1 We usestate to refer to all agents and institutions of the state, including local school boards.

2 See the work of Zuckert, Michael which contests the thesis that Locke and liberalism were essentially Christian: Natural Rights and the New Republicanism (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), esp. pp. 91–93,187,261–72;Google Scholar and The Natural Rights Republic: A Study in the Foundations of the American Political Tradition (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 1996), esp. pp. 154–59, 171–201.Google Scholar

3 See Carter, Stephen L., The Culture of Disbelief (New York: Basic Books, 1993), pp. 124–35.Google Scholar

4 Democrats also need religion's moral capital. Robert Barro shows that increases in the percentage of persons who identify themselves as having no religion decreases a country's level of democracy in the next decade. See “Democracy and the Rule of Law”, presented at the Templeton Foundation conference on Liberty, Newport, Rhode Island, 9 May 1999, available through the Department of Economics, Harvard University.

5 It is still less clear that most people are able to comply with postmodern liberalism's antidote to this problem: expanding their sense of “one of us” beyond their immediate family or kin to all Americans and, finally, to all human beings. See Callan, Eamonn, Creating Citizens: Political Education and Liberal Democracy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 130–31CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Callan follows Richard Rorty here, especially in insisting that the sense of solidarity so developed is the sole dependable psychological motive for moral action.

6 Dewey, John, Democracy and Education (New York: The Free Press, 1944), p. 82.Google Scholar

7 Callan, , Creating Citizens, p. 152.Google Scholar

8 Gutmann, Amy, Democratic Education (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1987), p. 39.Google Scholar

9 Callan, Eamonn, “Political Liberalism and Political Education,” Review of Politics 58:1 (1996): 16.Google Scholar

10 John Locke, Some Thoughts Concerning Education, sec. 216. For Locke's general view of the adversarial relation between custom or tradition and education see his First Treatise of Government, sec. 58: “when Fashion hath once established, what Folly or craft began, Custom makes it Sacred, and 'twill be thought impudence or madness, to contradict or question it”.

11 Locke, Some Thoughts, sec. 70.

12 Locke, Some Thoughts, sec. 70.

13 Callan, , Creating Citizens, p. 202Google Scholar. Cf. Plato, , Republic 409b-dGoogle Scholar (on the importance of being a “late learner of what injustice is” in order to become a good man).

14 Locke, Second Treatise, sec. 63.

15 Lasch, Christopher, Haven in a Heartless World: The Family Besieged (New York: Basic Books, 1979), p. 3.Google Scholar

16 Locke, First Treatise, secs. 56–57.

17 Locke, John, A Letter Concerning Toleration (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1983), pp. 40–42.Google Scholar

18 Callan, (Creating Citizens, pp. 149ff.)Google Scholar concedes this point. He admits that lives that reject autonomy may be happy and fulfilling (p. 151). But he still charges parents who restrict their children's “personal sovereignty” (i.e., their ability to decide for themselves whether to accept or reject autonomy) with despotism (benign or otherwise). Classical philosophy, no less than religion, would claim that this distinction still begs the question of whether individuals are (or should be) sovereign..

19 Tarcov, Nathan, Locke's Education for Liberty (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1984), pp. 47–48.Google Scholar

20 See Second Treatise, secs. 2, 52–53, 71, 94.

21 Locke, First Treatise, sec. 10, emphasis added; see too sec. 106.

22 Locke, Second Treatise, sec. 63.

23 Locke, , Essay Concerning Human Understanding, 2.21.55.Google Scholar

24 See Pangle, Thomas L., The Spirit of Modern Republicanism (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1988), pp. 207–208.Google Scholar

25 Locke, Some Thoughts, sec. 33. See also secs. 38 and 45 (where Locke admits that his educational goal is “contrary to unguided nature”).

26 Locke, Second Treatise, sec. 34.

27 Mill, John Stuart, On Liberty (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1978), p. 54.Google Scholar

28 A democratic “majority” is as capable as any other form of government of exercising a “despotism over the mind” (ibid., p. 105).

29 Locke, , A Letter Concerning Toleration, p. 26.Google Scholar

30 Locke's revamped and protected family will, we note, be itself enlisted to teach a sense of independence (Second Treatise, secs. 65, 69).

31 Mill, , On Liberty, pp. 104, 106.Google Scholar

32 Locke, Some Thoughts, Dedication.

33 ibid., secs. 135, 189.

34 Mill, , On Liberty, p. 105.Google Scholar

35 Locke's readiness to exchange total autonomy for ordered liberty is perhaps best summed up in his admonition that “where there is no Law, there is no Freedom” (Second Treatise, sec. 57, emphasis in original).

36 Pangle, Lorraine Smith and Pangle, Thomas L., The Learning of Liberty (Lawrence, KS: University of Kansas Press, 1993), p. 92.Google Scholar

37 This summary description of Coram's views, along with the relevant primary quotations, is from Pangle and Pangle, (ibid., p. 100).

38 Fott, David, John Dewey: America's Philosopher of Democracy (Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield, 1998), p. 38.Google Scholar

39 Dewey, , Democracy and Education, p. 87.Google Scholar

40 ibid., p. 122.

41 Rorty, Richard, Contingency, Irony, and Solidarity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989), p. 177.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

42 Students of Dewey will, of course, be encouraged to challenge the values and practices of their parents (and therewith, to some extent, those of their society). But they must still submit, at the end of the day, to the teachings of some combination of science, community, and professional educators. Gutmann is justified, when chiding “liberals” for seeking an educational “philosopher-king,” if she has Dewey (as well as Kant) in mind—but not if she intends Locke, (Democratic Education, p. 11).Google Scholar

43 Insofar as some contemporary liberals lack this confidence in rational self-interest, they undermine the basis of the liberal state to which they would turn to supply the defects of parents.

44 Locke, Some Thoughts, sec. 70.

45 See Dewey, , Democracy and Education, pp. 84–87Google Scholar. This view has the effect of allowing academic “guilds” to determine what passes for truth, another step down the illiberal, anti-individual road that Locke had wished us to avoid.

46 Ryan, Alan, John Dewey and the High Tide of American Liberalism (New York: Norton, 1995), p. 368.Google Scholar

47 Anderson, Charles W., Pragmatic Liberalism (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1990), p. 164.Google Scholar

48 West, Cornel, The American Evasion of Philosophy: A Genealogy of Pragmatism (Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1989).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

49 Dewey, John, Individualism Old & New (New York: Minton, Balch & Co., 1930), pp. 70, 81–82.Google Scholar

50 Callan notes that Dewey's democratic culture “consigns rights to a dangerously marginal role, at best” and will surely “impose unjust burdens on some.” See Callan, , Creating Citizens, pp. 10–11, 81.Google Scholar

51 Dewey, , Democracy and Education, p. 98.Google Scholar

52 Galston, William A., Liberal Purposes (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991), p. 255CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Consider also Plato Laws 888cl–3.

53 Fish, Stanley, “Boutique Multiculturalism,” inMulticulturalism and American Democracy, ed., Melzer, Arthur, Weinberger, Jerry, and Zinman, Richard (Lawrence, KS: University Press of Kansas, 1998), pp. 69–88.Google Scholar

54 Callan, , “Political Liberalism and Political Education,” p. 12Google Scholar. Callan's own integrity requires him to exclude even Robert Bork from reasonable discussion; Callan, , “Virtue, Dialogue, and the Common School,” American Journal of Education 104 (1995): 16CrossRefGoogle Scholar. For some unexplained reason, Callan has removed this comment from the parallel section of Creating Citizens, pp. 208–209.

55 Callan, , “Political Liberalism and Political Education,” p. 11.Google Scholar

56 Strauss, Leo, Natural Right and History (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953), p. 6.Google Scholar

57 Rorty, Richard, “Habermas and Lyotard on Postmodernity,” in Habermas and Modernity, ed. Bernstein, Richard J. (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985), p. 174.Google Scholar

58 See Carter, , The Culture of Disbelief, pp. 173, 179, 204.Google Scholar

59 For an example of the latter, see Ackerman, Bruce A., Social Justice in the Liberal State (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980).Google Scholar

60 Gutmann, , Democratic Education, pp. 15, 37, 95.Google Scholar

61 See Plato, Apology of Socrates 20bGoogle Scholar; also Grant, Ruth W. and Tarcov, Nathan, “Introduction” to Locke's, JohnSome Thoughts Concerning Education and Of the Conduct of the Understanding (Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Co., 1996), p. x.Google Scholar

62 Callan includes private schools within his definition of public (“common”) schools, so long as they practice open admissions and do not claim that one way of life is preferable to others.

63 Gutmann, , Democratic Education, pp. 118–19Google Scholar. She grants the key point to Locke in further admitting that no school knows how to teach Kohlberg's “morality of principle” or even autonomy (60).

64 Gutmann, Amy and Thompson, Dennis, Democracy and Disagreement (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1996), pp. 55–57, 65.Google Scholar

65 Crittenden, Brian S., Parents, the State, and the Right to Educate (Victoria: Melbourne University Press, 1988), p. 62.Google Scholar

66 Gutmann, , Democratic Education, p. 39.Google Scholar

67 See Gutmann, Amy, “Civic Education and Social Diversity,” Ethics 105 (1995):557–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar. See also Callan, , “Political Liberalism and Political Education,” p. 22.Google Scholar

68 Note the stress, in what claims to be a moral argument, on landing a good job (Gutmann, and Thompson, Democracy and Disagreement, pp. 320–22Google Scholar).

69 Rawls, John, Political Liberalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 1993), pp. 59–65.Google Scholar

70 Galston, , Liberal Purposes, p. 251Google Scholar. See also Galston, William A., “Two Concepts of Liberalism,” Ethics 105 (1995): 516–34.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

71 Rawls, , Political Liberalism, pp. 199–200Google Scholar; Galston, “Two Concepts.”

72 See Gilles, Stephen, “Educating Children: A Parentalist Manifesto,” University of Chicago Law Review 63 (1996): 972–83CrossRefGoogle Scholar. Callan describes himself as following Gutmann in defining autonomy as “reasoned self-rule” (Creating Citizens, p. 11).

73 Gutmann, , Democratic Education, p. 44Google Scholar. Contrast Rawls's discussion of parents as the only example of the “morality” of authority: if they “love” the child and “exemplify the morality which they enjoin,” they should, as a rule, be granted authority over the child. Rawls, John, A Theory of Justice (Cambridge: Belknap Press, 1971), pp. 562–67.Google Scholar

74 When focusing on the fact that neutrality cannot cultivate moral character, Gutmann actually concedes the legitimacy of “partially prejudicing” the choices of children (Democratic Education, p. 43, emphasis in original).

75 Gutmann, , “Introduction,” in Gutmann, Amy, ed., Multiculturalism: Examining the Politics of Recognition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994), pp. 15–19.Google Scholar

76 Gutmann, , “Civic Education,” p. 561Google Scholar. For a powerful demonstration that, to the contrary, liberalism requires (and would be wise to settle for) toleration rather than respect, see Kautz, Steven, Liberalism and Community (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1995), pp. 51–76.Google Scholar

77 Gutmann, , Democratic Education, p. 50.Google Scholar

78 ibid., p. 33.

79 Having denied us the chance to instill virtue in the political sphere (by replacing ruling with representative administration), liberalism now seems bent on denying it to us in the private or family sphere. It seeks to show, that is, that parents who wish to “raise” their children are repeating the same fundamental psychological or moral error that those who wished to “rule” societies exhibited in the past. Locke distinguished parental power from political power for the purpose, inter alia, of salvaging a subpolitical sphere (the family) in which the human longing to “govern” others for the other’ good could be carried on (see Second Treatise, sec. 170).

80 Gilles, , “Educating Children,” p. 981.Google Scholar

81 Callan is willing to concede (in a contrary-to-fact mood) that “if the deepest sources of human good had little connection to politics, and if personal autonomy estranged us from these sources, then perhaps we should go back to the drawing board and revise our theories of liberal politics and civic virtue so that they do not recommend the promotion of so unfortunate a disposition as autonomy” (“Political Liberalism and Political Education,” p. 24). We hope to convince Callan to take these possibilities seriously.

82 For an example of how school choice might encourage the type of diversity sought by political liberals, see Godwin, Kenneth, Kemerer, Frank, Martinez, Valerie, and Ruderman, Richard S., “Liberal Equity in Education: A Comparison of Choice Options.” Social Science Quarterly 79:3 (Fall 1998): 502–22.Google Scholar

83 Callan, , Creating Citizens, p. 112Google Scholar (quoting Gutmann, “The Disharmony of Democracy”).

84 A recent study has shown that private school students show greater respect for democratic principles and greater tolerance than do public school students. These relationships remained even with controls for ethnicity, gender, parent education, family income, and state of residence. See Godwin, Kenneth et al. , “Comparing Tolerance in Public, Private, and Evangelical Schools” (Paper presented at the Minorities and Education Conference,6 May 1999;George Bush Library,College Station, Texas).Google Scholar

85 See Steinberg, Laurence, Brown, Bradford, and Dornbusch, Sanford, Beyond the Classroom: Why Reform Has Failed and What Parents Need to Do (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1996)Google Scholar. Callan's response to Stephen Macedo's similar objection (Creating Citizens, p. 219) amounts, in our view, to forcing students to be accommodating without knowing why—hardly the morality of an autonomous being.

86 Callan, , Creating Citizens, p. 132Google Scholar.

87 In fact, Callan stands ready to sacrifice psychological health and “ignorant” moral beliefs to “tak[ing] the demands of truth and understanding seriously” (ibid., p. 134). In effect, he wishes to makes society safe for philosophers, not for average citizens.

88 Tarcov, , Locke's Education for Liberty, p. 76.Google Scholar

89 ibid., p. 72, emphasis added. That this remark is made about the man who first conceived the more famous separation of political power into diverse branches indicates how critical continued family influence was thought to be for liberalism.

90 See Foster, David, “Taming the Father: John Locke's Critique of Patriarchal Fatherhood,” Review of Politics 56 (1994): 641–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

91 Callan demands that we go beyond granting “nominal assent” to liberal principles and, instead, attain the “active and taxing psychological disposition” that actively adopts them in all our “beliefs” and “choices” (Creating Citizens, p. 34).

92 Kautz, , Liberalism and Community, pp. 10, 54–57, 69.Google Scholar

93 Nietzsche, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, bk. 1, chap. 11.