Guizot, which have
thrown into our midst these fatal ideas of the centralization and
absorption of all activity in the State. The press is very free,
and the pen of the journalist is an object of merchandise;
religion, too, is very free, and every wearer of a gown, be it
short or long, who knows how to excite public curiosity, can draw
an audience about him. M. Lacordaire has his devotees, M. Leroux
his apostles, M. Buchez his convent. Why, then, should not
instruction also be free? If the right of the instructed, like
that of the buyer, is unquestionable, and that of the instructor,
who is only a variety of the seller, is its correlative, it is
impossible to infringe upon the liberty of instruction without
doing violence to the most precious of liberties, that of the
conscience. And then, adds M. Dunoyer, if the State owes
instruction to everybody, it will soon be maintained that it owes
labor; then lodging; then shelter. . . . Where does that lead
to?
The argument of M. Dunoyer is irrefutable: to organize
instruction is to give to every citizen a pledge of liberal
employment and comfortable wages; the two are as intimately
connected as the circulation of the arteries and the veins.
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