Lew, your post reminds me that Horace Mann, the pioneer of government schooling in the U.S., considered the government the source of salvation. John Swett, who was California’s Superintendent of Public Instruction during the late 1860s, insisted that children belong to the state, not the family – and that was the basis of his argument for government schools. Here below is the rest of the story from my recent column in the Wanderer Catholic Weekly. Virtus Versus the Family When I was growing up in Indiana, our pastor routinely berated Catholic parents who sent their children to public schools. Perhaps … Continue reading Children Belong To The State, Not The Family