purpose of education

I seldom read the GP notes given by the teacher, but I did that yesterday before my GP block test. From the notes on education, accidentally I find the answer for a question that I cannot answer for a long time, “what is taught in the current education is hardly useful when we are at work in the future, then why are we still learning it?” I roughly have an idea. However, because of my poor presentation and language skills, I cannot formulate my idea into a concise and easily understood sentence. Now I found it.

The original text goes like this,

“If the ancient were asked whether education should be vocational, they would say that the only vocation with which it should concerned is the common human calling- the pursuit of happiness. What we called specialized and vocational training- training for particular jobs- they would regard as the training of slaves, not the education of free man.”
My interpretation of the text answers my question. The question itself should not be asked in the first place because the purpose of education is not be to train skillful workers, which is most efficiently done when you do the work yourself. The current education should be teaching us the way to enjoy life and pursue happiness, through appreciation of philosophy, music, literature and natural science, etc. Thus we should not be sad, thinking that we are wasting our time in school. Actually we are learning the skills to appreciate life before we all become the slave of work.

Thus, I constant wonder that why the school does not offer subjects like philosophy and music for all students, as these are more important stuff which we should learn now and can never learn later. (Also then I will not spend that amount of money to learn it on myself =( hehe)