education. A general State education is a mere contrivance for
moulding people to be exactly like one another: and as the mould in
which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the
government, whether this be a monarch, a priesthood, an aristocracy,
or the majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is
efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind,
leading by natural tendency to one over the body. An education
established and controlled by the State should only exist, if it exist
at all, as one among many competing experiments, carried on for the
purpose of example and stimulus, to keep the others up to a certain
standard of excellence. Unless, indeed, when society in general is
in so backward a state that it could not or would not provide for
itself any proper institutions of education unless the government
undertook the task: then, indeed, the government may, as the less of
two great evils, take upon itself the business of schools and
universities, as it may that of joint stock companies, when private
enterprise, in a shape fitted for undertaking great works of industry,
does not exist in the country. But in general, if the country contains
a sufficient number of persons qualified to provide education under
government auspices, the same persons would be able and willing to
give an equally good education on the voluntary principle, under the
assurance of remuneration afforded by a law rendering education
compulsory, combined with State aid to those unable to defray the
expense.

  The instrument for enforcing the law could be no other than public
examinations, extending to all children, and beginning at an early
age. An age might be fixed at which every child must be examined, to
ascertain if he (or she) is able to read. If a child proves unable,
the father, unless he has some sufficient ground of excuse, might be
subjected to a moderate fine, to be worked out, if necessary, by his
labour, and the child might be put to school at his expense. Once in
every year the examination should be renewed, with a gradually
extending range of subjects, so as to make the universal
acquisition, and what is more, retention, of a certain minimum of
general knowledge virtually compulsory. Beyond that minimum there
should be voluntary examinations on all subjects, at which all who
come up to a certain standard of proficiency might claim a
certificate. To prevent the State from exercising, through these
arrangements, an improper influence over opinion, the knowledge
required for passing an examination (beyond the merely instrumental
parts of knowledge, such as languages and their use) should, even in
the higher classes of examinations, be confined to facts and
positive science exclusively. The examinations on religion,
politics, or other disputed topics, should not turn on the truth or
falsehood of opinions, but on the matter of fact that such and such an
opinion is held, on such grounds, by such authors, or schools, or
churches.

  Under this system, the rising generation would be no worse off in
regard to all disputed truths than they are at present; they would
be brought up either churchmen or dissenters as they now are, the
State merely taking care that they should be instructed churchmen,
or instructed dissenters. There would be nothing to hinder them from
being taught religion, if their parents chose, at the same schools
where they were taught other things. All attempts by the State to bias
the conclusions of its citizens on disputed subjects are evil; but
it may very properly offer to ascertain and certify that a person
possesses the knowledge requisite to make his conclusions, on any
given subject, worth attending to. A student of philosophy would be
the better for being able to stand an examination both in Locke and in
Kant, whichever of the two he takes up with, or even if with
neither: and there is no reasonable objection to examining an
atheist in the evidences of Christianity, provided he is not
required to profess a belief in them. The examinations, however, in
the higher branches of knowledge should, I conceive, be entirely
voluntary. It would be giving too dangerous a power to governments
were they allowed to exclude any one from professions, even from the
profession of teacher, for alleged deficiency of qualifications: and I
think, with Wilhelm von Humboldt, that degrees, or other public
certificates of scientific or professional acquirements, should be
given to all who present themselves for examination, and stand the
test; but that such certificates should confer no advantage over
competitors other than the weight which may be attached to their
testimony by public opinion.

  It is not in the matter of education only that misplaced notions
of liberty prevent moral obligations on the part of parents from being
recognised, and legal obligations from being imposed, where there
are the strongest grounds for the former always, and in many cases for
the latter also. The fact itself, of causing the existence of a
human being, is one of the most responsible actions in the range of
human life. To undertake this responsibility- to bestow a life which
may be either a curse or a blessing- unless the being on whom it is
to be bestowed will have at least the ordinary chances of a
desirable existence, is a crime against that being. And in a country
either over-peopled, or threatened with being so, to produce children,
beyond a very small number, with the effect of reducing the reward
of labour by their competition, is a serious offence against all who
live by the remuneration of their labour. The laws which, in many
countries on the Continent, forbid marriage unless the parties can
show that they have the means of supporting a family, do not exceed
the legitimate powers of the State: and whether such laws be expedient
or not (a question mainly dependent on local circumstances and
feelings), they are not objectionable as violations of liberty. Such
laws are interferences of the State to prohibit a mischievous act- an
act injurious to others, which ought to be a subject of reprobation,
and social stigma, even when it is not deemed expedient to superadd
legal punishment. Yet the current ideas of liberty, which bend so
easily to real infringements of the freedom of the individual in