[Louis Foxwell]

...there have been some fine thinkers with mighty little schooling.

Incorrect. Little public indoctrination, perhaps. To become a fine thinker requires substantial schooling, typically home schooling.

[9YearLurker]

Now you’re using schooling in a sense that doesn’t involve a school.

[knarf]

As I age, I am aware that my ability to "think" hardens a little because without daily, physical stimuli, my mind functions on known patterns that serve well, but do not necesarilly allow the original conclusions I was once familiar.

OK ... I know what that means, anyway.

I come to FR because the many minds and wordsmiths here are what I need to stay challenged.

[Blind Eye Jones]

“To become a fine thinker requires substantial schooling, typically home schooling.”

I think you are wrong about this. The classical education you so highly praise points to Socrates (Socratic dialogues) but Socrates never went to school. He, apparently, was a brick layer who was accepted by the Athenian aristocracy on his abilities to think. If anything he was self educated by his natural curiosity on subjects ranging from science (early Socrates) to virtue (later Socrates).

But, for the most part, Socrates is the exception and not the rule. The value of a classical education is to assess bias in an unbiased way and that, for me, is a far better way to go than viewing everything through the same Marxist lens of grievance and social justice.