> Other field may required lot of mathematics. If you need mathematics for your career, why not take a school specialized in making engineers out of you? Two w

> Other field may required lot of mathematics. If you need mathematics for your career, why not take a school specialized in making engineers out of you? Two words: premature optimization. Why should everybody have to decide, in their early teens, what career they're going to be doing for the rest of their lives? > The smartest scientist in the world probably don't need English Literature 101. English literature is probably the scientist know, but is it revelant to his career? No. Same deal. I'm no fan of English Literature classes -- I'd prefer a comfortable chair and a good book of my own choosing -- but language skills are important, and forcing people to specialize too early has its own downsides. Incidentally, most math education also counts as premature optimization, where they spend ungodly amounts of time memorizing the procedures for each type of problem in the curriculum. Sure, you'll be able to find X quickly -- but can you actually apply this knowledge? For most people the answer is no. But this miseducation persists because it's easy for teachers and gets good test scores.