Full Idea
It is often desirable that beneficial things should be done by individuals, rather than by the government, as a means to their own mental education.
Gist of Idea
Benefits performed by individuals, not by government, help also to educate them
Source
John Stuart Mill (On Liberty [1857], Ch.5)
Book Reference
Mill,John Stuart: 'Utilitarianism (including On Liberty etc)', ed/tr. Warnock,Mary [Fontana 1962], p.243
A Reaction
This raises the important danger, which even those on the political left must acknowledge, of the 'nanny state'. It offers a nicely paternalistic, and even patronising reason for giving people freedom, just as a parent might to a child.