A Child's Education

Why is a child's education so important?

Augustine writes:

Virgil certainly is held to be a great poet; in fact he is regarded as the best and the most renowned of all poets, and for that reason he is read by children at an early age--they take great draughts of his poetry into their unformed minds, so that they may not easily forget him, for, as Horace remarks,

New vessels will for long retain the taste

Of what is first poured into them (City of God I.3).