"In 1814, Thomas Jefferson denounced one of the "Great Books of the Western World," Plato's Republic:

"‘While wading through the whimsies, the puerilities and unintelligible jargon of this work, I laid it down often to ask myself how it could have been, that the world should have so long consented to give reputation to such nonsense as this?[F]ashion and authority apart, and bringing Plato to the test of reason, take from him his sophisms, futilities and incomprehensibilities, and what remains?’

"John Adams agreed with Jefferson's assessment. Recalling the ‘tedious toil’ of reading Plato's works, Adams declared: ‘My disappointment was very great, my astonishment was greater, and my disgust shocking.’ Adams believed that Plato's defense of communal property (including a community of wives) was ‘destructive of human happiness’ and was ‘contrived to transform men and women into brutes, Yahoos, or demons.’" (251)

"In 1902, the New Hampshire Supreme Court declared:

"‘Free schooling . . . is not s much a right to pupils as a duty imposed upon them for the public good. If they do not voluntarily attend the schools provided for them, they may be compelled to do so. While most people regard the public schools as the means of great advantage to the pupils, the fact is too often overlooked that they are governmental means of protecting the state from consequences of an ignorant and incompetent citizenship.’" (265-65)