The Germans are notably literate and they had very fine technical schools. Their literacy enabled them to read "Mein Kampf," and their technology enabled them to build up a war machine which must destroy them. That is what education under the political power must do, once it has obtained full control. It routes human energy into the dead-end political channels.
The most vindictive resentment may be expected from the pedagogic profession for any suggestion that they should be dislodged from their dictatorial position - it will be expressed mainly in epithets, such as "reactionary," at the mildest. Nevertheless, the question to put to any teacher moved to such indignation, is: Do you think nobody would willingly entrust his children to you to pay you for teaching them? Why do you have to extort your fees and collect your pupils by compulsion?
(Isabel Paterson, the God of the Machine, 1943)
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