Its purpose is something else

From Jacques Barzun, What Is a School?:

Everybody, I hope, would agree that a school is a place where teaching and learning go on, steadily and systematically. That is its function. Its purpose is something else: to remove ignorance. A school can do several other good things at the same time, but it has one purpose only: to remove ignorance. This distinction is important because these definitions serve as a standard by which to judge what is done and what is proposed in the name of schooling. A half-century's agitation for reform has thrown into currency so many notions and slogans and started so many trial programs that in the best minds and most earnest hearts, confusion reigns. If it is to be dispelled, much demands our attention.