_The General Obligation of School Attendance._--The economic order of to-day, based as it is upon free competition, should impose like conditions upon all the competitors in the economic struggle. We cannot speak of free competition unless all the competitors start from scratch; in a system of free competition all should start with the same educational opportunities. As time goes on the desire becomes ever more general that every member of the community should secure a certain minimum of education; and it is felt that the State is not merely justified but obliged to secure this minimum for all. Thus it becomes continually more important that every adult should have this elementary minimum of education. The existing economic order is based upon a general knowledge of writing and reading. One unable to read or write is hardly in a position to safeguard his most elementary interests. He should also know the first principles of arithmetic, inasmuch as to-day the value of all commodities is expressed in multiples of the monetary unit. The State is well aware that compulsory education involves a limitation of personal freedom and an interference with family life; but none the less the modern State finds it necessary to insist that every child shall receive a minimum of education. The State imposes the duty upon those responsible for the care of the child, of sending this child to the public elementary school from the age of six to the age of fifteen, or, in default of this, of giving the child an equivalent education at home. On the one hand, the State itself institutes public elementary schools; and, on the other hand, the State gives to the various religious organisations, to the local authorities, and to private individuals, the right to found and carry on elementary schools, with the proviso that in these schools children shall receive the same education (neither more nor less) as in the State schools. Thus, the State has no concern as to what education the child’s relatives may think desirable, but exercises compulsion to secure the adoption of its own educational standard, either by inflicting penalties if the child does not attend school, or even by removal of the child for compulsory education away from home.