from "Response to the Call of the National Labor Union for Essays on the Following Subjects": a pamphlet giving one-paragraph responses in the Warrenian manner to such questions as "Coolie Importation," "Compulsory Education," and "Woman - Her Rights: 12 in all. Dated Boston, 1871. 7pp. (Labadie)

X. The Necessity of Compulsory Education

We have not yet agreed on what constitutes the desired education. Perhaps the most fortunate children are those who escape education in the midst of the frauds, falsehoods, violence and misery, growing out of the barbarian money used in all past time. The idea of compulsory education is as absurd as that of compelling people to maintain life by means of food.

Besides, who are to be the educators? When there are as many plans as there are sects, which one shall be enforced by compulsion? Who has got the power to properly educate any person by compulsion, when the first and every succeeding step should be taken with a strict regard to the sacred right of all children to be educated by those examples and in the habits that they will need to practice when they have become adults. To educate them by compulsion is to teach them by example to become tyrants.

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