History
Free education has long been identified with "sponsored education". This may now evoke images of advertising campaigns, but in the past, especially during the Renaissance, it was common practice among rich dignitaries to sponsor the education of a young man as his patron.
In the late 18th century, Thomas Paine was amongst the earliest proponents of universal, free public education, which was considered to be a radical idea at the time.
In the United States, the government's compulsory education was introduced as free or universal education during the late 19th century, and extended across the country by the 1920s.
Compulsory education is typically funded through taxes. Aggravated truancy can be prosecuted. Homeschooling, private or parochial schooling is usually a legal alternative.
As of the start of many free internet based learning institutions such as edX and mitX education is now free to anyone in the world with internet access. In many countries the policy for the merit system has not yet caught up with these recent advances in education technology.
Read more about this topic: Free Education
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“To a surprising extent the war-lords in shining armour, the apostles of the martial virtues, tend not to die fighting when the time comes. History is full of ignominious getaways by the great and famous.”
—George Orwell (1903–1950)
“What is most interesting and valuable in it, however, is not the materials for the history of Pontiac, or Braddock, or the Northwest, which it furnishes; not the annals of the country, but the natural facts, or perennials, which are ever without date. When out of history the truth shall be extracted, it will have shed its dates like withered leaves.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“If man is reduced to being nothing but a character in history, he has no other choice but to subside into the sound and fury of a completely irrational history or to endow history with the form of human reason.”
—Albert Camus (1913–1960)