In plain words
You must carefully recognise the difference between the learning of ancient times and the learning of today. The ancient learning was the kind that taught Prajñāna; modern learning is the kind that deepens darkness. If you enquire carefully, it becomes clear that through today's education, instead of rising to a higher state, we are sliding downwards. Today's education provides people with material comforts, but spiritually it is of no use in any way at all. Ninety-nine in a hundred are devoted only to English learning; they are not devoted to the learning of the Ātma. For a sculptor, the stone and the hammer are not what matters. What matters is to develop the sculptor's skill. We are learning to collect the tools and keep them safe, but not to keep the sculptor's skill safe.
Today's education ends with an acquaintance with many books and a gathering of facts. But we must think earnestly about what the basis of all these is, about that divinity. A person who has only knowledge from books, which has never come into his experience, is of no use to society; the one society needs is the one who gives first place to the Jñāna of the heart. In ancient times the educated were very few in number. But the peace and security that society had in those days are nowhere to be seen today, though there are so many educational institutions, so many highly educated people and so many opportunities.
Though in ancient times only one here and there had studied, there were peace, happiness and security in those days; we have to find out why they are missing today, though so many have studied. We must not think that our intelligence has grown merely because we have joined schools and colleges and earned a degree. The learning we have to gain is not in schools and colleges alone; it is in factories, in the streets and in shops too. You must look on the whole universe as one school. It is not much good for a student to know about one subject only.