The major reasons for public education in history have included:[i]

• To benefit the "neighborhood" by protecting minors from ignorance: Literacy

• To make democracy work: Citizenship

• To provide equality of opportunity: Social Justice/Job Training

• To promote the quest for "common values":

- Religious communities: Morality

- Secular communities: Tolerance

• To promote economic growth: Career Training

In contrast, the wealthy and private schools have typically educated their young for one of two general themes:[ii]

• Happiness, fulfillment, self-improvement

• Leadership, achievement, service

From the Introduction:

For centuries, philosophers have contemplated the meaning of Life. One convenient metaphor is that Life is a school, a never-ending series of lessons in the art of being Human. By this measure, all learning is worthwhile; the knowledge gained in the school of "hard knocks" is just as valuable as that gained from brick-and-mortar institutions.

Of course, we can avoid the "knocks" for ourselves by choosing to discover the truths revealed in the trials of others. The core of such self-education is a good dose of classics.

However, even a constant diet of Great Books is useless if we do not study in a way that helps us to properly digest their Ideas!

Readers may be divided into four classes:

1. Sponges, who absorb all that they read and return it in nearly the same state, only a little dirtied.
2. Sand-glasses, who retain nothing and are content to get through a book for the sake of getting through the time.
3. Strain-bags, who retain merely the dregs of what they read.
4. Mogul diamonds, equally rare and valuable, who profit by what they read, and enable others to profit by it also.

~Samuel Taylor Coleridge

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