Important question. In a nutshell, universal, lifelong, adult education as essential for citizenship in a democracy. (See link to 1919 Report at http://centenarycommission.org ; @AdultEd100 is rekindling the spirit for our times.) This thread has a few quotes from 1919: https://twitter.com/LivingPolly/status/1352944681659858945

" #adultedu must not be regarded as a luxury for a few exceptional persons here & there, nor as a thing which concerns only a short span of early manhood, but … is a permanent national necessity, an inseparable aspect of citizenship, and should be both universal & lifelong"

"opportunity for #adulteducation should be spread uniformly and systematically over the whole community, as a primary obligation on that community in its own interest and as a chief part of its duty to its individual members" @WEAadulted @uall_events @AoCDavidH

"therefore every encouragement and assistance should be given to #voluntary organisations, so that their work, now necessarily sporadic and disconnected, may be developed and find its proper place in the national educational system" @AlanTuckett @NCVOvolunteers @NCCPE

"An uneducated #democracy cannot be other than a failure. Nor can the new developments of education for children and adolescents supersede the need of education for adults; rather they will accentuate
the need" @halfon4harlowMP @KateGreenSU @tobyperkinsmp

#Universities must recruit #students not from secondary schools but from "the world of men and women, who seek education not as a means to entering a profession, but as an aid to the development of personality and a condition of wise and public-spirited #citizenship." @DrJoGrady

"The State should not...refuse financial support to institutions, colleges and classes, merely on the ground that they have a particular 'atmosphere' or appeal specially to students of this type or that. All that it ought to ask is that they be concerned with serious study."

"an enlightened public opinion is most likely to emerge from encouraging every type of student to think out and state his position. Truth is many sided, and out of study and discussion of controversial problems from many different points of view the truth will probably emerge"

It advocated "a very broad and liberal interpretation of what is meant by #adulteducation, and urge[d] that the conditions of eligibility for financial assistance should be such as to include as many different kinds of educational effort as possible." @GillianKeegan @right2_learn

There's lots more. The Final Report runs to over 400 pages (and the #AdultEd Committee also published three important interim reports: Industrial & Social Conditions in relation to #AdEd; Ad Ed in the #Army; #Libraries & #Museums). Links to all at http://centenarycommission.org .