I learned a great many things in schools. A lot of people would consider much of what I learned useless.

Who has the patience for a long and winding Henry James sentence? Who cares about the architecture of a nerve ending? Who needs to navigate around the subjunctive mood in French?

It’s tempting to ask schools to cut to the chase.

Why teach courses in algebra? Wouldn’t we be better off learning about money management? Why teach psychology when we could focus on how to get along with each other? Why biology when what this country really needs is a good weight-loss program?

Mickey Imber, a Kansas University professor of educational administration, ponders what schools teach in an article titled “The Value of Knowing.” It appears in the December issue of the American School Board Journal.

British philosopher Herbert Spencer argued in 1859 that education should prepare a young person for employment, child rearing and citizenship — that is, to live a successful life.

Spencer said the classical curriculum of Latin, Greek and the arts should make way for a practical curriculum of natural and social science.

And Spencer got his way, Imber says. “The emphasis in American schools is far more on practical learning than on what Spencer referred to as ‘ornamental’ learning.”

Though lots of folks are shrill about frills in K-12, the emphasis on the practical has gone too far, Imber says.

That emphasis has meant that American adults have little in common when it comes to so-called “common knowledge.”

Imber says a random sample of adults was asked if the following statement appears in the Constitution: “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” A majority said yes.

Bzzzzzzzzt. Those are the words of communist Karl Marx.

But there are more powerful arguments for a broad education than being good on a quiz show.

If you acquire a broad knowledge base either through formal education or on your own, you can then reason your way to sensibly held convictions and strategies, Imber says.

The reverse of that, starting with a conviction and then looking for evidence to support it, may lead to grief.

That’s the path of a person who thinks he’s lucky, so he buys a fistful of lottery tickets to prove it. Or a person who won’t quit smoking because his 91-year-old uncle who never quit is doing just fine.

Of course education doesn’t guarantee happiness, Imber says. In fact, one of its frustrating byproducts is the overuse of words like “if,” and “however” and “maybe.”

In a world that values decisiveness, the educated man or woman may waffle like a wimp.

But that’s not all bad.

Such people acquire in place of certainty a hesitant, meandering, contemplative spirit that lets them paw and sniff their way around the certainties and prejudices that are everywhere — even inside themselves.

Writer Ernest Hemingway said that one of the qualifications of a writer was the possession of a “built-in, shock-proof crap detector.”

That detector is one of the fringe benefits of education — at least when education works well.

— Roger Martin is a research writer and editor for the Kansas University Center for Research and editor of Explore, KU’s research magazine Web site, which can be found at www.research.ku.edu. Martin’s e-mail address is rmartin@kucr.ku.edu.