The illiterate parent cannot, if he would, disobey the compulsory school law.

The poverty-stricken parent must either starve himself to feed his children according to the demands of the health board or he must accept public or private charity for their sustenance according to modern demands.

The ignorant parent must submit to treatment of his children by public nurse or doctor of whom he may be afraid.

The parent not ignorant, but differing from the majority as to what will prevent disease or cure it, must accept the public rule.
The decay of domestic industry and the growth of the factory system have given rise to so many and serious social dangers that laws are now passed forbidding home manufacture on grounds of need to abolish sweatshop conditions, although to many such prohibition seems, and to some may be, the denial of parental moral protection to children and youth in families of the very poor.

The training for self-supporting work, which came about so naturally from within the household in the handicraft stage of industry, now requires many public agencies of education.