I think the following story illustrates the value of an education. (And I'm being serious here.)

In the summer of 1947 there was an "end-of-the-world" scare in Hazard, Kentucky. On a cloudless day, giant words spelled out in white vapor appeared in the sky. Many of the people in the area were unable to read, but they knew that God would place a sign in the sky when the end of the world came. So they gathered at the Perry County court house on Main Street in Hazard where preachers often delivered their messages to small crowds. But with the end of the world at hand, the crowd filled the square and spilled over into the street. People could be seen kneeling and praying as they waited for the end. Finally, the word spread that the letters were formed by a skywriter -- an ordinary human in a small plane. Slowly the crowd dispersed and the scare was over.
The skywriter flew so high his plane was only a speck as his mile-tall letters spelled out,"PEPSI-COLA, PEPSI-COLA, PEPSI-COLA.

The story is true. I watched from the yard at home on Cedar Street, but my father was at his store on Main Street and told us the story when he came home. I was 13, and at that age I read everything I could find about airplanes. I knew about skywriters. But far too many people couldn't read books about airplanes and they couldn't read the message in the sky.
Howard