Why does government teach children?

The role of the schoolmaster is to collect little plastic lumps of human dough from private households and shape them on the social kneadingboard.

~ Edward Alsworth Ross, late 19th century University of Wisconsin sociologist and one of Teddy Roosevelt's favorite writers

Senator George Hoar on the seeds of empire planted in the Philippines (1902)

We crushed the only republic in Asia. We made war on the only Christian people in the East. We vulgarized the American flag. We inflicted torture on unarmed men to extort confessions. We put children to death. We established reconcentration camps. We baffled the aspirations of a people for liberty. 

~ Republican Senator George F. Hoar of Massachusetts, writing in 1902 about America's involvement in the Philippines

Progression from liberty to dependency

A democracy cannot survive as a permanent form of government. It can last only until its citizens discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority (who vote) will vote for those candidates promising the greatest benefits from the public purse, with the result that a democracy will always collapse from loose fiscal policies, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world’s greatest democratic nations has been 200 years. Each has been through the following sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith. From faith to great courage. From courage to liberty. From liberty to abundance. From abundance to complacency. From complacency to selfishness. From selfishness to apathy. From apathy to dependency. And from dependency back again into bondage.

~ Lord Thomas MacCauley - 1857

William Penn on tyranny

Men must be ruled by God or they will be ruled by tyrants.

~ William Penn