“The preachers and lecturers deal with men of straw, as they are men of straw themselves. Why, a free-spoken man, of sound lungs, cannot draw a long breath without causing your rotten institutions to come toppling down by the vacuum he makes. Your church is a baby-house made of blocks, and so of the state. ...The church, the state, the school, the magazine, think they are liberal and free! It is the freedom of a prison-yard.” SchoolChurchPrisonFreeRottenSelf DeceptionStateLiberalPreachersMagazineStraw MenMen Of Straw Book:I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau Source: I to Myself: An Annotated Selection from the Journal of Henry D. Thoreau