Thurgood Marshall: “Our whole constitutional heritage rebels at the thought of giving government the power to control men’s minds.”
Orestes Brownson, Testimony against proposed Truancy Laws before the Massachusetts Board of Education, 19th Century – A government system of education in Prussia is not inconsistent with the theory of Prussian society, for there all wisdom is supposed to be lodged in the government. But the thing is wholly inadmissible here . . . because, according to our theory, the people are supposed to be wiser than the government. Here, the people do not look to the government for light, for instruction, but the government looks to the people. The people give the law to the government. To entrust, then, the government with the power of determining the education which our children shall receive is entrusting our servant with the power to be our master. This fundamental difference between the two countries, we apprehend, has been overlooked by the board of education and its supporters.
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