Abstract: | abstract This paper, starting from a critique of the modern educational system and a brief discussion of the concepts of hierarchy and authority in education, offers a critical examination of a number of libertarian approaches to education. These libertarian approaches to education are examined within the framework of a conception of Democratic paideia, which is in its turn hastily presented in the concluding section. The power of instruction is seldom of much efficacy except in those happy dispositions where it is almost superfluous. Gibbon |