R. L. Dabney on the potential abuse of the public education system by the government

A pertinent description of the KMT (Chinese Nationalist Party) and whenever it is in power in Taiwan:

His one dominant thought is, how he may wrest the policy of the State, converting every object, commercial, industrial, military or judicial, to his partisan and pecuniary ends.

"Thus far the argument has proceeded on the supposition that the State will not intentionally pervert her educating power to corrupt ends.  A sorrowful experience teaches us that the supposition is never safe.  The modern "practical politician," like the mythical Harpies of Virgil, aims to grasp eveyrthing for his voracious appetite, and pollutes everything which he grasps.  His one dominant thought is, how he may wrest the policy of the State, converting every object, commercial, industrial, military or judicial, to his partisan and pecuniary ends.  Can we trust him to refrain from wresting this mighty but sacred educational function?  Let the intelligent student look around and observe for himself."  

* Dabney, R.L. The Practical Philosophy: Being The Philosophy of the Feelings, of the Will, and of the Conscience, with the Ascertainment of Particular Rights and Duties  (1897)  Republished (Harrisonburg: Sprinkle Publications, 1984).