p71

The modern primary and secondary school system has been much altered by changing theories of pedagogy and, most especially, by affluence and the "youth culture" itself. But there is no mistaking its origins in the factory, if not the prison. Compulsory universal education, however democra tizing in one sense, has also meant that, with few exceptions, the students have to be there. The fact that attendance is not a choice, not an autonomous act, means that it starts out funda mentally on the wrong foot as a compulsory institution, with all the alienation that this duress implies, especially as children grow older.