Man's essential characteristic is his rational faculty. Man's mind is his basic means of survival-his only means of
             gaining knowledge. Man cannot survive, as animals do, by the guidance of mere precepts. He cannot provide for
             his simplest physical needs without a process of thought. He needs a process of thought to discover how to plant
             and grow his food, or how to make weapons for hunting. His precepts might lead him to a cave, if one is
             available-but to build the simplest shelter, he needs a process of thought. No precepts and no "instincts" will tell him
             how to light a fire, how to weave cloth, how to forge tools, how to make a wheel, how to make an airplane, how to
             perform an appendectomy, how to produce an electric light bulb or an electronic tube, or a box of matches. Yet his
             life depends on such knowledge-and only a volitional act of his consciousness, a process of thought, can provide
             it. Informal education is the sharing of this knowledge, and formal education provides the building blocks to gain
             more knowledge.
             A formal definition by the Websters Dictionary would be :
             ed.u.ca.tion .ej-*-'ka--sh*n -shn*l, -sh*n-*l n 1a: the action or process of
             educating or of being educated; also : a stage of such a process 1b: the
             knowledge and development resulting from an educational process {a man
             of little ~} 2: the field of study that deals mainly with methods of teaching
             and learning in sch...