Education – defined by Webster’s Dictionary – is “the gradual process of acquiring knowledge;” however, it is so much more than that. A notable man of agreeing philosophy has conceived an adhering proverb that exemplifies this ideal. This man – Charles William Eliot, a fundamental President of Harvard University – was able to transform a languishing Harvard into the thriving center of academia it is today by simply basing his curriculum on the belief that education is more than merely gaining knowledge. This principle on one that still hold true today and has the capacity that shaped education in the past, enforces education in the present, and will define the education of the future.

Despite what it has come to be today, education as a whole had meager beginnings. The first documented learning facilities (despite home education) are one-room schoolhouses in which grades one through eight were all taught in the same room at the same time by one teacher. Although some would see this as an unaddressable obstacle today, educators of that time overcame all odds. Fulfilling there duties and beyond, teachers instilled in their students the passion for continual learning, which has carried through and remains alive today.

This hunger for learning created a society that is driven by acquiring knowledge. The world of education has exploded from a few small schoolhouses to an era of public and private primary, secondary, and post-secondary schools of varying degrees. Being as such, there is competition not only by nature by human implementation, also. It is seemingly impossible to thrive today without a formal education, and, therefore, education has taken the forefront, as it should.