The essential attribute of education is to cultivate people's social activities purposefully, which is the essential attribute of education and the fundamental feature that distinguishes education from other things. In other words, educational activities have a purpose, so it shows one of its characteristics: consciousness; Educational activities are social activities, which shows its second characteristic, consciousness. It is embodied in the following three aspects:

First, education is a unique social phenomenon of human beings. In other words, educational activities only exist in human activities, and there is no educational activity in the animal kingdom. For example, mother duck teaches ducklings to swim; Eagle teaching eagle to learn to fly is not an educational activity.

Second, education is a purposeful, conscious and conscious activity of human beings to train the educated. This point emphasizes that educational activities are conscious, so they are not equivalent to instinctive activities. For example: newborn babies learn to suck milk; Newborn babies can swim, which is an instinctive reaction of human beings and cannot be counted as educational activities.

Thirdly, in educational activities, there is interaction among educators, educatees and educational influencers. So students' self-study is not an educational activity, because there is no interaction between educators and educatees in self-study.

Education should educate people with the most objective and fair conscious thinking, so that people's thinking will not be too biased, and gradually mature and rational because of rich thinking, so as to move towards the most rational self and have the most correct thinking cognition. This is the foundation of education.

References:

Educational Network —— The Essential Attribute of Education