ANOTHER COMPARISON TIDBIT

I can't remember which conservative radio show but I do remember that a caller objected to public eduction simply because it was advocated in The Communist Manifesto:

10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.

At the time, I also didn't recall that in The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith also advocated universal public education:

But though the common people cannot, in any
civilized society, be so well instructed as people
of some rank and fortune; the most essential
parts of education, however, to read, write,
and account, can be acquired at so early a
period of life, that the greater part, even of
those who are to be bred to the lowest
occupations, have time to acquire them before
they can be employed in those occupations.
For a very small expense, the public can
facilitate, can encourage and can even impose
upon almost the whole body of the people, the
necessity of acquiring those most essential
parts of education.

The public can facilitate this acquisition, by
establishing in every parish or district a little
school, where children maybe taught for a
reward so moderate, that even a common
labourer may afford it; the master being partly,
but not wholly, paid by the public; because, if
he was wholly, or even principally, paid by it,
he would soon learn to neglect his business.