”I spent so many hours in that library. And the thing is, there were a handful of foreign books, and old books, and most of those had only been through two or three rounds of cuts, not eighty.”

The most relatable thing he has heard all day. He wasn’t quite as bothered by the old regime’s constant re-editing of books as she seems to be, though— if nothing else it meant there was always more to read. 

Either way, good choice, random noble whose name Molochio has already forgotten. 

“—I—completely agree with Korva. I mean, I didn’t find my way through with history at all, I got lucky enough to get my hands on a book that was just foreign and not censored at all, and to love it enough to spend my life hunting down more. But—yeah, books are so important.”

"If you can build a schoolhouse that doesn't lock and has no power to chase down any kid who'd rather go play outside, more power to you. If the library was that for you, I'm glad of it. I think anyone who makes their career of keeping a pack of children in a place they don't want to be will, every single time, get crueler and harsher to force those children to stay put, instead of getting usefuller and pleasanter to encourage them to choose to stay. They'll only try being usefuller and pleasanter if the children can fuck off at whim."

“I learned enough about Irori to be chosen by him after the Four Day War because I could read.  Reading opens up so many possibilities.  And I know a child that will deliberately bait a punch to the face if it means an extra hour of reading.”

" - well, Delegate Pages, having worked in an Asmodean and now Iomedan orphanage, I'd say that's difficult in the general case. But speaking of schools, and not places tasked with actually raising children, I can imagine the system working. Anyone's guess if it would in the real world."

"Delegate Tallandria, had schools been voluntary, and you had chosen to play instead of going, how would your mother have responded?"

"By beating me, obviously. But she wouldn't've used a cat, so I'd say we're still ahead."

"As I imagined. My parents, on the other hand, would have beaten me for going. 'Voluntary' attendance in no way means that the choice belongs to the students."

Nor should it, of course; the reason this is so is that exceedingly few children are equipped to make reasonable decisions in any respect. But parents are little better.

"While this is true, Delegate Caballé, in less Asmodean societies it is normally assumed that parents have their children's best interests at heart in a way that no institution can."

"It might be the case that if you don't allow schools to force children to show up, some of their parents will pick up the slack in the one direction or the other. But their parents won't collect a payment for their great and noble service to the Chelish state every week they set about it, now, will, they."

"Parents collect their payment by using children for labor today, rather than investing in tomorrow."

"It would be appropriate, in an Abadaran sense, to pay the parents who send their children to school. I doubt, however, that we could afford it in practice. Indeed, I suspect that the first thing we should be discussing is whether we can afford schools at all. My understanding is that Hell sponsored the old ones; could anyone provide more details on the nature of that?"

"Hell provided most of the materials used in schools. Book copies, uniforms, etcetera. But the core of the program is its staff, and apart from this past year, all the teachers have been human for half a century. Without the currency crisis, I would see no reason why we couldn't end our habit of ordering a million new textbooks each year, and carry on much as we were. The difficulty lies in the transition."

“And what of paying for the teachers, where we must continue to impoverish farmers by growing enough spare food to feed the parasites? And all the while more land goes untilled because the children cannot both help farm and waste time in a classroom. If you want to claim that this is a minor expense, you are a liar or a fool - both because of the enormous fortune that already goes into it, and because that’s still not enough to keep it sustainable without all the bribes they collect from farmers to overlook their absence from the classroom. The buildings are hardly free either, when such places in the hearts of town could be used for a dozen other purposes. And we would still need to replace the books because a child does not take good care of fragile paper, or else treble the assigned teachers to make it manageable.”

"The average primary school teacher is perfectly competent to provide laundry and mending services for the entire community. In the days before mass education, farmers simply spent long hours on these tasks themselves. If you want to require that every teacher offer them, we can, but I think it's a bit much to call them 'parasites'."

"My primary school teacher wasn't a wizard, he was a dropout cleric."

"My apologies, Chair Tallandria, for noting your Eloquent Speech in Shorthand; I can Transcribe it when the Committee has Closed, and deliver those Pages later."

"Until the Balance of Trade has Normalized, the Importation of Foreign Books may be a Necessity for any desirable System of Education. Moreover the very Knowledge of which Books exist that would be Salutary to Import is, I am afraid, likely Scarce within the bounds of the Empire."

"An Office whose Purpose is to learn and know which Books exist may not be a vast Expense; the Importation of at least one Copy of each would be a greater Expense, and the Importation or Reproduction of Salutary Books en masse a greater one still. I would propose that each exist, but the Priority is in the order I stated them; having at the very least the Information, a school may plan Acquisitions from its own Budget."

Lluïsa is blasé about beatings in school but they keep coming up unproductively, so also:

"And I would first propose for a Vote; that Corporal Punishment, defined as the use of Physical Force beyond that necessary for Restraint and Removal of the Physically Unruly, be prohibited, Expulsion being the remedy for Intractable Students."

Hopefully that satisfies the Committee on Beatings and we can have one on Education!

"Aye."

Thea isn't sure how you instill an initial level of discipline without any physical force, but apparently the schools were using cat o' nine tails and nearly killing their students, so she isn't going to argue in favor of corporal punishment.  Hopefully the students with potential all have enough discipline to start with that they won't be expelled.

Oh wait, are they voting?  She'll wait for the chair to acknowledge the vote before joining in.

On the one hand, keeping the beatings would make the school even more of a poison pill on the floor. On the other hand, she's not going to be able to stop it and looking like she's trying is probably bad for her chances of killing this program. And it's not like expulsion - and thereby reducing the number of people in school - isn't also a win. 

"Aye."

"Aye." If this passes, then even if the insane people who want the schools open get their way, they'll all be closed again within the year.

"Aye." 

"Oh come on, people. Vote to ban even voluntary education of anyone under the age of ten or twelve honestly, if that's what you want. If that is your sincere intent, we will vote on it, whatever I think of the consequences. But we will not vote until we have discussed those consequences."

"How many of you consider yourselves to have raised a child under the age of seven?"

She raises her hand.

She puts her hand partway up.