all 

 these things, and in many more, gov- 

 ernment has been restrained and ham- 

 pered in its tyrannical meddlings, and 

 the people have correspondingly gained 

 in liberty. The state has always as- 

 sumed that it knew more about what 

 was good for the people than they 

 knew themselves. What we call lib- 

 erty is nothing more than the riglit of 

 the people to be their own judges, and 

 to manage their own concerns in the 

 way that seems best for the promo- 

 tion of their own interests. But Mr. 

 Bryant interprets state sovereignty in 

 a way that dissolves all individual 

 rights. If the state may interfere at its 



