I edited the short story: The Philosopher King. Since I can't afford a professional editor, my idea is simply to post the rough draft, then every so often come back through and fix a few of the mistakes.

I admit, I have it in for Plato and his notion of an endowed aristocracy. Plato saw the philsopher king coming from the military class. In American capitalism, the philosopher king is the CEO. Personally, I think the ideal society doesn't have a philosher king, but allows people to pursue their own values....kind of like the American free market before wall street, robber barrons, Rockafellers and monopolies. The problem is that with even a few monopolies, your economy is forced into this strange monopoly mode that creates a big gap between rich and poor.

The short story was meant to contrast education for the sake of knowledge and education for the sake of power. Rather than saying education for knowledge sake, I should say education for wealth...as knowledge is a form of wealth.

When you enjoy the subject, the knowledge itself it the reward. However our education system seems to be formed around knowledge for power. Universities try to put themselves forward as gate keepers, rather than concentrating on the ideals of spreading knowledge.

The student in the story is learning for the sake of learning and feeling the excitement of mathematics. The philosopher king who is in an endowed position of prince holds a contempt for the subject. I am not sure if my short story capture much of the conflict. I might have to play with a few different versions.