In this commentary, the author discusses the critique by Max Weber and his views on bureaucratisation of education. The modern school, said Max Weber (1864-1920) over a hundred years ago, has as its educational ideal the bureaucrat and no longer the cultivated elite of older times. The shift to modernity and to its characteristic institution, the bureaucracy, was, according to Weber, concomitant with the emergence of a particular model of authority or legitimate domination. Domination and authority in older societies and in older educational institutions rested on personalised relationships as well as on tradition and convention. In education, it is possible to say that charismatic authority was one of the qualities of a good teacher, though, of course, being seen as a bearer of good traditions was also an asset. Bureaucracy thus relied heavily on an education into impersonality and impersonal relationships, that is, into a connection not with specific individuals but with principles and generalised rules. Weber's theory of bureaucracy recommends itself for study. It continues to be at the heart of a great deal of thinking about power in schools, and indeed in all organisations, and continues to shape and influence the future of our world.