What was the original purpose of education?

We go to school so that we can learn. We learn how to live in the real world from being around all sorts of people that we might experience in the work world.

Why then was it so that not so long before the 20th century that people went to learn and all they did was work in factories?

Why couldn't they get better jobs?

Secondly... if the purpose of education is to learn... why weren't they learning?

Why did it take us nearly two centuries for the nation to create a way to teach us education so that we could get better jobs?

Why did the elite not change the method of teaching and the purposes for education before then? What were their original motives for giving people a really bad education?
[edit on 23-3-2008 by Frankidealist35]

[edit on 23-3-2008 by Frankidealist35]

Bad lesson plans perhaps? Low quality teachers not suited to be teachers as they should be? Could be many factors but I doubt the elite would be involved everyday lives of students and teachers, especially many teachers that do care about educating their kids. Best thing to do is get students involved isntead of giving them things to do like fill in the blanks while going back to your desk and check your email or playing games.

I think the reason for the required schooling (that eventually became 12th grade) was because there needed to be taught and instilled in youth...
soon to be adults... that basic math, language arts, literacy were basic needs for a society to function --

add the instilling of 'Patriotism' which would include 'Civics' and add in a sprinkle in a religious persuasion into the mix,
and you have the basic indoctrinations necessary for a society and culture to grow.... (and one has oodles of ways to manage & quietly manipulate the masses...)

While it's true that we are taught what we should know when we go to school I do believe that the system needs to be changed a little bit. For one, I believe that if a parent doesn't want their child to go to a public school that their child should be allowed to go to a private school and their child should be allowed to go to a different school with the money of the parent's tax dollars. A child that isn't learning well at a public school will not get the full benefit of the education there. I think that the system needs to be changed a bit before we can become a fully educated society as there are going to be people that are still uneducated as a result of the system we have but I suppose we have to live with that.

As far as people that grew up in the 20th century without much of a good education I have to think that there must have been some reason that the government didn't intervene and change the education standard in the United States. People that are uneducated have a poorer quality of living than those that are educated (some might disagree but this is what I believe to be true). If the government knew that, they were either widely disinterested with that, or they didn't change anything since they were in such disagreement on what education should be like.

So, that being said, why weren't people learning, willing to learn, or being taught what they needed to know? Bad lesson plans may be one reason but I think the elite are wealthy and educated enough to know why people would want to really become educated and I think they would have a reason to dumb the masses. For the society they lived in they didn't really need to be educated since they were working in factories almost all the time. However, why didn't the government realize that people would complain about the working conditions and try to make another system where people would be more happy?