Education means paradoxically learning something even while, or perhaps in spite of, being in school. It is highly doubtful if many who have received high school or college diplomas are “educated.” They probably can read and write. But when they come to recount what they have actually read, they are functionally illiterate.

Many people, rightly, blame the educational “system” for this unfortunate condition. But some of it is our own choice. Johnson said that the best thing that you can do for a boy is “to teach him how to read.” Once the lad can read, he is free to pursue what is there to read. His mind can range over the curious adventure of mankind in its abiding search for an explanation of what it is all about.

Of course, the problem today is that even if he suspects that he ought to read something, no one can agree on what it should be. The authorities on the matter disagree as well. In taking up the adventure of reading, we soon find that the works in the ever-available “great books” programs contradict each other. It is not a bad thing to read what is plainly wrong or makes no sense whatsoever. Knowing what does not make sense is often as valuable as knowing what does, and a good list helps orient us with exposure to good and bad books.

We are born with minds, not books. We are not limited to what we read. But we are limited. We are not gods who know everything by knowing their own being. The immediate origin of our knowledge comes from the fact that our minds are directed to the things out there that are not ourselves. Knowledge enables us to be more than ourselves with our own limited experience. Socrates admonished us to “know ourselves.” This is good advice provided we realize that we can only know ourselves when we first know something that is not ourselves. The irony is that to know ourselves, we have to know something not ourselves. Ironically, our freedom is rooted in this capacity.– from “On Being Educated”