ABSTRACT
The essential purpose of education is to bring the pupil face to face with something great, so that he experiences first awe and then curiosity. Since the time of Socrates at least people have struggled with the question whether goodness can be taught. Socrates' answer was that even if it was impossible to say authoritatively what goodness is, so that it cannot be packaged and sold to the pupil, true education has at its heart the moral formation of the disciple, or rather drawing forth, or allowing to emerge, a character and life-style which is directed towards the Good. The Sophists were derided by Socrates for having a radically inadequate understanding of education and of philosophy. The place of education and the public schools in the struggle about segregation in the United States is significant. There are many who claim that moral education today is probably impossible and certainly undesirable.
