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Education is specifically a human activity. Our minds are like handles to which alternative systems of culture can be fitted. So far, in most human societies, education, in the broad sense of
teh transmission of a cultural heritage, has been an unself-conscious activity. People have mostly acquired their ancestral culture in the way they learn their mother tongue. This unsophisticated kind of education
continues to play an important part even in societies in process of civilisation in which organised and formal systems of education have come to be estimated. Even in educational institutions in
which the official staple is book-learning the forming of habits and training of character are still largely left to be taken care of by the spontaneous effects of social relations. What
the child brings with him from his home may count for as much as what is deliberately impressed upon at school. The importance of the home's contribution comes to light when
an educational institution that has been the preserve of some privileged minority is thrown open to a wider public. It takes more than one generation for a family that has made
its way out of a less privileged into a more privileged social class to acquire the full cultural heritage of the class to which it has won admission. A society enters
on the process of civilisation as soon as it can afford to maintain a minority, however small, whose time and energy is not wholly taken up in producing food and other
primary necessities of life. This leisured minority is the social mileau in which an organised life and unself-conscious apprenticeship in the older generation way of life comes to be supplemented, more
and more, by the organised and self-conscious instructions which is what we mean today in our society when we use the word 'education'. But every good thing has its price, and
teh transmission of a cultural heritage, has been an unself-conscious activity. People have mostly acquired their ancestral culture in the way they learn their mother tongue. This unsophisticated kind of education
continues to play an important part even in societies in process of civilisation in which organised and formal systems of education have come to be estimated. Even in educational institutions in
which the official staple is book-learning the forming of habits and training of character are still largely left to be taken care of by the spontaneous effects of social relations. What
the child brings with him from his home may count for as much as what is deliberately impressed upon at school. The importance of the home's contribution comes to light when
an educational institution that has been the preserve of some privileged minority is thrown open to a wider public. It takes more than one generation for a family that has made
its way out of a less privileged into a more privileged social class to acquire the full cultural heritage of the class to which it has won admission. A society enters
on the process of civilisation as soon as it can afford to maintain a minority, however small, whose time and energy is not wholly taken up in producing food and other
primary necessities of life. This leisured minority is the social mileau in which an organised life and unself-conscious apprenticeship in the older generation way of life comes to be supplemented, more
and more, by the organised and self-conscious instructions which is what we mean today in our society when we use the word 'education'. But every good thing has its price, and
