Luther on schools
"I am of the opinion that the government is obligated to compel its citizenry to send their children to school. If a government can compel its citizens to bear spear and gun, to run about on the city wall and to assume other duties when it desires to carry on war, how much more can and should the government compel its citizens to keep their children at school."
Labels: education
posted by CP @ 4:43 PM
2 thoughts
2 Comments:
Interesting. This was written, of course, when schools were not all government run, right? I suppose as long as the government doesn't compel its' citizens to send their students to only their school, and allows them options like private education and home education, then I can see how our government could enforce that. But I still get the heebie-jeebies from this quote for some reason. I know I don't agree with Luther on everything. Perhaps this is one of those times. What do you think about it?
My understanding is that there was compulsory schooling with pretty much a government mandated curriculum in somethings, like maybe history, but at the time, even religious schools were publicly financed. I'm thinking that even with the reformation, there wasn't nearly the pluralism we have today and that, combined with the religious school option and lack of industrialization, there weren't too many people clamoring for other schooling options. That's a lot of conjecture though.
Post a Comment
<< Home