The Obedience Factory

A. C. Applebee and A. D. Masters

---

OMXUS Press — Paper No. 22

The Obedience Factory

How an eighteenth-century king designed your child's school — and why the evidence says stop.

A. C. Applebee & A. D. Masters
12,361 words
15 chapters
~49 min read

> In 1763, Frederick the Great of Prussia lost a war and needed obedient citizens. He built a system: children in rows, bells between periods, one teacher at the front, silence enforced, compliance rewarded. That system is still running. It is the school your child attends.

From the introduction

1763
Year the Prussian model was designed. Still running.


#1
Finland. No homework, no standardised tests. Best outcomes on earth.


0
Peer-reviewed studies showing homework improves learning in primary school.


98%
of 5-year-olds score "creative genius." By 31, it's 2%.

About this paper

Modern compulsory schooling traces its structural origins to the Prussian Generallandschulreglement of 1763, a system designed explicitly to produce obedient subjects for the state. Imported to the United States by Horace Mann in 1843 and subsequently adopted worldwide, the Prussian factory model remains the dominant paradigm of public education in 2026.

This paper examines evidence from six domains: the documented history of Prussian state schooling, Bryan Caplan's signalling model, homework meta-analyses, Finland's autonomy-based system, Montessori and Reggio Emilia, and the adolescent mental health crisis. We review NAPLAN as a case study in perverse incentives.

We find that the factory model has no basis in developmental science, performs the same or worse t