John Adams Quote - Liberty Quotes Blog

"Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom."

by:	John Adams (1735-1826) Founding Father, 2nd US President
Source:	"Defence of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America," 1787 http://www.constitution.org/jadams/ja1_00.htm
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Categories:	Education, Freedom, Responsibility, Children
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Reader comments about this quote:

Today,I think that children are getting instructed in the principals of involuntary servitude to a system that no longer works towards or for the best interests of it's people.Of Life,Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness,ask yourself:What is their state of health in 21st century America? It's Very Sad. -- Guess Who? 3
Our 14 y/o boy says that they don't "teach" us how to think. They tell us what to think and ask us to regurgitate it for the tests....bright boy!. He learns a few things at home though. :) Its a strong argument for home schooling as we can expect that a "state" education is designed to produce little "loyalists", and not free thinkers or free men. -- J Carlton, Calgary 3
State schooling seemed to work well in Nazi Germany, and Carl Marx was all in favor of it. We now have a system of public "education" that's so bad that it requires remedial reading classes in our colleges. -- jim k, austin,tx 2
Well if this quote wasn't ignored there would be no state education, complimentary of this: "People have it generally in their power to communicate their ideas to their children; but they are still better able to transfuse their passions...." -- Baron de Montesquieu; "The Spirit Of The Laws" Pg. 6/7 "Book IV: Of Education In A Republican Government." -- "The Portable Enlightenment Reader. (Penguin Books)" Pg(s). 410 & 411. -- G�l�k Zolt�n Leenderdt Franco Buday, Vancouver, GVRD(Paine Cnty), Coastal Lwr Mainland BC(State of Neo Sumer), U.S. of Eh! 1
Adam's concept is lost on today's propaganda ministers. -- Mike, Norwalk 2
Most of all that you guys and gals are saying was said about my schooling in the late '50's and look how great some of us turned out. Old folks criticizing the youth while bragging about their own experience as superior is nothing new. Carlton please read my blurb about Kindergarten in a comment to one of the other quotes. Basically history says that Kindergarten contrary to being a state propaganda machine was and is a methodology that creates in children a sense of initiative and self-directedness. Its' effects were so profound that it was outlawed by the Prussian government who preferred a traditional and regimented type of education.. -- Waffler, Smith, Arkansas
BTW, the source for this quote, Defense of the Constitutions of Government of the United States of America, 1787, is excellent (link above). It should end the rhetoric about a Democracy v. a Republic -- in this 'treatise' Adams looks at many different republican forms of government. It is a brilliant work. -- E Archer, NYC 1
Children should be educated in the principles of freedom, primarily by their parents and then by themselves. The government schools certainly have no interest in teaching them freedom. -- Ken, Allyn, WA
Ken what do you think about a scenario where several groups of parents work together and take turns in teaching all of their children at the same time. You know modern America was built on separation of labor. The group of parents might even hire one or the other of the parents to teach permanently. I mean the view of each parent having to retreat to their long house several evenings a week and the various families never talking to each other about these things is quite a spectacle to contemplate. -- Waffler, Smith, Arkansas
A co-operative educational system is just fine, as long as each parent has the option to withdraw their children from it. -- Ken, Allyn, WA 1
I think withdrawal is okay as long as the parent educates their child up to an acceptable standard. I suggest that is exactly what we now have. All parents are free to send their child to a private school or perform home schooling or to avail themselves of the co-operative schools run by the local school board, or start a new school as long as they all meet acceptable standards. -- Waffler, Smith, Arkansas
-- warren, olathe
-- eufemia lina, corella,bohol
children are being educated too much but i still think that children should be educated because its their right to be educated. children have to be educated because they can move into better high schools and get a job what they wanted to be -- maisha, london
A key word here is principle. No principles of freedom are being taught in schools today, only applications of differing forms of socialism (fascism to communism to progressivism, etc.) For example: all that is heard in public forums (including governments socialist aggrandizing schools) concerning immigration is how one group is some how infringing on others socialist domain. Both sides of the argument support who is entitled to eat at the tyrannous socialist troff without a word concerning a principle of freedom. The freedom principle of individual inalienable right or, individual sovereignty or the nobility of the individual in a stand alone status or representative republic is never part of the application rhetoric. If, as Waffler here has demonstrated, changing the topic from principled freedom to the structure of the education system, the principles of freedom will never again be taught in government or most other schools. -- Mike, Norwalk 2
If children were educated and instructed in the principles of freedom, in less than one generation compelled compliance, license, victimless crimes, larceny with impunity (income / property tax, funny money, etc.) and the rest of the tyrannous rule by the statist theocracy infesting this land would fade into obscurity. A government of law, recognizing the individual as sovereign with inalienable right would return. -- Mike, Norwalk 2
"Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of Ethic's" -- Robken 1
We are all well aware of the indoctrination you received, Waffler. Look how you turned out — a tax collector with a federal pension. -- E Archer, NYC
Which is a shame since the Founders were among the most enlightened men of the time. Studying the history of America is integral for Americans in order to know who they really are and that their government is to preserve their freedom and their rights. Without that context, people can be made to believe that they are beholden to the dictates of 'authorities.' Which is why immigration from 3rd world 'refugees' does not help the collective consciousness of Americans, reducing them to uneducated, un-knowledgeable, unempowered victims of their own society, bringing their failed social demands to the US. If people are not emigrating to the US to be free and responsible citizens, then they are a burden, and not a benefit to a free nation. -- E Archer, NYC
In other words, you may not teach your children anything that has not been 'approved' by you (or the 'authority' you bow to)? A school board is tasked with administering government funds to public schooling. It is NOT tasked with setting standards for anyone NOT attending their schools. This is nothing less than regulating knowledge — and these days, more time is spent on 'socializing' the students than educating them. It's become a labor racket, pure and simple, with unions running the show. The entire education industry has become completely corrupted, indenturing students to a debt secured by their labors, for life. The debt cannot be discharged ever until it is paid back — unlike private business. And what are students being taught for years and years? Only that which furthers the racket. It's a labor regulation racket — you've got to pay the piper if you want that 'certificate' from university. Frankly, I have learned more on my own; my college education was outdated the moment I graduated. It was just to delay my entry into the work force and place me on the bottom rung away from competing with the others above me while also placing on me a huge debt that would take years of labor to repay. Considering most of what I learned, I learned on my own, the education I was paying for was hardly worth the cost. I eventually became an independent contractor and leap-frogged over generations of guys because I could deliver what they did not learn. Nothing I was hired for was taught to me in school. -- E Archer, NYC 2
I believe so, Mike. Perhaps with the Internet revolution, more people around the world will learn about liberty — it certainly is not taught by educational institutions. Americans are waking up to the con. People are bypassing university debt and studying on their own. A college diploma does not hold the same sway as it used to because graduates are not bringing anything to the table for businesses to hire. They are only good for government work in which they are not compensated for producing anything of worth but for propping up the regulatory structure of people from cradle to grave. Like Waffler. -- E Archer, NYC

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