The Law, by Frederic Bastiat

The Law and Education


You say: “There are persons who lack education” and you
turn to the law. But the law is not, in itself, a torch of learning
which shines its light abroad. The law extends over a society
where some persons have knowledge and others do not; where
some citizens need to learn, and others can teach. In this matter
of education, the law has only two alternatives: It can permit this
transaction of teaching-and-learning to operate freely and without
the use of force, or it can force human wills in this matter by
taking from some of them enough to pay the teachers who are
appointed by government to instruct others, without charge. But
in this second case, the law commits legal plunder by violating
liberty and property.