I am quite fond of the purpose of education as described by John Alexander Smith, Professor of Moral Philosophy at Oxford in 1914: “Nothing that you will learn in the course of your studies will be of the slightest possible use to you in after life – save only this – if you work hard and diligently you should be able to detect when a man is talking rot, and that, in my view, is the main, if not the sole, purpose of education.”
By that standard, American education is a dismal failure.
I couldn’t agree more. I would say the public schools are now engaged in the task of teaching children to prefer rot.