Public Education or The Education of the Public?

"A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body."

-- John Stuart Mill
(1806-1873) English philosopher and economist

Source: On Liberty

http://quotes.liberty-tree.ca/quote_blog/John.Stuart.Mill.Quote.5789