independence is bad for the self-reliance of the citizen.
"In Dunedin," as a venerable and learned friend put it to me, "In Dunedin, no one objected to school fees. There were only a very few poor widows who could not afford to pay; and provision was always made for the children of such, without any one being any the wiser. The old instincts of Scottish independence revolted at the thought of parental responsibility being shirked in the matter of the education of their children. It was held as an article of faith by the majority, that it was as incumbent on a parent to provide food for the growth and development and nourishment of the child's mind as for his body. The result of free education by the State is," pursued my friend, "very much to beget a feeling of entire indifference on the subject on the part of many, and a general weakening of the sense of parental responsibility almost along the whole line." I try to reproduce our exact conversation. Said I, "But you would have education compulsory?" "Undoubtedly; but if parents complied with the requirements of the law in respect of attainments, and were willing to pay out of their own pockets direct, why should they be forced to make their children attend this or that school, or submit them to the tuition of this or that teacher? That I think an unwise and an unnecessary compulsion. I do not wonder at one section of the community kicking against such a sweeping and arbitrary enactment. It savours of persecution, and I would resent it myself."
