The Socialist holds that the community as a whole should be responsible, and every individual in the community, married or single, parent or childless, should be responsible, for the welfare and upbringing of every child born into that community. This responsibility may be delegated in whole or in part to parent, teacher, or other guardian—but it is not simply the right but the duty of the state—that is to say, of the organized power and intelligence of the community—to direct, to inquire, and to intervene in any default for the child’s welfare.
The Way to Freedom
By Francisco Ferrer
(See page [336])
We must destroy all which in the present school answers to the organization of constraint, the artificial surroundings by which children are separated from nature and life, the intellectual and moral discipline made use of to impose ready-made ideas upon them, beliefs which deprave and annihilate natural bent. Without fear of deceiving ourselves, we can restore the child to the environment which entices it, the environment of nature in which he will be in contact with all that he loves, and in which impressions of life will replace fastidious book-learning. If we did no more than that, we should already have prepared in great part the deliverance of the child.
BOOK XIV
Humor