Is time a great teacher or books?

 He was ten years old.  He was selling socks in the Sunday market.  The language was regional and a little stuck in the national language.  The stall may have been installed by father or uncle.

    It was an hour ago.  I picked up a sock: "How many?"  "One of eight, two of fifty."  When I measured it, the size was a bit small.  When I started to keep it, he quickly broke its tag and agreed to let me wear it.  I wore it while keeping his heart.  I picked up five pairs in different colors.  By giving a discount of 10 rupees, he pocketed 370 rupees.

    This is the age of learning to work.  This child will learn to buy, sell, calculate and invest in the next fifteen years.  And our educated child?  He only studies for twenty-five, twenty-eight years.  Classes upon classes and exams upon exams.  He then goes out to the market for work and discovers the precious secret that what he had read was nonsense.  He has neither the experience needed for his business nor the real financial wisdom.  He is prepared to be a servant.

    Then he grinds his shoes, looks for a job, works like a thresher for the rest of his life, bemoans the low income, fears the boss will fire him and is overwhelmed by the expenses.  Look around you!  Many a suit-booted, tie-wearing, perfume-sprayed face will show a layer of worry behind it.  Interestingly, this problem is not his own, but his boss's.

    They say that education gives "consciousness"!  When the phrase is for higher education, I say the whole sentence is: "Education gives a slavish consciousness of one's will."