ABSTRACT
Formal instruction in organized schools has functioned not only to transmit adult culture to a new generation but also to displace local dialects and the chaos of traditional weights and measures. The transmission of culture from older to younger generation always involves a kind of alienation and sometimes a 'revolt of youth'. The societies in which the western type of state education developed were already highly organized and equipped with prototype schools at all levels. Educators are lectured much these days about their callousness in imposing 'middle-class' standards upon working-class children, and schools are accused of indifference to the meritorious elements in 'popular' culture. Probably for most individuals 'national' education brings a deepening as well as a broadening of allegiances, though some interests will atrophy. The cumulative potentialities of education in arousing a taste for more education are more likely to be realized where the supply of schooling is generous.
