The issue of federal aid to parochial schools is often approached largely in terms of whether such aid is compatible with the separation between church and state. Yet many other questions of social policy are involved here as well, not the least of which is the effect federal aid could have on American voluntarism in general. We have therefore invited two writers who agree in their estimate of the enormous importance of voluntarism in American life, but who take radically opposing views of how federal aid to private schools would affect it, to argue their cases for the readers of COMMENTARY.

ERNEST VAN DEN HAAG, whose article "Affluence, Galbraith, the Democrats" (September 1960) provoked wide discussion, teaches sociology at New York University and the New School for Social Research. He is the author (with Ralph Ross) of The Fabric of Society and Education as an Industry. OSCAR HANDLIN, a veteran contributor to COMMENTARY, is professor of history at Harvard and director of the Center for the Study of the History of Liberty in America. His works include The Uprooted, Chance or Destiny: Turning Points in American History, and Race and Nationality in American Life.

Ernest van den Haag: In one form or another, we all support public education with our taxes. If we have no offspring, we are supposed to benefit nonetheless: other people's children might be more of a nuisance if not kept in school; and there is always the chance that they might learn something useful to us there. (A tenuous justification, but let it go.) Those of us, however, who send our children to private schools pay for the public school they do not use and also for their private school. Is that fair?

© 2009 Commentary Inc.