Ep. 315 The Origins of State Education: Myth and Reality

England was the most literate society on the face of the earth in the nineteenth century, and it got there with an entirely private educational system. I take a brief look at the scholarly work on the issue in this episode. Scroll down for the show notes and mp3!

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We need government to provide education, right? Wrong. There are plenty of arguments against the public provision of what we laughingly call education, but it’s interesting to take a brief glance at history to see what kind of evidence we can uncover. That’s what I did in this episode.

Books Mentioned

Education and the State, by E.G. West
Education: Free and Compulsory, by Murray N. Rothbard

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Related Episodes

Ep. 238: How Private Schools Educate the Poor (James Tooley)
Ep. 71: Low-Cost Private Schools in the Developing World (Pauline Dixon)
Ep. 62: Separating School and State (Sheldon Richman)

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