We can state that the reduction in illiteracy in Italy is due not so much to the law on compulsory education, as to the intellectual awakening, the awareness of certain spiritual needs that socialist propaganda has succeeded in arousing amongst the ranks of the proletariat in Italy. But we have gone no further than that. Education in Italy is still a rigidly bourgeois affair, in the worst sense of the word. Grammar schools and higher education, which are State-run and hence financed fro. State revenues, i.e. by the direct taxes paid by the proletariat, can only be attended by the children of the bourgeoisie, who alone enjoy the economic independence needed for uninterrupted study.
Culture is a privilege.
Education is a privilege. And we do not want it to be so. All young people should be equal before culture. Using the funds of all citizens, the State should not be financing the education of the children of wealthy parents no matter how mediocre or deficient they may be, while it excludes even the most intelligent and capable children of proletarians. Grammar-school and higher education should be open only to those who can demonstrate that they are worthy of it.