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Unit Twenty-four The Function of Education Benjamin Rankling, to whom this University owes so much, realized too that while basic principles of natural science, of morality and of the science of society were eternal and immutable, the application of these principles necessarily changes with the patterns of living conditions from generation to generation. I am certain that he would insist, were he with us today, that it is the whole duty of the philosopher and the educator to apply the eternal ideals of truth and goodness and justice in terms of the present and not terms of the past. Growth and change are the law of all life. Yesterdays answers are inadequate for todays problemsjust as the solutions of today will not fill the needs of tomorrow. Eternal truths will be neither true nor eternal unless They have fresh meaning for every new social situation. It is the function of education, the function of all of the great institutions of learning in the United States, to provide continuity for our national lifeto transmit to youth the best of our culture that has been tested in the fire of history. It is equally the obligation of education to train the minds and talents of our youth: to improve, through creative citizenship, our American institutions in accord with the requirements of the future. We cannot always build the future for our youth, but we can build our youth for the future. | 
