Benjamin Disraeli Quotes
Wherever is found what is called a paternal government, there is found state education. It has been found that the best way to insure implicit obedience is to commence tyranny in the nursery..
1st Earl of Beaconsfield. This is one of the favorite quotations of those who oppose a strong federal role in education.
Benjamin Disraeli, 1804-1881, British Prime Minister (Tory), Speech in the House of Commons, June 15,1874
Sourced by: Eigen's Political and Historical Quotations
England did not follow this precept but the United States did and is the only country that did. In all others, education is controlled by the national government. However, Godwin's principle of separating education from government is not maintained in all the states of America. In many, the State government leaves much of the curriculum and the operations of the school to local school boards which have a great deal of discretion. However, in most of the Southern States, the State government dominates and controls education and relatively little is left to the school boards. In some the State chooses the allowable textbooks. In those cases, Godwin's principle is violated, but in most of the North East and Midwest and some of the far West the school boards have great autonomy and Goodwin's principle is upheld. It is fascinating that the more control a particular state exercises of the schools, the poorer the performance of the schools of that state. Goodwin had a terrific insight.
See Lenin for a similar view from a communist perspective.
Madison went on to observe that in a democracy, the real power may reside in the majority of the population, and in such a case the tyranny of the majority is the danger.
At the time the Colonial British Government controlled the Indian Educational System. Kahn and a few others thought that the Indians should take control of their own educational systems.
This is one of the earliest statements in favor of government involvement in education. In a sense, it is this quotation that is fundamental to the concepts of public education and to government regulation of education.
Benjamin Disraeli, 1st Earl of Beaconsfield, KG, PC, MP, FRS, was twice Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, serving in 1868 and from 1874 to 1880. He was a member of the British Conservative Party and played a central role in the creation of the modern Party, defining its policies and its broad outreach. Disraeli is remembered for his influential voice in world affairs, his political battles with the Liberal Party leader William Ewart Gladstone, and his one-nation conservatism or "Tory democracy". He made the Conservatives the party most identified with the glory and power of the British Empire. He is the only British prime minister to have been of Jewish birth. He was also a novelist, publishing works of fiction even as prime minister.
