As we face the beginning of a new school year, it is good to remind ourselves that “schooling” and “education” are not synonyms. There are many schools where very little education seems to take place, and many highly educated people who had very little to do with schools. I wish the very best to those who attempt to educate children in schools, but the intrinsic disadvantages of this project must be acknowledged, however much individual schools may manage to overcome them. Schools find it very difficult to tailor teaching to the needs and interests of individual children; the formation of professional teachers today is more about educational ideology than the subjects they are supposedly teaching; the school environment tends to produce risk-averse conformists ill at ease in the company of adults; some schools struggle to ensure the physical safety of their charges, let alone to create an ideal environment for learning; no one in a school has the connection with the children that parents have, and they obviously lack the graces given to parents by the Sacrament of Matrimony, specifically to educate their offspring in the fear and love of God.