The Romans lived through extorsion while we live trough industry.

Frédéric Bastiat
Complete Works, Volume 7, pages 4 to 10 (in French)
1834

This text was written following a Town Hall meeting in Bayonne that decided to postpone the founding of a high school because of the building of a theatre. This gave the opportunity to Frédéric Bastiat to expose the education system in France, which focused on teaching Latin and Greek, in which the pupils were generally not very interested and that they would forget as soon as practicable in their adult life, to the detriment of teaching science, history and foreign languages. He is not as resentful as he will be in Baccalaureate and Socialism in which he will expose the propaganda the State is conducing through national education but here is most of his critique of Latin and Greek teachings.

This is the topic of today’s quote, which introduces a list of oppositions between the culture in Antiquity and that of France in the 19th century: “The Romans lived through extorsion while we live through industry; they scorned labour while we honour it; they let slaves produce wealth while it is exactly what we have assigned to ourselves; they were organised for war while we are organised for peace; they were organised for plunder while we are organised for trade; they yearned for domination while we yearn for the fusion of peoples”.

Frédéric Bastiat saw the teaching and the admiration for these slave owners as a source of weakness for the French people whose worldview was distorted. Implementing a programme focused on science should have allowed to get the kids ready to brave adult life in a much more efficient way and this is what he is supporting here.