Gregory Truesdell, age 11, of Visalia, Calif., for his question:

Why aren't people born educated?

Nobody can say why, but he can make a few guesses. Suppose a baby is born fully educated. The little know it all needs no one to help him to walk, no one to introduce him to the world. He gets no surprises, for nobody can teach him anything. This isolates him from the rest of the human race, and his life would be one dull day after another.

Andy hesitated to tackle this question because "education" is a word of many meanings. People have different ideas about it and tend to pick on others who may not seem to agree. However, none can dispute the fact that the word "education" is coined from two Latin words meaning to draw out. This implies that the process works by revealing something that you really had all the time something you were born with.

Some experts call it intelligence, but this word has been remodeled to include a lot of items you learn as you go. Perhaps a better term is common sense, which many wise old timers call the sense you were born with. The trouble is, a newborn baby's quota of common sense is not much use to him. It won't work without experience and daily exercise.

This is gained by observing events and learning new facts. This is the sort of schooling that most people think of as education. But it cannot work alone. After all, a computer is not an educated person, even if it knows everything about everything.

To be successful, human education must draw upon the common sense you were born with, every step of the way. This built in good sense evaluates facts and new data as they come to one's attention. It grasps relationships and groups some facts together and fits the jigsaw piece into a wider understanding of the world of people.

Common sense also comes with lifetime gifts to develop the skills of sound reasoning, good judgment and decision making. When given daily exercise, it instructs you to evaluate observations and information as they occur. It checks all items for credibility, files good and bad experiences for future reference. It questions newsy items that arrive without proof.

At some time or another, every student bogs down and wonders whether schooling is worthwhile. This is when the wise ones ask themselves a few personal questions. They draw on common sense to eliven the facts by seeing how they work in the world wide