With the school year blossoming anew, students scurrying off to buy lunch boxes, crayons, colored pencils, $300 worth of theology textbooks, one could easily get wrapped up in all the hustle and bustle of the wonderful and enchanting life of education. Yet there is a danger to eduction. G.K. Chesterton gives a warning that is very timely; one could say, timeless…

The moment men begin to care more for education than for religion they begin to care more for ambition than for education. It is no longer a world in which the souls of all are equal before heaven, but a world in which the mind of each is bent on achieving unequal advantage over the other. There begins to be a mere vanity in being educated whether it be self-educated or merely state-educated. Education ought to be a searchlight given to a man to explore everything, but very specially the things most distant from himself. Education tends to be a spotlight; which is centered entirely on himself. Some improvement may be made by turning equally vivid and perhaps vulgar spotlights upon a large number of other people as well. But the only final cure is to turn off the limelight and let him realize the stars.

-The Superstition of School, 1923