Changes in education

Today education in America is almost entirely commercial in focus: that is, we get an education in order to make a living. There was a time, however, when people obtained an education in order to learn, or in order to learn how to learn - to develop their minds. Quite a difference. Not many people in America today would consider it worthwhile to study the works of Shakespeare merely because he was a master of the English language, in order to learn how better to use the language. It is considered a waste of time to study Latin (being the dead language that it is) simply in order to learn the principles of grammar and to expand ones vocabulary, and to develop a knowledge of the language that underlies most western languages. Memorizing, merely to develop ones mine and memory for the sake of doing it, is passe. That would be a waste of time, because it is not directly related to making money.