Whose interests should the schools serve--the nation's or my child's? Quite properly, ambivalence abounds in answer to this question as we wrestle with the need to do both simultaneously. Public schools today enroll 89 percent of our schoolchildren, a higher fraction than during most of our nation's history. These institutions came into being to assure that the republic formed after the American Revolution would have a citizenry that was equipped to govern itself. The early leaders of the republic wanted citizens who were both loyal to this new form of government and who had the capacity to make informed decisions about its governance. Their solution for providing this was public education and a free press, which depended upon literate readers. Eventually taxes went to support the schools, taxes from everybody, not just parents, because it was believed that the fruits of education, informed citizens, would benefit everybody. Local school boards became one of the primary examples of direct democracy in which citizens with or without children in school made decisions about the education of the young. In this article, the author explores a schools purpose on two levels--an individual level and a national level.