“For law, in its true notion, is not so much the limitation, as the direction of a free and intelligent agent to his proper interest, and prescribes no farther than is for the general good of those under law… So that, however it may be mistaken, the end of law is not to abolish or restrain, but to preserve and enlarge freedom. For liberty is to be free from restraint and violence from others which cannot be where there is no law: but freedom is not, as we are told, ‘a liberty for every man to do what he lists.’
“The power, then, that parents have over their children, arises from that duty which is incumbent on them, to take care of their offspring during the imperfect state of childhood. To inform the mind, and govern the actions of their yet ignorant nonage, till reason shall take its place, and ease them of that trouble, is what the children want, and the parents are bound to.”
John Lock: Second Treatise on Government, Chpt. 6, paragraphs 56-57