Walter, I can't disagree with you, but at the same time I think of one of my own intellectual heroes: Eric Hoffer. He never got a degree but he also never stopped reading at libraries and reflecting on what he read. And myself? All I have is a B.A. in History, but I also continued reading history, politics, theology and literature even unto this writing. Am I 'educated'?

Hoffer quoted the great nuclear physicist Ernest Rutherford, later Lord Rutherford, as saying that he was never sure of the merit of any idea unless and until it could be expressed in language which a janitor or charwoman could understand. I think part of a proper education has to be to know how to put one's learnings into plain speech and save the shop talk for one's colleagues. What think you, my worthy friend? Seriously.