The Obedience Factory

A. C. Applebee and A. D. Masters

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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 than alternatives on its own academic metrics, and produces demonstrably inferior outcomes on creativity, intrinsic motivation, social development, and mental health.

Inside

01A King Who Needed Soldiers
02The Prussian Origins: Schooling as State Infrastructure
03Why Schools Look Like Assembly Lines
04Caplan's Signalling Model: What If School Doesn't Even Teach?
05Finland: The Country That Did the Opposite
06The Homework Evidence
07Montessori: Evidence for an Alternative
08Reggio Emilia: The Hundred Languages of Children
09Play-Based Learning
10NAPLAN and the Australian Testing Regime
11The Creativity Study That May Not Exist
12The Mental Health Crisis and the School Connection
13What the Evidence Actually Says
14Dave, Chloe, and the Water Cycle
15References & Appendices

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Author's note

This paper exists because of Goal 12 (play-based education) (play-based education): Every school is play, mastery, curiosity.

That goal did not come from a policy seminar. It came from watching a seven-year-old cry because she drew the water cycle her own way and got a C.

The alternatives — Finland, Montessori, Reggio Emilia, play-based early childhood education — are not theoretical. They are running right now, in real countries, with real children, producing better results by every measure. Academic, creative, social, emotional. Every measure.

This paper does not soften. Softening would be a disservice to the children still sitting in rows, still being graded on their ability to reproduce predetermined answers, still being told that their curiosity is disruptive and their creativity is wrong.

— A.A. & L.N.C.

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