Education is one of the five hallmark institutions of society, along with political institutions, economic institutions, family institutions, and religious institutions. Indeed, education is experienced from the time you are born and you learn language and other cultural skills from your family. The development of a writing system is one of the hallmarks of civilization, which enables a society to record and preserve their thoughts, beliefs, ideas, inventions, innovations, etc. and pass them forward in time. Education also allows for concepts and ideas to pass from culture to culture, via trade, or migrations, or even conversions. When the European Crusaders journeyed through the Byzantine Empire of their way to the Holy Land, they picked up new ideas, new skills, new thoughts and concepts, which eventually lead to the intellectual rebirth of Europe called the Renaissance ~ an era in which backwater Europe would propel itself within 100 years to the top of the global food chain of civilizations. Human beings need each other, it
is that simple. Men hunted wild game in packs and women birthed and nurtured their families in packs. We are communal creatures – so when and why did the concept of individuality begin? We were for centuries defined by our gender, or our class, or our professions, or our utility to a society – but seldom were we defined by our unique qualities, unless we were the few and the fearless who aspired to greatness above the masses. And here is where the occasional person or people emerge who place more value on the unique ability of the individual, then on the herding instinct of the masses. Art became a way for the one to differentiate themselves from the many, as it expressed a part of them in a public setting. For example, the communalism of an army was always led by the individuality of a general and his art of military tactics. Athens is a good example of a society that stressed the power of the individual with the creation of Athenian Democracy that granted all citizens, males over 18, a voice in the politics of the city-state.