The Welfare State is _not_ inevitable, as its proponents are so fond of telling us. There is nothing inherent in an industrialized economy, or in democratic processes of government that _must_ produce de Tocqueville’s “guardian society.” Our future, like our past, will be what we make it. And we can shatter the collectivists’ designs on individual freedom if we will impress upon the men who conduct our affairs this one truth: that the material and spiritual sides of man are intertwined; that it is impossible for the State to assume responsibility for one without intruding on the essential nature of the other; that if we take from a man the personal responsibility for caring for his material needs, we take from him also the will and the opportunity to be free. FOOTNOTE: [3] The total figure is substantially higher than the $15,000,000,000 noted above if we take into account welfare expenditures outside the Department of Health, Education and Welfare--for federal housing projects, for example. CHAPTER NINE Some Notes On Education I agree with lobbyists for federal school aid that education is one of the great problems of our day. I am afraid, however, that their views and mine regarding the nature of the problem are many miles apart. They tend to see the problem in _quantitative_ terms--not enough schools, not enough teachers, not enough equipment. I think it has to do with _quality_: How good are the schools we have? Their solution is to spend more money. Mine is to raise standards. Their recourse is to the federal government. Mine is to the local public school board, the private school, the individual citizen--as far away from the federal government as one can possibly go. And I suspect that if we knew which of these two views on education will eventually prevail, we would know also whether Western civilization is due to survive, or will pass away. To put this somewhat differently, I believe that our ability to cope with the great crises that lie ahead will be enhanced in direct ratio as we recapture the lost art of learning, and will diminish in direct ratio as we give responsibility for training our children’s minds to the federal bureaucracy. But let us put these differences aside for the moment and note four reasons why federal aid to education is objectionable even if we grant that the problem is primarily quantitative. The first is that federal intervention in education is unconstitutional. It is the fashion these days to say that responsibility for education “traditionally” rests with the local community--as a prelude to proposing an exception to the tradition in the form of federal aid. This “tradition,” let us remember, is also the _law_. It is sanctioned by the Constitution of the United States, for education is one of the powers reserved to the States by the Tenth Amendment. Therefore, any federal aid program, however desirable it might appear, must be regarded as illegal until such time as the Constitution is amended.