When the Caliph recruited Abu Bakr Muhammad ibn Zakaria Al-Razi to direct a new hospital in Baghdad, Al-Razi secured permission to choose the location where the hospital would be built. In order to choose the best site, Al-Razi had fresh meat hung at several locations around the city. After some time, he had the meat brought back to him and he chose for the hospital the location of the meat that had rotted the least.

In his commentary today, “In Praise of Educational Pluralism,” Danny Shahar of FEE identifies as a significant argument for government schooling (and government oversight of schooling) the idea that “every child deserves a proper education and that, although government education has its share of problems, at least we can keep an eye on who is being allowed to teach and what they are teaching.”

Shahar says the argument is misguided for two reasons:

1. It misunderstands the market.
2. “But there is another reason to question the idea that governments must be involved to ensure that our children receive a proper education. That reason is that there is no such thing as a proper education.“

Yes, excellent.

Shahar also quotes philosopher David Schmidtz:

In effect, there are two ways to agree: We agree on what is correct, or on who has jurisdiction — who gets to decide. Freedom of religion took the latter form; we learned to be liberals in matters of religion, reaching consensus not on what to believe but on who gets to decide. So too with freedom of speech. Isn’t it odd that our greatest successes in learning to live together stem not from agreeing on what is correct but from agreeing to let people decide for themselves?

Read the article. It’s short.