“I have seen him that is set free from forced labor. Every artisan... is wearier than him who delveth. The stone mason, when has finished, his arms are destroyed and he is weary, The field worker, his reckoning endureth forever, The weaver... fareth more ill than any woman; his thighs are upon his belly and he breatheth no air. ... The fisherman's work is upon the river, where it is mixed with crocodiles. Behold, there is no calling without a director except the scribe. ... Thou art to set thine heart on learning.”

From the Egyptiac Instruction of Duauf, son of Khety


Since the dawn of civilization, with its diversification of labor and social class, education has been seen as the key to a better life and social advancement.

After the Agricultural Revolution, (ca. 6200 BCE), when priests were necessary to fashion calendars and engineers to devise irrigation systems, and literate people to keep records, higher education was essential; therefore it brought rewards.

A literate person was relieved of back-breaking manual labor. Ancient Egyptian records show that a man who wrote or read two or more letters per day for an illiterate population “ate well.” As in the Chinese Han empire, social advancement was impossible without training in the classics.

Greeks needed Latin to go into government, and Romans needed Greek for social purposes. The influence of the educated in the Roman empire was similar to the mandarin and Brahmin castes. Charlemagne, for example, made great efforts to educate his aristocracy.

Education did not always focus on literacy and classic literature. The medieval upper class was martial, and training at arms was essential for a gentleman. Fathers sent young aristocrats as pages to other noble courts or houses to learn cortesia and other things seen as appropriate to their social class.

Which brings up the point: Is education vital to the state, or more vital to the individual?

Historically speaking, both. The gymnasium was not our modern “gym” but also a sort of high school. The Greeks used it as part of the Hellenization process of conquered territories in Asia Minor, Syria and Egypt.

Most of the “Greeks” mentioned in the Bible were Greek-educated locals. The gymnasium not only provided opportunity for the individual fortunate enough to enter one but created a Greek-cultured ruling class for the cities, which were nominally independent under loosely drawn monarchies.

The explosion of technology in the 19th century expanded the need for both private and public education. Germany set the patterns for state-sponsored schools and universities, but American states and soon other nations founded “agricultural and mechanical” universities, whose curricula changed with technology and the economy.

Education on the college level was still mostly private until WWII. Since then, it has become overwhelmingly public. Just like free medical care, public education has become expensive and controversial.

And the questions, whether “education” is a vital tool to keep societies rich and competitive, train a directing class or create social equality, still remain unanswered.

T.R. Fehrenbach is an author and historian.