INSTRUCTION, FREEDOM OF. — This is one of the applications of natural law, that is, the right possessed by one who has the truth to communicate it to others. The exercise of this freedom receives from natural law itself certain limits, namely: possession of the requisite knowledge, honesty in what is taught, and the harmlessness of the manner of teaching. It is evident that one has no right to teach what is false or evil, and that anyone wishing to teach must neither disturb the exercise of this same right by others nor use coercion to obtain pupils, thereby violating their right to choose other teachers.
More commonly, f. of i. is understood as one of the political freedoms most debated in modern times, namely, the right of each citizen to organize schools and to receive from the State recognition and a financial subsidy proportionate to the actual performance of the schools themselves, while the State retains the right of inspection and supervision with regard to standards of hygiene, order, and public morality, as well as to educational results. This is how f. of i. is practiced, for example, in Belgium. Elsewhere, as also in Italy according to the recent Constitution, it is understood as the right to maintain schools permitted by the State under certain conditions; the State may also, after inspection, “equate them” with government schools for the legal purposes of attendance and examinations; but the Constitution excludes State participation in the expenses of such schools. This amounts to a concession by the State rather than the true and proper recognition of a right to teach. Thus there remains the principle of a right—if not exclusive, at least pre-eminent within the State—to organize schools; whereas such a right belongs by nature equally to all those capable of doing so, whether individuals
or collective persons (families, private societies, charitable institutions, parishes, dioceses, religious Orders, municipalities, provinces, the State, and the Church). The State also has the duty to provide wherever others do not, and it always has the duty and the right to supervise and inspect, as stated above. True f. of i. further requires the State to contribute to the expenses of all schools that satisfactorily fulfill their task (which must be verified by a special authority), distributing among them, whether government or otherwise, in proportion to the number of pupils, the money deducted from the total of public contributions for the purpose of allocating it to the expenses of national education. This is required for reasons of equity, since it is not equitable that those who do not send their children to government schools should pay the expenses of those who do; and out of respect for the principle of freedom of choice, which is a natural right of the family—a freedom evidently impeded or practically nullified by the greater financial burden resulting from not making use of government schools (v. SCUOLA, LIBERTÀ della).