The individual who reaches this level of attainment is educated, even
though he may never have attended school. The one who falls below this
level is not truly educated, even though he may have had a surplus of
schooling.
To bring one's nature to full maturity, as represented by the best of
the adult community in which one grows up, is true education for life
in that community. Anything less than this falls short of its purpose.
Anything other than this is education misdirected.
In very early days, when community life was simple, practically all
of one's education was obtained through participating in community
activities, and without systematic teaching. From that day to this,
however, the social world has been growing more complex. Adults
have developed kinds of activities so complicated that youth cannot
adequately enter into them and learn them without systematic teaching.
At first these things were few; with the years they have grown very
numerous.
One of the earliest of these too-complicated activities was written
language--reading, writing, spelling. These matters became necessities
to the adult world; but youth under ordinary circumstances could not
participate in them as performed by adults sufficiently to master
them. They had to be taught; and the school thereby came into
existence. A second thing developed about the same time was the
complicated number system used by adults.
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