The most erroneous assumption is to the effect that the aim of public education is to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence, and so make them fit to discharge the duties of citizenship in an enlightened and independent manner. Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim of public education is not to spread enlightenment at all; it is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States, whatever the pretensions of politicians, pedagogues and other such mountebanks, and that is its aim everywhere else. . H.l. Mencken
About This Quote

John Stuart Mill believed that the primary purpose of education is to make citizens, not to make individuals. He believed that the primary purpose of education was to make citizens by reducing individuals to a standard. This is why he said in "The Subjection of Women" that "the general culture of the population in England must be by degrees changed into a common culture - which, in our times, means the culture of mediocrity."

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