SCHOOL, Freedom of. - It is a natural consequence of freedom of teaching (v. TEACHING, FREEDOM of) and concerns the organization of the school in the hands of private individuals and other bodies that are not the State or parastatal bodies.
If the State has the right of inspection and control over schools of any kind, in turn individual and private initiative has the right to try all the paths that can lead to the best formation and education of man. This is more evident for the so-called paternal school, which is carried out within the family, where the State cannot intervene except to verify that there do not remain all of education, without burdens for the State.
The law, in establishing the rights and obligations of non-state schools that request parity, must assure them full freedom and to their pupils a scholastic treatment equivalent to that of pupils of state schools.
A State examination is prescribed for admission to the various orders and grades of school or for the conclusion of them and for qualification for professional practice.
Institutions of higher culture, universities and academies, have the right to give themselves autonomous systems within the limits established by the laws of the State.'
Art. 34: 'the school is open to all. Lower instruction, imparted for at least eight years, is obligatory and free.
The capable and deserving, even if lacking means, have the right to reach the highest grades of study.
The Republic makes this right effective with scholarships, allowances to families and other provisions, which must be assigned by competition.'
These are principles, however, that do not entirely and perfectly correspond to the right of full freedom of the school (cf. the absolute denial of state subsidies) and moreover they are difficult to apply, because they appear revolutionary to a mentality, still widely diffused, particularly in official spheres, that gives the state school a position of privilege and merely tolerates the other schools. These are judged summarily as having arisen only to take in the rejects of the State schools. This is not true in fact for many of them and at the same time is proof of the misunderstanding of the
201 SCHOOL, FREEDOM OF - SCHOOL OF CHRISTIAN ART «BLESSED ANGELICO» 202
very principle of freedom, whereby the realization of the human faculty of educating comes to be restricted, concentrating it in certain official organs, and the advantages that arise from emulation and competition even in this field come to be excluded. If the State does well to make use of the state school in its actual effectiveness of output, it must not however identify itself with it. By its nature the State is above the state school, precisely because its end is not the good of one of its possible functions, but the common good; and this imposes on it the duty to take an interest, intelligently, in every kind of activity useful and in some way beneficial to the social body. The State cannot ignore that the free school corresponds in fact to a legitimate social requirement. Moreover it relieves it of a moral burden that would weigh upon it if that school did not exist. And also of a financial burden. For example, in Italy it is calculated that it saves the State budget annually an expense that is estimated today at from 15 to 20 billion: the calculation is based on the recently reported figures of what each pupil of its schools costs the State and varies, of course, according to the types of school. This without counting the expenses for school buildings. On such a factual datum, on the common interest that free schools, duly recognized as viable, be helped to reach the development of which they are capable, and finally on reasons of social justice (fair salaries for teachers) is justified the request for a financial contribution from the State to the free school. For religious teaching in schools, especially in Italy, v. SCHOOL.
Bibliography10 works
Giuseppe Bozzetti